culture

• Culture - the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular group of people or society
• Gender roles - a set of behaviours and attitudes that are considered appropriate for one gender and inappropriate for the other.
• if behaviour is universal (all males in all cultures are aggressive, independent etc.) then we can propose biology is responsible. If there are differences then we can infer that culture/environment are responsible.
• Mead (1935) took an ethnographic approach to studying cultural differences, conducting participant observations and interviews in various tribes in New Guinea.
• Mead (1935) found males and females in the Arapesh tribe had similar roles - unaggressive and sensitive whilst the opposite was found in the Mundugumor tribe where they were uncooperative, aggressive and war-like. In the Tchambuli tribe women took on an economic role and men a home making/childrearing one
• Medicine (1977) found the Lakota tribe has 3 genders: male, female and winkte
• Males who were labelled winkte excelled in women’s craft and would take care of the children instead of being warriors. It was regarded as lucky to be given the same name as a winkte
• Mead has been criticised by Freeman (1983) for allowing her preconceptions to influence her findings and therefore having observer bias.
• Cross-cultural research is usually conducted by Western researchers who impose their own cultural interests and understanding to interpret the behaviour of other cultures (imposed etic)
• Buss found similarities in mate preferences in 37 countries across all continents. This demonstrates cultural similarities
• Children are regarded as sacred and autonomous so if they wanted to become winkte it was accepted by their parents
• A strength of cultural research is they’re natural studies, meaning they are carried out within a real-life setting and influences on gender have been looked at in a way that would not be ethically possible to manipulate in a lab