Sex and Gender

• people who done fit sex role stereotypes show androgyny
• BSRI

  asked 50 male and 50 female students to rate personality traits as masculine or feminine

  then used this to make a questionnaire

  to measure the stereotypically masculine and feminine traits in someone

  individuals rank themselves for these traits on a scale of 1-7

  scoring highly for masculine and feminine = psychologically androgynous
• Bem suggests that androgyny is advantageous in society - as androgynous people may have the ability to cope with a range of situations, whereas those who score highly for either masculine or feminine have a limited range of skills
• Studies suggests that environmental factors cause psychological androgyny.

  Weisner and Wilson-Mitchell

  compared children from families that downplayed traditional gender roles to those from families who put an emphasis on them

  found higher levels of androgyny in the children who were encouraged to ignore traditional gender roles
• The BSRI is considered to be a reductionist theory, as it reduces masculinity and femininity to a single score.

  The BSRI is also based on outdated views on traditional sex role stereotypes from the 1970s