Psych of Gender

• Feminism


  A person who favors political, economic, and social equality of men and women and therefore favors the legal and social changes necessary to achieve this equality
• History of Feminism


  • First Wave: Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848, UK & Ireland: Women win the right to vote in 1918, US: 19th Amendment, 1920
  • Second Wave: 1960's "Women's Liberation Movement", Association of Women in Psychology (AWP) is formed in 1969, American Psychological Association (APA) forms Division 35 in 1973
  • Third Wave: Today focus less on individual issues and more on social activism, continue to tackle global issues
  • Fourth Wave?
• Types of Feminism

  • Socialist Feminism
  • Liberal Feminism
  • Cultural Feminism
  • Women of Color Feminism or Womanist Feminism
  • Marxist Feminism
  • Global Feminism
• Two Themes Common To All Types of Feminism

  • Values women as important and worthwhile human beings
  • Recognizes the need for social change if women are to lead secure and satisfying lives
• Changes in Psychology of Gender/Women


  • Optic – not seeing women as the exception, not attributing gender differences to biology
  • Topics - women's achievement, rape and sexual assault, work-family balance, stereotypes about women at work, leadership, sexual harassment
  • Including women in studies - From 1965-1974, 68% of participants in articles in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology were male, By 1995-2004, that number had declined to 49%
  • Publishing more - From 1965-1974, 12% of articles in Journal of Abnormal Psychology had a female first author, By 1995-2004, that number had risen to 30%
• Research and society


  • See women and men as "opposite sexes"
  • Overlaps sex & gender
  • The framework is binary: quantitative psychological research is not (yet) doing a good job thinking outside the gender binary
  • Obsession with gender differences
• Traditions


  • Similarity Tradition (Equality because of similarity, Liberal feminism)
  • Difference Tradition (Equality despite differences, Cultural feminism)
• Gender math gap


  Boys tend to score higher on standardized math tests compared to girls
• Reasons for gender math gap


  • Difference in intelligence?
  • Overreliance on biology
  • Low confidence, low expectations
  • Expectations create self-fulfilling prophecies
  • Math is male stereotype
  • Stereotype threat (Steele)
  • Culture
• Meta-analysis


  A technique through which the results of different studies done by different researchers on the same question are combined and compared, to find the overall "answer" to the question
• Advantages of meta-analysis


  • Common measurement units
  • Magnitude of difference
  • Allows assessment of moderator variables
• Disadvantages of meta-analysis


  • Can not establish causality of the gender difference
  • Can not compensate for biases or weak studies
• d


  Tells us how far apart male and female means are in standard deviation units
• A gender difference does not mean that all women are different from all men. We tend to overemphasize gender differences. Gender differences are not always attributable to biology. Meta-analyses are one useful, but not ultimate tool in studying gender differences. We need to broaden research to look beyond just two genders, to account for a variety of gender identities
• Sex


  Biological term, determined by genes and chromosomes, Male/Female
• Gender


  Psychological term, determined by our awareness & reaction to sex, Masculine/feminine
• How sex develops


  1. Sex Chromosomes (XX, XY)

  2. Sex-differentiation region of the Y chromosome (SRY) causes testes development

  3. Androgens (Testosterone, Dihydrotestosterone) stimulate male sexual anatomy development

  4. Mullerian duct inhibiting hormone (MIH) prevents female organ development
• Intersexuality


  Variations on the theme of biological sex (not XX or XY), 1.7% incidence
• Core Gender Identity


  Fundamental sense of belonging to a biological sex
• Gender Identity Disorder/ gender dysphoria


  Official category for individuals experiencing a disjunction between their assigned sex and core gender identity
• Transgender persons vary in the extent to which they desire change/interventions (e.g., clothing, hormonal treatment, gender-affirming surgery)
• Non-Binary Gender Identity


  Many forms, may or may not overlap with transgender identities, documented throughout history and cultures
• The importance of language: Allows us to have more complex conversations about gender, Allows gender diverse people to build their identity and find communities, Being mis-identified has psychological costs (stress, fear, etc), The relationship between gender diversity and neurodiversity
• Sexual orientation


  Multidimensional aspect of personal identity, includes erotic attraction, affectionate relationships, sexual behavior, erotic fantasies, and emotional attachments
• Sexual orientation is more fluid for women and may change over time (Bailey, 2009)
• Gender plays a role in many relationships


  • Men and women report the same number of friends but more same-gender than cross-gender friendships
  • Intimacy differs: e.g. men report more cross-gender friends they can discuss sex life with
  • Daughters spend more time caring for elderly parents than sons
• Marriage


  • A way that society regulates private relationships between couples
  • An agreement between you and your partner
  • A legal contract broken by the State
  • The State regulates who can marry (e.g. same-sex couples can only legally marry since 2020 in NI)
• Partner preferences


  • Women's preference for partner characteristics are relatively stable over the lifespan
  • Older straight women preferred a higher level of confidence-assertiveness than younger straight women
  • This effect was not evident for lesbian or bisexual women, who also rated them as less important
• Endorsement of heteronormative dating scripts


  Positively predicted by hostile sexism and benevolent sexism, negatively predicted by feminist identity, preference for a dominant partner, and preference for short-term relationships
• Sexist attitudes are more strongly associated with endorsement of heteronormative dating scripts than partner/relationship preferences
• Types of marriage


  • Traditional
  • Modern
  • Egalitarian (post-gender relationship)
• Loneliness


  The distressing feeling that occurs when a person is dissatisfied with their relationships, associated with but separate from social isolation
• Loneliness & Gender


  • 4% of men and 2% of women have no close friends
  • Loneliness levels are similar in males and females across the lifespan, with males somewhat lonelier in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood
• Why would men be more lonely?


  • Stigma around loneliness impacts reporting more for men
  • Men engage more in instrumental activities than disclosure
  • Single men may be lonelier than single women
  • Men rely on partners more for closeness
• Younger people, men, and individualistic cultures have higher loneliness
• Younger men in individualistic cultures were most lonely
• LGBTQ+ experiences of loneliness


  • High experience of loneliness in LGBTQ+ people relative to cisgender, straight peers
  • Loneliness is common among transgender people
• Types of Loneliness


  • Social loneliness (exists in relation to wider social networks)
  • Emotional loneliness (exists in relation to close, intimate attachments)
  • Existential loneliness (exists in relation to the wider world – all other people)
• Types of Loneliness


  • Men + higher social loneliness
  • Non-binary gender + higher existential loneliness
• Efforts to raise awareness and end stigma around loneliness, and work to understand and reduce sources of inequality in loneliness