Sex-role stereotypes

• gender:

  • a social construct (socially created).
  • based on behaviours people display.
  • masculine & feminine.
• sex:

  • biology, e.g. male/female
• gender identity:

  a person’s internal sense of being a man or a woman.
• gender binary:

  set ‘characteristics’ for each gender (male & female).
• gender ideologies:

  • have changed over time.
  • what has been considered masc/fem has changed over time.
• what did the ONS anticipate?

  • at least 80 different self-descriptions would be submitted in answer to the question about gender identity in the 2021 census.
  • binary labels have become outdated.
  • results on gender identity:

  ~ 94% of respondents aged 16 or over answered the question on gender identity.

  ~ 93.59% say registered sex is the same as how they identity now.
• what did the gender identity in england and wales census data (2021) show?

  tells us that most people’s gender identity aligns w/the sex they were registered w/at birth.
• gender identities:

  • cisgender
  • gender incongruence
  • transgender
  • some here still attribute to gender identities.
• non binary:

  • pangender
  • bi-gender
  • gender fluid
• at what age to children begin to understand the gender categories and the expectations surrounding them?

  • from the ages 2+.
  • by the time children are 6, they begin to conform to society’s expected gender identities.
• what is a sex-role stereotype?

  • a set of ideas about behaviours, traits, qualities, characteristics that are appropriate/expected for males and females.
  • a sex-role stereotype is generally shared by members of a society/culture.
  • act a a shortcut to appropriate behaviours in a given context. girls behave in ways understood to be typically female and vice versa.
• how are sex-role stereotypes developed?

  • either through observation, imitation and reinforcement (SLT).
  • through development of cognitive awareness of gender, e.g. through the development of gender constancy (kohlberg) as part of the process of internalisation (freud).
• impact of sex-role stereotypes:

  • differ cross-culturally, which implies that environment has a bigger impact on sex-role stereotypes (social constructs).
  • further strengthened by over-emphasis on ‘typical behaviour which leads to people believing they are ‘natural’, e.g. ’girls cry more’.
• negative effects of stereotypes:

  • e.g. academic/career expectations.
  • categorising behaviours, e.g. occupations can put restrictive barriers up:

  ~ only 3% of nursery teachers are male, only 1 female has ever won. the Nobel prize for science.
• how have norms shifted?

  • shifted towards less stereotypical childrearing and gender neutrality, e.g. clothing, toys, decor, etc, therefore sex-role stereotypes have less temporal validity.
  • there are positive effects of stereotypes as they act as cognitive shortcuts for under standing behaviour.
• seavey (1975):

  • adults asked to interact for 3 mins w/a baby who was dressed in a yellow jumpsuit.
  • 3 conditions:

  ~ experimenter indicated baby was a girl.

  ~ p’s led to believe baby was a boy.

  ~ p’s given no info about the baby’s sex.
• seavey, method (1975):

  • a range of toys for babies to play w/including a football (stereotypically male), a rag doll (stereotypically female), and a plastic ring (not gender specific).
  • the adults were observed carefully and how they interacted w/the baby was recorde, e.g. toy(s) chosen and the things they said.
• seavey- results (1975):

  • when baby was labelled female, p‘s were most likely to choose the doll as a play thing.
  • when baby was labelled male, the ring was chosen more often than the doll or the football.
  • when no gender label was given, female p’s interacted w/the baby sig. more than the male p’s did.
  • in the no-label condition almost all p’s spontaneously decided on a sex for the baby.
• how did the p’s in seavey (1975) justify their decisions?

  • often justified in terms of how the baby was perceived physically, e.g. “it‘s a boy because he’s got a strong grip.”, “it’s a girl because she’s soft.”
• urberg (1982):

  3 groups of children did the task:

  • 3 year olds
  • 5 year olds
  • 7 year olds

  designed a task in which children are told little stories that illustrate diff types of gender stereotyped traits, e.g. bravery & caring.

  p’s were told a series of these stories and after each, shown pictures, one of a male, the other of a female & asked whether the trait depicted was typical of males, females, both or neither.
• urberg- results (1982)

  • overall, the children's responses reflected gender stereotypes traits.
  • traits like bravery were associated w/males & traits like caring were associated w/females.
  • there was a tendency for children to attribute positive traits to their own gender, and negative to the other which peaked at 5 years.
• urberg- more results (1982):

  generally, the older the children were, the more overlap they perceived between men and women.