The influences of culture on gender roles

• Cultural similarities - NATURE -

  • Buss - Found consistent patterns in mate preferences in 37 countries across all continents. In all cultures, women sought men who could offer wealth and resources, whilst men looked for youth and physical attractiveness in a potential partner.
  • Munroe and munroe - In most societies, division of labour is organised along gender lines. This means men are breadwinners and women are nurturers.
• Cultural differences - NURTURE -

  • Mead carried out one of the first cross-cultural studies on gender roles of cultural groups in Papua-New Guinea.
  • The Arapesh - both men and women were gentle and responsive (similar to western stereotype of femininity)
  • The Mundugumor - Both men and women were aggressive and hostile (similar to western stereotype of masculinity)
  • The Tchambuli - Women were dominant and they organised village life; men=passive and decorative (opposite to Western societies)
  • In conclusion it supports the nurture debate. sex and gender roles aren't biologically related. argues that the extent to which innate behaviour are expressed is largely to cultural norms.
• Nature - gender roles

  • If gender role behaviour is consistent across cultures then we may suggest that there is an innate biological difference between males and females.
• Nurture - gender roles

  • If gender role behaviour is different amongst cultures then we may suggest that the shared norms and socialisation is decisive of gender role behaviours.
• AO3 - Limitation - Mead has been criticised for not separating her own opinions from her description of Samoan life and for making generalisations based on relatively short period of study.

  • For example, Freeman was highly critical of meads research and conducted a follow-up study of the Samoan people roughly 50 years later. He argued that Mead allowed her pre-conceptions of what she would find and some of her participants mislead her which influenced her reading of events.
  • This means that there's researcher bias, making it subjective.
  • However, although Freeman makes some criticisms, he's also been accused of the same by Shankman therefore, the evidence provided here is also flawed.
• AO3- Limitation - Cross cultural research is usually conducted by Western researchers who use naturally occurring cultures as part of their study.

  • For example, there's a problem because sometimes western researches impose their own western views based on theories and methods from the west on these cultures they are studying. Berry et al refers to this as imposed ethic, when western ways of doing research that are considered 'universal' to researchers are meaningless when applied to other cultures. Berry's solution for this is that at least one member of the research team must be part of the local population being studied.
  • This means that it lacks generalisability as its conducted by western research.
• ao3 - Limitation - although research into culture and gender roles does explore different cultures and their influence on gender specific behaviour, It doesn't solve the problem of the nature vs nurture debate.

  • In reality it's virtually impossible to separate the two influences on gender development and to determine when biological influences stop and when environmental factors take an effect. This is especially due to the fact that as soon as a child is born, their socialisation into a particular society begins.
  • Therefore, separating nature and nurture when considering culture and gender roles is yet to be decided upon and is likely that its not one or the other, instead a mix of both.