Sex And Gender

• Sex


  Sex is abiological termto identify us as male or female. For example,Male chromosomes are XY, Males produce moretestosterone(androgen) and males have a penis & testes.Females chromosomes are XX, Females produce moreoestrogenand Females have a vagina and ovaries.A person's biological sex at the chromosome level cannot be changed, it is innate.
• Gender


  Gender is a psychological term and refers to thecultural differences between males and femaleincluding attitudes, behaviours and social roles. Examples may include the ideas ofmasculine traits such as aggression, being competitiveand independence andfeminine characteristics being caring, emotion and dependent.Whilst "sex" is biological and cannot be changed, ideas regarding gender change over time and culture and is therefore morefluid.
• Differences between sex and gender

  Sex

  - innate/genetic

  - nature

  - cannot be changed without surgery

  
  

  Gender

  - influenced by social norms and culture

  - partly environmental determined

  - fluid and open to change
• Sex role stereotyping


  Shared expectationswithin a society or social groupregarding what is appropriate behaviour for men and women.Stereotypes are fixed beliefs about a particular group of people.Sex-role stereotypes arelearnt from birth, as children are exposed to the attitudes of their parents and others in society. Few sex-role stereotypes contain any truth; in fact, they are much morelikely to lead to sexist assumptions
• Smith and Lloyd (1978)

  Mothers of young infants introduced to a 6-month old infant and asked to play.Infant's gender label was manipulated.Participants behaved differently according to the assigned gender label.Even when there are no differences in appearance or outward behaviour, parents treat children according to gender label.
• Fagot (1978)


  carried out a series of naturalistic observations of parent/child interactions. Toddlers and their parents were observed in their homes using an observation checklist. The researchers wanted to examine the parental reaction when the behaviour of the child was not "gender appropriate."It was found that parents reacted significantly more favorably to the child when the child was engaged in gender-appropriate behavior and were more likely to give negative responses to "gender inappropriate" behaviors.Parents interacted with their children in asex stereotypicalway
• Androgyny


  Displaying both traditional masculine and feminine characteristics.for example, David Bowie
• Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI)


  Suggested thathigh androgyny is associated with psychological well being.The first attempt to measure androgyny using a rating scale of 60 traits (20 masculine, 20 feminine and 20 neutral)Found 34% of males were androgynous and 27% of females were androgynousHighlights that a sizeable minority are not heavily masculine or feminine
• Strengths of BSRI


  Serbin (1982) 106 female and 84 male undergraduates were compared with 48 female & 48 male psychiatric inpatients. They filled in 2 questionnaires - The BSRI & a Personality questionnaire which measured depression, schizophrenia, mania, sociability. Serbin found that androgynous females had lower depression scores and were more sociable than feminine females. Androgynous males were more sociable than feminine males.In conclusion, being androgynous is positively correlated with good mental healthwhich supports Bem's theory that androgyny is linked with being psychologically healthy.Highly standardised procedure meaning it can be easily replicated so can be used over time to assess generational changes
• Weaknesses of BSRI


  Cultural bias- the BSRI wasdeveloped in the USAso we areunsure if the ideas it uses to measure masculinity and femininity are universal. This could lead to an imposed etic and wrongly classifying people from other cultures.