sex and gender

• Explain the term 'sex-role stereotypes'

  -Sex role stereotypes are a set of shred expectations that people within a society or culture hold about what is acceptable behaviour for males and females

  -This can be communicated and reinforced by parents, the media and educational institutions

  -e.g. ideas that males are independent, aggressive, and dominant while females display dependent, submissive and domestic sex role stereotypes
• Briefly distinguish between sex and gender

  -Sex refers to an individuals biological status as either male or female due to their reproductive organs (ovaries, testes), hormones (oestrogen, testosterone) and the chromosomes that determine them

  -Gender refers to a persons psychological status as either masculine or feminine, a man or woman. It is often determined by cultural differences expected by society of men and women according to their sex

  Sex is considered largely to be innate while gender is at least partly a social construct- more fluid
• Describe one study into sex role stereotypes

  -Smith and Lloyd investigated how adults treat infants based on the sex they perceive them to be

  -Infants were dressed in traditionally male and female outfits, regardless of their sex, and encouraged adults to play with them

  -When dressed as boys- they were encouraged to be more active and adventurous and to play with stereotypically masculine toys

  -When dressed as girls-these same children were encouraged to be more passive and play with more stereotypically feminine toys

  -Demonstrates how adults communicate and reinforce sex-role stereotypes on children
• Outline research into sex and gender

  Imperato-McGinley et al studies a unique family in the Dominican Republic where four of the children were assigned female at birth and raised as girls but during puberty due to hormonal changes they 'changed' into boys

  -due to a rare intersex disorder in which male genitalia was concealed so although they were genotypically male, they appeared phenotypically female until puberty

  -Found that the boys were able to quickly abandon their female gender identity with few problems and adjusted tot heir new roles and expectations with ease

  -SUGGESTES that gender identity may be quite flexible than fluid
• Case study- David Reimer

  -Reimer was biologically male in terms of sex but raised as a girl after a botched circumcision

  -This difference between sex and gender caused great distress even before he was told that he was biologically male

  -Reimer ended up transitioning to a male gender identity after discovering what had happened top him

  -Suggests that while sex and gender are separate, they can be deeply related in some cases
• A01 Sex Role Stereotypes

  -Sex-role stereotypes are the expectations and preconceived ideas of what are typical male and female behaviours

  -These may change from time to time and between cultures and are communicated through parents, school and the media

  -For example females may be expected to be caring, empathetic, emotional and nurturing wears males may be expected to be competitive, ambitious, aggressive and less emotional

  -Sex role stereotypes tend to be developed either through observation, imitation and reinforcement or through cognitive awareness of gender.
• what is one example of a sex-role stereotype

  -widely held belief that women are better at multi-tasking than men

  -Ingalhalikar et al scanned the brains of 949 young men and women

  -using hi-tech diffusion MRI imaging, they mapped out the connections of the different parts of the brain in their participants

  -discovered that women's brain have far better connections between the left and right sides of the brain, while men's brain display more intense activity within the brains individual parts especially in the cerebellum which controls motor skills

  -Conclusion was that female brains are hardwired to cope better with several tasks at once whereas male brains are optimised to focus on a single complex task

  -Suggests that some sex-role stereotypes are atleast part innate and biologically determined
• Counterargument to research evidence

  -However, these brain differences were found in adults, and it is possible that they are the result of nurture than nature.

  -It is also worth noting that these are averages, and variations exist within the male and female categories

  -There will be some women whose brains are more optimised to focus on single complex tasks than men
• Strength- Adults reinforcing sex-role stereotypes

  -Smith and Lloyd have evidence of sex-role stereotypes being communicated and reinforced through nurture

  -Found infants were treated differently according to what gender they were dressed as

  --When dressed as boys- they were encouraged to be more active and adventurous and to play with stereotypically masculine toys

  -When dressed as girls-these same children were encouraged to be more passive and play with more stereotypically feminine toys

  -Shows that adults reinforce sex-role stereotypes on children based on the sex they perceive them to be, which may influence a child's sense of gender
• Strength- Teachers reinforcing sex-role stereotypes

  -Found that teachers are more likely to praise boys for 'cleverness' and girls for 'neatness', supporting the view that teachers enforce sex-role stereotypes

  -Further evidenced by Colley, who found that in secondary schools, pupils had the tendency to view individual subjects as either masculine and feminine

  E.g. biology was seen as the most feminine science while Chemistry and Physics were perceived as masculine, and this led to girls being more likely to choose to study Biology over other sciences such as Physics.

  -Both of these demonstrate that sex-roles stereotypes can be present in education
• Limitation- Hinder an individuals opportunities and their academic

  -Sex-role stereotypes may hinder an individual's opportunities and their academic career expectations as they limit what is considered acceptable for them to pursue based on their sex

  -sex-role stereotypes are communicated and reinforced from infancy and throughout education- this makes it difficult to study which gender-based differences may come from nature and which may come from nurture

  -Particularly true for those which are common across cultures or exist worldwide as a result of globalisation