The influence of culture on gender roles

• The culture that children grow up in and the behaviour of the adults around them will influence their gender role development.

  This is shown in the gradually decreasing gender gap between men and women in the UK and how this contrasts with more clearly defined gender roles found in countries like India
• Example - girl looks at all women in her culture that do domestic jobs and imitates this.

  The child learns gender appropriate behaviour within her culture through SLT
• AO3 - Margaret Mead

  Studied 3 tribes who had contrasting cultures

  Arapesh tribe - men and women were gentle and co-operative

  Tchambuli - women were dominant and men were opposite

  Mudugomor - both were aggressive and hostile

  Suggested differences between tribes were due to different culture developments rather than biological differences
• AO3 - tribe criticisms

  Margaret had been criticised with suggestions that the tribes did not tell her accurately what happened in their tribes but confirmed what they felt she wanted to hear
• AO3 - David Buss

  Carried out a survey in 37 countries where participants had to rate the important of certain characteristics of a potential mate.

  Males rated good looks and youth as important as this is good when being a mother.

  Females rated financial stability and dependability

  Suggests that there are similarities in gender roles in different culture
• AO3 - Early and Wood

  Argued that biological differences between men and women are equally as important as cultural

  Different roles = different physical characteristics