sex and gender

• define sex

  a biological term which refers to the biological differences between males and females, including autonomy, physiology, hormones and brain chemistry
• define gender

  refers to the social and cultural aspect associated with males and females including behaviour, personality traits and attitudes

  gender can change overtime and between/within cultures
• what are sex role stereotypes?

  set of beliefs and preconceived ideas about what is expected and acceptable behaviour in males and females

  we are born as a male or as a female but sex role stereotypes pressure us to conform to ‘masculine‘ or ‘feminine‘ qualities
• what are some examples of male stereotypes?

  aggressive

  masculine

  assertive

  logically smarter

  atheletic
• what are some examples of feminine traits?


  emotional

  feminine

  calm

  academically smarter

  bad drivers
• how are sex role stereotypes created?

  taught and internalised through socialisation from an early age

  schemas become stereotyped due to life experiences (gender schemas)
• Archer & Lloyd (1982)

  3 year old children who played with opposite sex games were ridiculed by peers and ostracised
• evaluations of Archer and Lloyds study

  shows that gender stereotypes are subconscious and are being pushed on the younger generation

  the research is outdated as the same results may not be found as we have moved on as a society

  lack temporal validity
• Urberg (1982)

  told children aged 3-7 stories that stressed stereotypes but without specifying the gender of the child. after each story the child had to state if the characteristics were feminine or masculine

  it was found that responses favoured sex-role stereotypes and at the age of 5 there was a tendency to attribute positive characteristics to their own gender and negative to the opposite gender and older children saw characteristics as both male and female
• define androgyny

  when an individual possesses both male and female characteristics simultaneously
• how is androgyny beneficial?

  those with androgyny have better mental health, are able to adapt to wider range of situations and can be assertive in the workplace while being caring at home
• what was Bem’s androgynous hypothesis?

  before the early 1970s, it was assumed that people were either masculine or feminine and a deviation from the social norms and constructs of your gender were forms of abnormality

  Bem challenged this idea with her androgynous hypothesis which proposed that femininity and masculinity are separate dimensions rather than a continuum

  Ben proposed that androgyny was actually positive and desirable
• what was The Bem Sex Role Inventory?

  BSRI was designed to measure androgyny which was a list of 60 items; 20 stereotypically masculine traits, 20 feminine traits and 20 gender neutral characteristics

  as a result people can be categorised into 4 separate categories
• what were the 4 categories in the BSRI?

  masculine - high masculinity, low femininity

  feminine - high femininity, low masculinity

  androgynous - high masculinity, high femininity

  undifferentiated - low masculinity, low femininity
• AO3: sex role stereotypes can lead to discrimination for certain members of each sex

  eg. women are discriminated in the workplace and are less likely to get high end jobs and also are discriminated in healthcare as endometriosis takes up to 7-8 years to be diagnosed and may be more likely to receive sedatives than pain killers to ‘calm them down’

  this is an issue as it can lead to restricted opportunities for groups within society
• AO3: in todays society there may be less sex-role stereotyping than in previous generations

  this is because todays society its common anf celebrated to challenge stereotypes

  this means that the concept of sex-role stereotypes may be outdated and may influence current and future generations less than in previous years
• Rose & Montemayor 1994

  found that 25-30% of US high school students define themselves as androgynous, with more girls than boys showing this pattern, and more girls falling into the masculine category than boys into the feminine category

  this supports the idea that sex roles are less rigid in older children

  however, men’s traits are more desirable to them than feminine traits are to men, whereas female desire both feminine and masculine traits
• AO3: BSRI test has good test-retest reliability

  this is because its a questionnaire that can be done more than once

  this is a strength because it ensures reliability and therefore we can be more confident in drawing conclusions
• AO3: BSRI may lack temporal and cultural validity

  the BSRI was created using data from 1970s American students and what they perceived to be acceptable characteristics in men and women and therefore we can’t generalise outside the experiment due to how society has changed and the different views of societies outside America

  this is an issue as we can’t be confident in the results and therefore the study lacks validity and generalisability in todays society
• AO3: reducing masculinity and femininity down to one single score is over-simplistic

  this is because masculinity and feminine are more complexed than Bem proposed

  this is an issue because we are unable to apply it to people in the real world as humans are more complexed than an over simplified score