Transcript Chapter 4, Our Gendered Identities

Chapter 3
Our Gendered Identities
Chapter Outline





Gendered Identities
How Did Gender Roles Emerge?
Gender Structures
Gender and Socialization
Gender and Social Change
Gendered Identities



Gender identity refers to the degree to which
an individual sees herself or himself as feminine
or masculine based on society’s definitions of
gender roles.
Sex is used in reference to male or female
anatomy and physiology, and includes the
chromosomal, hormonal, and anatomical
components of males and females.
Gender (or gender role) refers to societal
attitudes and behaviors associated with the two
sexes.
Gendered Identities



Intersexed individuals have ambiguous
genital anatomy.
Transsexual and transgendered
individuals are uncomfortable with the
gender that society has assigned them.
Gender bending involves explicitly
challenging a gender mandate.
Issues for Thought:
Challenges to Gender Boundaries



Between 1 and 4% of live births are
intersexual.
 The child has anatomical, chromosomal, or
hormonal variations from the male or female
biology that is considered normal.
Transsexuals are raised as one sex, while
emotionally identifying with the other sex.
Transgendered describes an identity adopted
by those who are uncomfortable in the gender
of their birth.
Issues for Thought:
Challenges to Gender Boundaries



Have transgendered individuals been politically
visible in your campus or community?
What are your own thoughts as to whether
gender is a dichotomy or a continuum along
which individuals may vary?
How do such challenges to gender boundaries
potentially impact our roles and experiences
within the family?
Cultural Gender Expectations



Gender differentiation is apparent in our cultural
expectations about how men and women should
behave.
Masculine people are often thought to have
instrumental (or agentic) character traits –
confidence, assertiveness, and ambition – that
enable them to accomplish difficult tasks or goals.
Feminine people are thought to embody
expressive (or communal) character traits –
warmth, sensitivity, the ability to express tender
feelings, and placing concern about others above
self-interest.
Masculinities




Men are culturally obligated to be involved in 1)
group leadership, 2) protecting group territory
and weaker or dependent others, and 3)
providing resources.
Men are expected to distance themselves from
anything considered feminine.
A man should be financially successful, or at
least be working to support his family.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, masculinity
transformed to include the man who takes
traumatic events head-on but feels free to shed
tears after doing so.
Femininities



The pivotal expectation for a woman requires
her to offer emotional support.
The ideal woman was physically attractive, not
too competitive, a good listener, and
adaptable.
She was considered fortunate if she had a
man in her life and was expected to be a good
mother and put her family’s and children’s
needs before her own.
New Cultural Models for
Women



The professional woman: independent,
ambitious, self confident
The superwoman: A good wife and/or mother
attains career success and supports her
children by herself
The satisfied single: a woman (heterosexual
or lesbian, employed, possibly a parent) who is
happy and not in a serious relationship with a
male
The Relative Values of
Masculinity versus Femininity


Mainstream culture values masculinity
more highly than femininity.
A woman lives with bifurcated
consciousness.
Cultural Expectations and
Role Performance


Dramaturgy sees individuals as enacting
culturally constituted scripts and socially
prescribed roles in front of others.
People “do” gender everyday.
To what extent do women and men
follow cultural expectations?



In adult life, women seem to have greater
connectedness in interpersonal relations and,
perhaps due to gender stereotypes, are pushed
into caregiving professions.
Men tend to be more competitive.
But there is great individual variation; situational
context accounts for much of the difference.
To what extent do women and men
follow cultural expectations?


Psychologist Janet Hyde found that males
and females are similar on most
psychological variables.
Hyde found virtually no difference on most
traits, a few moderate differences, and
very few large differences.
Traits in Men and Women

How females and males differ on height,
conceptualized as overlapping normal
distribution curves.
Race/Ethnic Diversity and
Gendered Expectations


Traditional gender stereotypes were based on a
white, middle-class, heterosexual experience.
Different norms pervade according to
immigration patterns and experiences as well
as within different ethnic groups and social
classes.
Ethnicity and Gender

Native Americans,
members of what were
once hunting and
gathering and hoe
cultures, have a
complex heritage that
varies by tribe but may
include a matrilineal
tradition in which
women owned houses,
tools, and land.
How Did Gender Roles
Emerge?


Biology-Based Arguments
Society-Based Arguments
Biology-Based Arguments

Are gender differences anchored in biology?
 Biologists have relinquished deterministic
models in their thinking about gender and
family.
 Sociologists are finding complex interactions
among gender, social roles, and biological
indicators rather than categorical gender
differences.
Biology-Based Arguments


It is safe to say that there is convergence on the
opinion that in gender, as well as other
behavior, biology interacts with culture in
complex and constantly changing ways that
cannot be reduced to biological determinism.
Although adult men and women seem to be
converging in social roles and personal
qualities, gender differences seem powerful in
younger years via the process of socialization.
Society-Based Arguments
Examining broad economic stages in
human history shows how gender roles
emerged.
 Foraging and Hoe Societies
 Agricultural Societies
 Industrial Societies
 Postindustrial Societies
Gender Structures


Institutional structures are gendered and
have profound implications for influencing
the ways that people enact gender.
Institutions in virtually every society have
been characterized by patriarchy and
male dominance.
Religion



Most U.S. congregations have more female
than male participants, yet men hold more
positions of authority.
Women are prohibited from holding Catholic
clerical or lay deacon positions.
Actual practice among religious people often is
more egalitarian than strict religious teachings.
Government and Politics



Although slightly more than 50 percent of the
population, women are still significantly
underrepresented in high government positions.
As of 2013, in the U.S. Congress, there were 20
women in the Senate and 97 in the House of
Representatives
Surveys report that 71% of the public say they
would be willing to vote for a woman for
president, but only 56% believe their family,
friends, and coworkers are willing to do so.
Women in Politics


The first female
candidate for U.S.
president was Victoria
Woodhull in 1972.
In 2012, several women
vied for the U.S.
Presidency and Vice
Presidency, though not
from major parties.
Education


Women have been the majority of college
students since 1979 and now surpass
men in the proportion of the total
population that are college graduates.
In 2009, women earned 57% of
bachelor’s degrees, 60 % of master’s
degrees, 49% of first professional
degrees, and 48% of doctorates.
Education


Although women students outnumber
men in colleges and universities, there is
still gender differentiation in their choice of
majors.
In 2009, 14% of associate’s degrees in
engineering went to women while 87% in
nursing went to women.
Economics



In 2011, women who were employed full
time earned 82% of what men earned.
Sex, race and ethnicity all converge into
wage disparity.
Overall, the earnings gap between men and
women narrowed in recent decades, but that
gap is widening slightly again.
Female-to-Male Earnings
Ratio
Gender and Socialization

Socialization
Process by which people develop their
human capacities and acquire a unique
personality and identity and by which
culture is passed from generation to
generation
Theories of Socialization


Classic Interactionist Constructionist
Perspective
 Children develop self-concepts based on
feedback from those around them.
Social Learning Theory
 Children learn gender roles as they are
taught by parents, schools, and the media.
Theories of Socialization


Self-identification theory
 Children categorize themselves by age 3
and identify behaviors in their families, the
media, and elsewhere that are appropriate
to their sex and adopt these behaviors.
Gender Schema Theory
 Children develop a frame of knowledge
about what girls and boys typically do, and
then use this framework to interpret and
think about gender.
Settings for Socialization




Boys and Girls in the Family
Play and Games
The Power of Cultural Images
Socialization in Schools
Gender Socialization in
Families

Encouragement of gender-typed
interests and activities continues:


Girls have more dolls, fictional
characters, children’s furniture, and the
color pink.
Boys have more sports equipment, tools,
toy vehicles, and the colors red, blue,
and white.
Play and Games


Toys send messages
about gender roles.
What does this toy
say?
Gender Socialization in
Families

Encouragement of gender-typed
interests and activities continues:




Fathers more than mothers enforce gender
stereotypes, especially for sons. It is more
acceptable, for example, for girls to be tomboys.
Exploratory behavior is encouraged more in boys
than in girls.
Household chores (number and kinds) adhere to
gendered notions.
However, this varies by race/ethnicity. For
example, African American girls are raised to be
more independent and less passive.
Socialization in Schools



More men are in positions of authority
(principals) and women are in positions of
service (teachers and secretaries).
Teachers pay more attention to males
than to females.
Males tend to dominate learning
environments from nursery school to
college.
Gender Socialization in
Schools


The changing gender balance in education
has led to cries of alarm that men/boys are
disadvantaged by educational systems.
However the data have made visible two
patterns:


College achievement gap is greater among
racial/ethnic groups within gender categories
Apparent difference between males and
females in goals and attitudes toward
schooling
Gender and Social Change

Changes in men’s and women’s social
roles have been influenced by changes in
structural forces and by active change
efforts.
 The Women’s Movement
 The Men’s Movement
Sexism


Traditional sexism is the belief that women’s
roles should be confined to the family and that
women are not as fit as men for certain tasks or
for leadership positions.
Modern sexism denies that gender
discrimination persists and includes the belief
that women are asking for too much—a
situation that results in resistance to women’s
demands.
The Women’s Movement



The 19th century saw a feminist movement develop,
but from 1920 until the mid-1960s, there was virtually
no activism regarding women’s rights and roles.
The Civil Rights Movement provided a model by
which the Second Wave of the Women’s Movement
challenged accepted traditional roles and strove to
increase gender equality.
Some women of color and white working-class
women find the Women’s Movement irrelevant to
their personal and social struggles and experiences.
Men’s Movements



Antifeminists believe that the Women’s Movement
caused the collapse of the natural order, one that
guaranteed male dominance, and they work to
reverse this trend.
Profeminists support feminists in their opposition to
patriarchy.
Masculinists tend not to focus on patriarchy as
problematic, but work to develop a positive image of
masculinity, one combining strength with tenderness.
Gender and Family in the
Future

Despite dramatic and unprecedented
change over the past fifty years, society
persists in emphasizing the public sphere
as more important to masculinity and the
private sphere to femininity.
The Costs of Following
Traditional Gender
Expectations


Both men and women pay a price for
gender as traditionally structured.
Inequities in life expectancy and poverty
rates are tied to traditional gender
expectations.