Influence of Culture & Media on Gender Roles

• Cultural differences by Mead 1935: New Guinea


  • Arapesh = gentle and responsive, similar Western femininity
  • Mundugumor = aggressive and hostile, similar Western masculinity
  • Tchambuli = women – dominant and organisers, men – passive and decorative, reverse Western
• No direct biological relationship between sex and gender
• Gender roles culturally determined
• Underestimated universal nature of gender-typical behaviours
• The extent to which innate behaviours are expressed is largely due to cultural norms
• Cultural similarities by Buss 1995: mate preferences in 37 countries


  Women seek wealthy and resourceful men, men seek youthful and physically attractive women
• Munroe & Munroe 1975

  Most divide labour based on gender – men as 'breadwinners and women as 'nurturers'
• Media provides role models for kids to identify and imitate and therefore more likely to be reinforced
• Rigid stereotypes are clear gender stereotypes
• Gender stereotypes - Bussey & Bandura 1999


  • Men are independent, ambitious and 'advice-givers'
  • Women are dependent, ambitious and 'advice-seekers'
• Furnham & Farragher 2000 = TV adverts where men in autonomous roles in professional context, women in familial roles in domestic settings
• Media may give info to (fe)males of the success of adopting these behaviours – seeing performance of gender-appropriate behaviour increase belief they can do the same
• What did McGhee & Frueh 1980 et al. find?

  kids w/ more exposure adopt more gender-stereotypical views
• research

  • Mead 1935
  • Buss 1995
  • Munroe & Monroe 1975
  • Bussey & Bandura 1999
  • Furnham & Farragher 2000
  • McGhee & Frueh 1980
• limitation - imposed epic in culture & gender role

  • John Berry 2002 = assumption of Western ways being universal but is actually meaningless when transferred to other cultures
  • should include a member of the studied population therefore most research by Westerners in cross-cultural studies, reduces internal validity
• strength - evidence of media influence

  • Williams 1986 = kids in British Columbia (Notel) never had TV signal, questionnaire on typical boy and girl characteristics, also studied kids from Unitel and Multitel – Notel and Unitel kids showed fewer sex-typed views than Multitel kids, evidence of stereotypes increased in Notel kids by end of study
  • media provides role models in stereotypical gender roles thus increases gender stereotypes.
• limitation - correlation not causation

  • media reflects current norms - norm already prevalent in society, media may be causing norms
  • regular exposure to majority of kids and control group of kids who are beyond media influence isn't comparable therefore low internal validity
• strength - TV adverts

  • Furnham & Farragher 2000 = men as professional, women in domestic/familial setting
  • shows that media reinforces gender stereotypes