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Article contents

Gender in a social psychology context.

• Thekla Morgenroth Thekla Morgenroth Department of Psychology, University of Exeter
•  and  Michelle K. Ryan Michelle K. Ryan Dean of Postgraduate Research and Director of the Doctoral College, University of Exeter
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.309
• Published online: 28 March 2018

Understanding gender and gender differences is a prevalent aim in many psychological subdisciplines. Social psychology has tended to employ a binary understanding of gender and has focused on understanding key gender stereotypes and their impact. While women are seen as warm and communal, men are seen as agentic and competent. These stereotypes are shaped by, and respond to, social contexts, and are both descriptive and prescriptive in nature. The most influential theories argue that these stereotypes develop in response to societal structures, including the roles women and men occupy in society, and status differences between the sexes. Importantly, research clearly demonstrates that these stereotypes have a myriad of effects on individuals’ cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors and contribute to sexism and gender inequality in a range of domains, from the workplace to romantic relationships.

• gender stereotypes
• gender norms
• social psychology
• social role theory
• stereotype content model
• ambivalent sexism
• stereotype threat

Introduction

Gender is omnipresent—it is one of the first categories children learn, and the categorization of people into men and women 1 affects almost every aspect of our lives. Gender is a key determinant of our self-concept and our perceptions of others. It shapes our mental health, our career paths, and our most intimate relationships. It is therefore unsurprising that psychologists invest a great deal of time in understanding gender as a concept, with social psychologists being no exception. However, this has not always been the case. This article begins with “A Brief History of Gender in Psychology,” which gives an overview about gender within psychology more broadly. The remaining sections discuss how gender is examined within social psychology more specifically, with particular attention to how gender stereotypes form and how they affect our sense of self and our evaluations of others.

A Brief History of Gender in Psychology

During the early years of psychology in general, and social psychology in particular, the topic gender was largely absent from psychology, as indeed were women. Male researchers made claims about human nature based on findings that were restricted to a small portion of the population, namely, white, young, able-bodied, middle-class, heterosexual men [see Etaugh, 2016 ; a phenomenon that has been termed androcentrism (Hegarty, & Buechel, 2006 )]. If women and girls were mentioned at all, they were usually seen as inferior to men and boys (e.g., Hall, 1904 ).

This invisibility of women within psychology changed with a rise of the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. Here, more women entered psychology, demanded to be seen, and pushed back against the narrative of women as inferior. They argued that psychology’s androcentrism, and the sexist views of psychologists, had not only biased psychological theory and research, but also contributed to and reinforced gender inequality in society. For example, Weisstein ( 1968 ) argued that most claims about women made by prominent psychologists, such as Freud and Erikson, lacked an evidential grounding and were instead based on these men’s fantasies of what women were like rather than empirical data. A few years later, Maccoby and Jacklin ( 1974 ) published their seminal work, The Psychology of Sex Differences , which synthesized the literature on sex differences and concluded that there were few (but some) sex differences. This led to a growth of interest in the social origins of sex differences, with a shift away from a psychology of sex (i.e., biologically determined male vs. female) and toward a psychology of gender (i.e., socially constructed masculine vs. feminine).

Since then, the psychology of gender has become a respected and widely represented subdiscipline within psychology. In a fascinating analysis of the history of feminism and psychology, Eagly, Eaton, Rose, Riger, and McHugh ( 2012 ) examined publications on sex differences, gender, and women from 1960 to 2009 . In those 50 years, the number of annual publications rose from close to zero to over 6,500. As a proportion of all psychology articles, one can also see a marked rise in popularity in gender articles from 1960 to 2009 , with peak years of interest in the late 1970s and 1990s. In line with the aforementioned shift from sex differences to gender differences, the largest proportion of these articles fall into the topic of “social processes and social issues,” which includes research on gender roles, masculinity, and femininity.

However, as interest in the area has grown, the ways in which gender is studied, and the political views of those studying it, have become more diverse. Eagly and colleagues note:

we believe that this research gained from feminist ideology but has escaped its boundaries. In this garden, many flowers have bloomed, including some flowers not widely admired by some feminist psychologists. (p. 225)

Here, they allude to the fact that some research has shifted away from societal explanations, which feminist psychologists have generally favored, to more complex views of gender difference. Some of these acknowledge the fact that nature and nurture are deeply intertwined, with both biological and social variables being used to understand gender and gender differences (e.g., Wood & Eagly, 2002 ). Others, such as evolutionary approaches (e.g., Baumeister, 2013 ; Buss, 2016 ) and neuroscientific approaches (see Fine, 2010 ), focus more heavily on the biological bases of gender differences, often causing chagrin among feminists. Nevertheless, much of the research in social psychology has, unsurprisingly, focused on social factors and, in particular, on gender stereotypes. Where do they come from and what are their effects?

Origins and Effects of Gender Stereotypes

A stereotype can be defined as a “widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its members” (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011 , p. 51) and has both descriptive and prescriptive aspects. In other words, gender stereotypes tell us what women and men are like, but also what they should be like (Heilman, 2001 ). Gender stereotypes are not only widely shared, but they are also stubbornly resistant to change (Haines, Deaux, & Lofaro, 2016 ). Both the origin and the consequences of these stereotypes have received much attention in social psychology. So how do stereotypes form? The most widely cited theories on stereotype formation—social role theory (SRT; Eagly, 1987 ; Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000 ) and the stereotype content model (SCM; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, J., 2002 )—answer this question. Both of these models focus on gender as a binary concept (i.e., men and women), as does most psychological research on gender, although they could potentially also be applied to other gender groups. Both theories are considered in turn.

Social Role Theory: Gender Stereotypes Are Determined by Roles

SRT argues that gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of men and women into distinct roles within a given society (Eagly, 1987 ; Eagly et al., 2000 ). The authors note the stability of gender stereotypes across cultures and describe two core dimensions: agency , including traits such as independence, aggression, and assertiveness, and communion , including traits such as caring, altruism, and politeness. While men are generally seen to be high in agency and low in communion, women are generally perceived to be high in communion but low in agency.

According to SRT, these gender stereotypes stem from the fact that women and men are over- and underrepresented in different roles in society. In most societies, even those with higher levels of gender equality, men perform less domestic work compared to women, including childcare, and spend more time in paid employment. Additionally, men disproportionately occupy leadership roles in the workforce (e.g., in politics and management) and are underrepresented in caretaking roles within the workforce (e.g., in elementary education and nursing; see Eagly et al., 2000 ). Eagly and colleagues argue that this gendered division of labor leads to the formation of gender roles and associated stereotypes. More specifically, they propose that different behaviors are seen as necessary to fulfil these social roles, and different skills, abilities, and traits are seen as necessary to execute these behaviors. For example, elementary school teachers are seen to need to care for and interact with children, which is seen to require social skills, empathy, and a caring nature. In contrast, such communal attributes might be seen to be less important—or even detrimental—for a military leader.

To the extent that women and men are differentially represented and visible in certain roles—such as elementary school teachers or military leaders—the behaviors and traits necessary for these roles become part of each respective gender role. In other words, the behaviors and attributes associated with people in caretaking roles, communion, become part of the female gender role, while the behaviors and attributes associated with people in leadership roles, agency, become part of the male gender role.

Building on SRT, Wood and Eagly ( 2002 ) developed a biosocial model of the origins of sex differences which explains the stability of gendered social roles across cultures. The authors argue that, in the past, physical differences between men and women meant that they were better able to perform certain tasks, contributing to the formation of gender roles. More specifically, women had to bear children and nurse them, while men were generally taller and had more upper body strength. In turn, tasks that required upper body strength and long stretches of uninterrupted time (e.g., hunting) were more often carried out by men, while tasks that could be interrupted more easily and be carried out while pregnant or looking after children (e.g., foraging) were more often carried out by women.

Eagly and colleagues further propose that the exact tasks more easily carried out by each sex depended on social and ecological conditions as well as technological and cultural advances. For example, it was only in more advanced, complex societies that the greater size and strength of men led to a division of labor in which men were preferred for activities such as warfare, which also came with higher status and access to resources. Similarly, the development of plough technology led to shifts from hunter–gatherer societies to agricultural societies. This change was often accompanied by a new division of labor in which men owned, farmed, and inherited land while women carried out more domestic tasks. The social structures that arose from these processes in specific contexts in turn affected more proximal causes of gender differences, including gender stereotypes.

It is important to note that this theory focuses on physical differences between the genders, not psychological ones. In other words, the authors do not argue that women and men are inherently different when it comes to their minds, nor that men evolved to be more agentic while women evolved to be more communal.

Stereotype Content Model: Gender Stereotypes Are Determined by Group Relations

The SCM, formulated by Fiske and colleagues ( 2002 ), was not developed specifically for gender, but as an explanation of how stereotypes form more generally. Similar to SRT, the SCM argues that gender stereotypes arise from societal structures. More specifically, the authors suggest that status differences and cooperation versus competition determine group stereotypes—among them, gender stereotypes. This model also suggests two main dimensions to stereotypes, namely, warmth and competence. The concept of warmth is similar to that of communion, previously described, in that it refers to being kind, nice, and caring. Competence refers to attributes such as being intelligent, efficient, and skillful and is thus different from the agency dimension of SRT.

The SCM argues that the dimensions of warmth and competence originate from two fundamental dimensions—status and competition—which characterize the relationships between groups in every culture and society. The degree to which another group is perceived to be warm is determined by whether the group is in cooperation or in competition with one’s own group, which is in turn associated with perceived intentions to help or to harm one’s own group, respectively. While members of cooperating groups are stereotyped as warm, members of competing groups are stereotyped as cold. Evidence suggests that these two dimensions are indeed universal and can be found in many cultures, including collectivist cultures (Cuddy et al., 2009 ). Perceptions of competence, however, are affected by the status and power of the group, which go hand-in-hand with the group’s ability to harm one’s own group. Those groups with high status and power are stereotyped as competent, while those that lack status and power are stereotyped as incompetent.

Groups can thus fall into one of four quadrants of this model. Members of high status groups who cooperate with one’s own group are seen as unequivocally positive—as warm and competent—while those of low status who compete with one’s own group are seen as unequivocally negative—cold and incompetent. More interesting are the two groups that fall into the more ambivalent quadrants—those who are perceived as either warm but incompetent or competent but cold. Applied to gender, this model suggests—and research shows—that typical men are stereotyped as competent but cold, the envious stereotype, while typical women are stereotyped as warm but incompetent, the paternalistic stereotype.

However, these stereotypes do not apply equally to all women and men. Rather, subgroups of men and women come with their own stereotypes. Research demonstrates, for example, that the paternalistic stereotype most strongly applies to traditional women such as housewives, while less traditional women such as feminists and career women are stereotyped as high in competence and low in warmth. For men, there are similar levels of variation—the envious stereotype applies most strongly to men in traditional roles such as managers and career men, while other men are perceived as warm but incompetent (e.g., senior citizens), as cold and incompetent (e.g., punks), or as warm and competent (e.g., professors; Eckes, 2002 ). The section “Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism” discusses the consequences of these stereotypes in more detail.

The Effects of Gender Stereotypes

SRT and the SCM explain how gender stereotypes form. A large body of work in social psychology has focused on the consequences of these stereotypes. These include effects on the gendered perceptions and evaluations of others, as well as effects on the self and one’s own self-image, behavior, and goals.

Gendered Perceptions and Evaluations of Others

Our group-based stereotypes affect how we see members of these groups and how we judge those who do or do not conform to these stereotypes. Gender differs from many other group memberships in several ways (see Fiske & Stevens, 1993 ), which in turn affects consequences of these stereotypes. First, argue Fiske and Stevens, gender stereotypes tend to be more prescriptive than other stereotypes. For example, men may often be told to “man up,” to be tough and dominant, while women may be told to smile, to be nice, and to be sexy (but not too sexy). While stereotypes of other groups also have prescriptive elements, it is probably less common to hear Asians be told to be better at math or African Americans to be told to be more musical. The consequences of these gendered prescriptions are discussed in the section “Gender Stereotypes Affect the Evaluation of Women and Men.” Second, relationships between women and men are characterized by an unusual combination of power differences and close and frequent contact as well as mutual dependence for reproduction and close relationships. The section “Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism” discusses the effects of these factors.

Gender Stereotypes Affect the Evaluation of Women and Men

The evaluation of women and men is affected by both descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotypes. Research on these effects has predominantly focused on those who occupy counterstereotypical roles such as women in leadership or stay-at-home fathers.

Descriptive stereotypes affect the perception and evaluation of women and men in several ways. First, descriptive stereotypes create biased perceptions through expectancy confirming processes (see Fiske, 2000 ) such that individuals, particularly those holding strong stereotypes, seek out information that confirms their stereotypes. This is evident in their tendency to neglect or dismiss ambiguous information and to ask stereotype-confirming questions (Leyens, Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1994 ; Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994 ). Moreover, people are more likely to recall stereotypical information compared to counterstereotypical information (Rojahn & Pettigrew, 1992 ) Second, descriptive gender stereotypes also bias the extent to which men and women are seen as suitable for different roles, as described in Heilman’s lack of fit model ( 1983 , 1995 ) and Eagly and Karau’s role congruity theory ( 2002 ). These approaches both suggest that the degree of fit between a person’s attributes and the attributes associated with a specific role is positively related to expectations about how successful a person will be in said role. For example, the traits associated with successful managers are generally more similar to those associated with men than those associated with women (Schein, 1973 ; see also Ryan, Haslam, Hersby, & Bongiorno, 2011 ). Thus, all else being equal, a man will be seen as a better fit for a managerial position and in turn as more likely to be a successful manager. These biased evaluations in turn lead to biased decisions, such as in hiring and promotion (see Heilman, 2001 ).

Prescriptive gender stereotypes also affect evaluations, albeit in different ways. They prescribe how women and men should behave, and also how they should not behave. The “shoulds” generally mirror descriptive stereotypes, while the “should nots” often include behaviors associated with the opposite gender. Thus, what is seen as positive and desirable for one gender is often seen as undesirable for the other and can lead to backlash in the form of social and economic penalties (Rudman, 1998 ). For example, women who are seen as agentic are punished with social sanctions because they violate the prescriptive stereotype that women should be nice, even in the absence of information indicating that they are not nice (Rudman & Glick, 2001 ). These processes are particularly problematic in combination with the effects of descriptive stereotypes, as individuals may face a double bind—if women behave in line with gender stereotypes, they lack fit with leadership positions that require agency, but if they behave agentically, they violate gender norms and face backlash in the form of dislike and discrimination (Rudman & Glick, 2001 ). Similar effects have been found for men who violate prescriptive masculine stereotypes, for example, by being modest (Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Rudman, 2010 ) or by requesting family leave (Rudman & Mescher, 2013 ). Interestingly, however, being communal by itself does not lead to backlash for men (Moss-Racusin et al., 2010 ). In other words, while men can be perceived as highly agentic and highly communal, this is not true for women, who are perceived as lacking communion when being perceived as agentic and as lacking agency when being perceived as communal.

Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism

Stereotypes not only affect how individuals evaluate others, but also their feelings and behaviors toward them. The Behavior from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes (BIAS) map (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007 ), which extends the SCM, describes the relationship between perceptions of warmth and competence of certain groups, emotions directed toward these groups, and behaviors toward them. Cuddy and colleagues argue that bias is comprised of three elements: cognitions (i.e., stereotypes), affect (i.e., emotional prejudice), and behavior (i.e., discrimination), and these are closely linked. Groups perceived as warm and competent elicit admiration while groups perceived as cold and incompetent elicit contempt. Of particular interest to understanding gender are the two ambivalent combinations of warmth and competence: Those perceived as warm, but incompetent—such as typical women—elicit pity, while those perceived as competent, but cold—such as typical men—elicit envy.

Similarly, perceptions of warmth and competence are associated with behavior. Cuddy and colleagues ( 2007 ) argue that the warmth dimension affects behavioral reactions more strongly than competence because it stems from perceptions that a group will help or harm the ingroup. This leads to active facilitation (e.g., helping) when a group is perceived as warm, or active harm (e.g., harassing) when a group is perceived as cold. Competence, however, leads to passive facilitation (e.g., cooperation when it benefits oneself or one’s own group) when the group is perceived as competent, and passive harm (e.g., neglecting to help) when the group is perceived as incompetent.

How these emotional and behavioral reactions affect women and men has received much attention in the literature on ambivalent sexism and ambivalent attitudes toward men (Glick & Fiske, 1996 , 1999 , 2001 ). According to ambivalent sexism theory (AST), sexism is not a uniform, negative attitude toward women or men. Rather, it is comprised of hostile and benevolent elements, which arises from status differences between, and intimate interdependence of, the two genders. While men possess more economic, political, and social power, they depend on women as their mothers and (for heterosexual men) as romantic partners. Thus, while they are likely to be motivated to keep their power, they also need to find ways to foster positive relations with women.

Hostile sexism combines the beliefs that (a) women are inferior to men, (b) men should have more power in society, and (c) women’s sexuality poses a threat to men’s status and power. This form of sexism is mostly directed toward nontraditional women who directly threaten men’s status (e.g., feminists or career women), and women who threaten the heterosexual interdependence of men and women (e.g., lesbians)—in other words, toward women perceived to be competent but cold.

Benevolent sexism is a subtler form of sexism and refers to (a) complementary gender differentiation , the belief that (traditional) women are ultimately the better gender, (b) protective paternalism , where men need to cherish, protect, and provide for women, and (c) heterosexual intimacy , the belief that men and women complement each other such that no man is truly complete without a woman. This form of sexism is directed mainly toward traditional women.

While benevolent sexism may seem less harmful than its hostile counterpart, it ultimately provides an alternative mechanism for the persistence of gender inequality by “keeping women in their place” and discouraging them from seeking out nontraditional roles (see Glick & Fiske, 2001 ). Exposure to benevolent sexism is associated with women’s increased self-stereotyping (Barreto, Ellemers, Piebinga, & Moya, 2010 ), decreased cognitive performance (Dardenne, Dumont, & Bollier, 2007 ), and reduced willingness to take collective action (Becker & Wright, 2011 ), thus reinforcing the status quo.

With perceptions of men, Glick and Fiske ( 1999 ) argue that attitudes are equally ambivalent. Hostile attitudes toward men include (a) resentment of paternalism , stemming from perceptions of unfairness of the disproportionate amounts of power men hold, (b) compensatory gender differentiation , which refers to the application of negative stereotypes to men (e.g., arrogant, unrefined) so that women can positively distinguish themselves from them, and (c) heterosexual hostility , stemming from male sexual aggressiveness and interpersonal dominance. Benevolent attitudes toward men include maternalism , that is, the belief that men are helpless and need to be taken care of at home. Interestingly, while such attitudes portray women as competent in some ways, it still reinforces gender inequality by legitimizing women’s disproportionate amount of domestic work. Benevolent attitudes toward men also include complementary gender differentiation , the belief that men are indeed more competent, and heterosexual attraction , the belief that a woman can only be truly happy when in a romantic relationship with a man.

Cross-cultural research (Glick et al., 2000 , 2004 ) suggests that ambivalent sexism and ambivalent attitudes toward men are similar in many ways and can be found in most cultures. For both constructs, the benevolent and hostile aspects are distinct but positively related, illustrating that attitudes toward women and men are indeed ambivalent, as the mixed nature of stereotypes would suggest. Moreover, ambivalence toward women and men are correlated and national averages of both aspects of sexism and ambivalence toward men are associated with lower gender equality across nations, lending support to the idea that they reinforce the status quo.

Gender Stereotypes Affect the Self

Gender stereotypes not only affect individuals’ reactions toward others, they also play an important part in self-construal, motivation, achievement, and behavior, often without explicit endorsement of the stereotype. This section discusses how gender stereotypes affect observable gender differences and then describes the subtle and insidious effects gender stereotypes can have on performance and achievement through the inducement of stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995 ).

Gender Stereotypes Affect Gender Differences

Gender stereotypes are a powerful influence on the self-concept, goals, and behaviors. Eagly and colleagues ( 2000 ) argue that girls and boys observe the roles that women and men occupy in society and accommodate accordingly, seeking out different activities and acquiring different skills. They propose two main mechanisms by which gender differences form. First, women and men adjust their behavior to confirm others’ gender-stereotypical expectations. Others communicate their gendered expectations in many, often nonverbal and subtle ways and react positively when expectations are confirmed and negatively when they are not. This subtle communication of expectations reinforces gender-stereotypical behavior as people generally try to elicit positive, and avoid negative, reactions from others. Importantly, the interacting partners need not be aware of these expectations for them to take effect.

The second process by which gender stereotypes translate into gender differences is the self-regulation of behavior based on identity processes and the internalization of stereotypes (e.g., Bem, 1981 ; Markus, 1977 ). Most people form their gender identity based on self-categorization as male or female and subsequently incorporate attributes associated with the respective category into their self-concept (Guimond, Chatard, Martinot, Crisp, & Redersdorff, 2006 ). These gendered differences in the self-concepts of women and men then translate into gender-stereotypical behaviors. The extent to which the self-concept is affected by gender stereotypes—and in turn the extent to which gendered patterns of behavior are displayed—depends on the strength and the salience of this social identity (Hogg & Turner, 1987 ; Onorato & Turner, 2004 ). For example, individuals may be more likely to display gender-stereotypical behavior when they identify more strongly with their gender (e.g., Lorenzi‐Cioldi, 1991 ) or when their gender is more likely to be salient, which is more likely to be the case for women (Cadinu & Galdi, 2012 ).

However, many different subcategories of women exist—housewives, feminists, lesbians—and thus what it means to identify as a woman, and behave like a woman, is likely to be complex and multifaceted (e.g., Fiske et al., 2002 ; van Breen, Spears, Kuppens, & de Lemus, 2017 ). Moreover, research demonstrates that the salience of gender in any given context also determined the degree to which an individual displays gender-stereotypical behavior (e.g., Ryan & David, 2003 ; Ryan, David, & Reynolds, 2004 ). For example, Ryan and colleagues demonstrate that while women and men act in line with gender stereotypes when gender and gender difference are salient, these differences in attitudes and behavior disappear when alternative identities, such as those based on being a student or being an individual, are made salient.

Gender Stereotypes Affect Performance and Achievement

The consequences of stereotypes go beyond the self-concept and behavior. Research in stereotype threat describes the detrimental effects that negative stereotypes can have on performance and achievement. Stereotype threat refers to the phenomenon whereby the awareness of the negative stereotyping of one’s group in a certain domain, and the fear of confirming such stereotypes, can have negative effects on performance, even when the stereotype is not endorsed. The phenomenon was first described by Steele and Aronson ( 1995 ) in the context of African Americans’ intellectual test performance, but has since been found to affect women’s performance and motivation in counterstereotypical domains such as math (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008 ) and leadership (Davies, Spencer, & Steele, 2005 ). This affect holds true even when minority group members’ prior performance and interest in the domain are the same as those of majority group members (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999 ). Moreover, the effect is particularly pronounced when the minority member’s desire to belong is strong and identity-based devaluation is likely (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002 ).

Different mechanisms for the effect of stereotype threat have been proposed. Schmader, Johns, and Forbes ( 2008 ) suggest that the inconsistency between one’s self-image as competent and the cultural stereotype about one’s group’s lack of competence leads to a physiological stress response that directly impairs working memory. For example, when made aware of the widely held stereotype that women are bad at math, a female math student is likely to experience an inconsistency. This inconsistency, the authors argue, is not only distressing in itself, but induces uncertainty: Am I actually good at math or am I bad at math as the stereotype would lead me to believe? In an effort to resolve this uncertainty, she is likely to monitor her performance more than others—and more than in a situation in which stereotype threat is absent. This monitoring leads to more conscious, less efficient processing of information—for example, when performing calculations that she would otherwise do more or less automatically—and a stronger focus on detecting potential failure, taking cognitive resources away from the actual task. Moreover, individuals under stereotype threat are more likely to experience negative thoughts and emotions such as fear of failure. In order to avoid the interference of these thoughts, they actively try to suppress them. This suppression, however, takes effort. All of these mechanisms, the authors argue, take working memory space away from the task in question, thereby impairing performance.

The aim of this article is to give an overview of gender research in social psychology, which has focused predominantly on gender stereotypes, their origins, and their consequences, and these are all connected and reinforce each other. Social psychology has produced many fascinating findings regarding gender, and this article has only just touched on these findings. While research into gender has seen a great growth in the past 50 years and has provided us with an unprecedented understanding of women and men and the differences (and similarities) between them, there is still much work to be done.

There are a number of issues that remain largely absent from mainstream social psychological research on gender. First, an interest and acknowledgment of intersectional identities has emerged, such as how gender intersects with race or sexuality. It is thus important to note that many of the theories discussed in this article cannot necessarily be applied directly across intersecting identities (e.g., to women of color or to lesbian women), and indeed the attitudes and behaviors of such women continue to be largely ignored within the field.

Second, almost all social psychological research into gender is conducted using an overly simplistic binary definition of gender in terms of women and men. Social psychological theories and explanations are, for the most part, not taking more complex or more fluid definitions of gender into account and thus are unable to explain gendered attitudes and behavior outside of the gender binary.

Finally, individual perceptions and cognitions are influenced by gendered stereotypes and expectations, and social psychologists are not immune to this influence. How we, as psychologists, ask research questions and how we interpret empirical findings are influenced by gender stereotypes (e.g., Hegarty & Buechel, 2006 ), and we must remain vigilant that we do not inadvertently seek to reinforce our own gendered expectations and reify the gender status quo.

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1. Psychology largely conceptualizes gender as binary. While this is problematic in a number of ways, which we touch upon in the Conclusion section, we largely follow these binary conventions throughout this article, as it is representative of the social psychological literature as a whole.

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Module 9: Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

Gender and socialization, learning outcomes.

• Explain the influence of socialization on gender roles in the United States
• Explain and give examples of sexism

Figure 1.  Traditional images of U.S. gender roles reinforce the idea that women should be subordinate to men. (Photo courtesy of Sport Suburban/flickr)

Gender Roles

As we grow, we learn how to behave from those around us. In this socialization process, children are introduced to certain roles that are typically linked to their biological sex. The term gender role refers to society’s concept of how people are expected to look and behave based on societally created norms for masculinity and femininity. In U.S. culture, masculine roles are usually associated with strength, aggression, and dominance, while feminine roles are usually associated with passivity, nurturing, and subordination.

Gender role socialization begins at birth and continues throughout the life course. Our society is quick to outfit male infants in blue and girls in pink, even applying these color-coded gender labels while a baby is in the womb. This color differentiation is quite new—prior to the 1940s, boys wore pink and girls wore blue. In the 19th century and early 20th century, boys and girls wore dresses (mostly white) until the age of 6 or 7, which was also time for the first haircut. [1]

Figure 2.  Fathers tend to be more involved when their sons engage in gender-appropriate activities such as sports. (Photo courtesy of Shawn Lea/flickr)

Thus, gender, like race is a social construction with very real consequences. The drive to adhere to masculine and feminine gender roles continues later in life. Men tend to outnumber women in professions such as law enforcement, the military, and politics. Women tend to outnumber men in care-related occupations such as childcare, healthcare (even though the term “doctor” still conjures the image of a man), and social work. These occupational roles are examples of typical U.S. male and female behavior, derived from our culture’s traditions. Adherence to them demonstrates fulfillment of social expectations but not necessarily personal preference (Diamond 2002).

The phrase “boys will be boys” is often used to justify behavior such as pushing, shoving, or other forms of aggression from young boys. The phrase implies that such behavior is unchangeable and something that is part of a boy’s nature. Aggressive behavior, when it does not inflict significant harm, is often accepted from boys and men because it is congruent with the cultural script for masculinity. The “script” written by society is in some ways similar to a script written by a playwright. Just as a playwright expects actors to adhere to a prescribed script, society expects women and men to behave according to the expectations of their respective gender roles.

Socialization

Children learn at a young age that there are distinct expectations for boys and girls. Cross-cultural studies reveal that children are aware of gender roles by age two or three. At four or five, most children are firmly entrenched in culturally appropriate gender roles (Kane 1996). Children acquire these roles through socialization, a process in which people learn to behave in a particular way as dictated by societal values, beliefs, and attitudes.

Figure 3.  Although our society may have a stereotype that associates motorcycles with men, female bikers demonstrate that a woman’s place extends far beyond the kitchen in the modern United States. (Photo courtesy of Robert Couse-Baker/flickr)

For example, society often views riding a motorcycle as a masculine activity and, therefore, considers it to be part of the male gender role. Attitudes such as this are typically based on stereotypes, which are oversimplified notions about members of a group. Gender stereotyping involves overgeneralizing about the attitudes, traits, or behavior patterns of women or men. For example, women may be thought of as too timid or weak to ride a motorcycle.

Mimicking the actions of significant others is the first step in the development of a separate sense of self (Mead 1934). Recall that according to Mead’s theory of development, children up to the age of 2 are in the preparatory stage, in which they copy actions of those around them, then the play stage (between 2-6) when they play pretend and have a difficult time following established rules, and then the game stage (ages 7 and up), when they can play by a set of rules and understand different roles.

Like adults, children become agents who actively facilitate and apply normative gender expectations to those around them. When children do not conform to the appropriate gender role, they may face negative sanctions such as being criticized or marginalized by their peers. Though many of these sanctions are informal, they can be quite severe. For example, a girl who wishes to take karate class instead of dance lessons may be called a “tomboy,” and face difficulty gaining acceptance from both male and female peer groups (Ready 2001). Boys, especially, are subject to intense ridicule for gender nonconformity (Coltrane and Adams 2004; Kimmel 2000).

One way children learn gender roles is through play. Parents typically supply boys with trucks, toy guns, and superhero paraphernalia, which are active toys that promote motor skills, aggression, and solitary play. Daughters are often given dolls and dress-up apparel that foster nurturing, social proximity, and role play. Studies have shown that children will most likely choose to play with “gender appropriate” toys (or same-gender toys) even when cross-gender toys are available, because parents give children positive feedback (in the form of praise, involvement, and physical closeness) for gender normative behavior (Caldera, Huston, and O’Brien 1998). Charles Cooley’s concept of the looking-glass self applies to gender socialization because it is through this interactive, interpretive process with the social world that individuals develop a sense of gender identity.

Figure 4 . Childhood activities and instruction, like this father-daughter duck-hunting trip, can influence people’s lifelong views on gender roles. (Credit: Tim Miller, USFWS Midwest Region/flickr)

Gender socialization occurs through four major agents of socialization: family, schools, peer groups, and mass media. Each agent reinforces gender roles by creating and maintaining normative expectations for gender-specific behavior. Exposure also occurs through secondary agents such as religion and the workplace. Repeated exposure to these agents over time leads men and women into a false sense that they are acting naturally rather than following a socially constructed role.

Family is the first agent of socialization. There is considerable evidence that parents socialize sons and daughters differently. Generally speaking, girls are given more latitude to step outside of their prescribed gender role (Coltrane and Adams 2004; Kimmel 2000; Raffaelli and Ontai 2004). However, differential socialization typically results in greater privileges afforded to sons. For instance, sons are allowed more autonomy and independence at an earlier age than daughters. They may be given fewer restrictions on appropriate clothing, dating habits, or curfew. Sons are also often free from performing domestic duties such as cleaning or cooking and other household tasks that are considered feminine. Daughters are limited by their expectation to be passive and nurturing, generally obedient, and to assume domestic responsibilities.

Even when parents set gender equality as a goal, there may be underlying indications of inequality. For example, boys may be asked to take out the garbage or perform other tasks that require strength or toughness, while girls may be asked to fold laundry or perform duties that require neatness and care. It has been found that fathers are firmer in their expectations for gender conformity than are mothers, and their expectations are stronger for sons than they are for daughters (Kimmel 2000). This is true in many types of activities, including preference for toys, play styles, discipline, chores, and personal achievements. As a result, boys tend to be particularly attuned to their father’s disapproval when engaging in an activity that might be considered feminine, like dancing or singing (Coltraine and Adams 2008). Parental socialization and normative expectations also vary along lines of social class, race, and ethnicity. African American families, for instance, are more likely than Caucasians to model an egalitarian role structure for their children (Staples and Boulin Johnson 2004).

The reinforcement of gender roles and stereotypes continues once a child reaches school age. Until very recently, schools were rather explicit in their efforts to stratify boys and girls. The first step toward stratification was segregation. Girls were encouraged to take home economics or humanities courses and boys to take math and science. Studies suggest that gender socialization still occurs in schools today, perhaps in less obvious forms (Lips 2004). Teachers may not even realize they are acting in ways that reproduce gender differentiated behavior patterns. Yet any time they ask students to arrange their seats or line up according to gender, teachers may be asserting that boys and girls should be treated differently (Thorne 1993).

Schools subtly convey messages to girls indicating that they are less intelligent or less important than boys. For example, in a study of teacher responses to male and female students, data indicated that teachers praised male students far more than female students. Teachers interrupted girls more often and gave boys more opportunities to expand on their ideas (Sadker and Sadker 1994). Further, in social as well as academic situations, teachers have traditionally treated boys and girls in opposite ways, reinforcing a sense of competition rather than collaboration (Thorne 1993). Boys are also permitted a greater degree of freedom to break rules or commit minor acts of deviance, whereas girls are expected to follow rules carefully and adopt an obedient role (Ready 2001).

Mass media serves as another significant agent of gender socialization. In television and movies, women tend to have less significant roles and are often portrayed as wives or mothers. When women are given a lead role, it often falls into one of two extremes: a wholesome, saint-like figure or a malevolent, hypersexual figure (Etaugh and Bridges 2003). Gender inequalities are also pervasive in children’s movies (Smith 2008). Research indicates that in the ten top-grossing G-rated movies released between 1991 and 2013, nine out of ten characters were male (Smith 2008).

Television commercials and other forms of advertising also reinforce inequality and gender-based stereotypes. Women are almost exclusively present in ads promoting cooking, cleaning, or childcare-related products (Davis 1993). Think about the last time you saw a man star in a dishwasher or laundry detergent commercial. In general, women are underrepresented in roles that involve leadership, intelligence, or a balanced psyche. Of particular concern is the depiction of women in ways that are dehumanizing, especially in music videos. Even in mainstream advertising, however, themes intermingling violence and sexuality are quite common (Kilbourne 2000).

Watch the following video to think more about the social construct of gender.

Further Research

Watch this CrashCourse video to learn more about gender stratification .

Gender stereotypes form the basis of sexism. Sexism refers to prejudiced beliefs that value one sex over another. Like racism, sexism has been a part of U.S. culture for centuries. Here is a brief timeline of “firsts” in the United States:

• Before 1809—Women could not execute a will
• Before 1840—Women were not allowed to own or control property
• Before 1920—Women were not permitted to vote
• Before 1963—Employers could legally pay a woman less than a man for the same work
• Before 1973—Women did not have the right to a safe and legal abortion
• Before 1981—No woman had served on the U.S. Supreme Court
• Before 2009—No African American woman had been CEO of a U.S. Fortune 500 corporation
• Before 2016—No Latina had served as a U.S. Senator
• Before 2017—No openly transgender person had been elected in a state legislature

While it is illegal in the United States when practiced as overt discrimination, unequal treatment of women continues to pervade social life. It should be noted that discrimination based on sex occurs at both the micro- and macro-levels. Many sociologists focus on discrimination that is built into the social structure; this type of discrimination is known as institutional discrimination (Pincus 2008).

Figure 4.  In some cultures, women do all of the household chores with no help from men, as doing housework is a sign of weakness, considered by society as a feminine trait. (Photo courtesy of Evil Erin/flickr)

Like racism, sexism has very real consequences. Stereotypes about females, such as being “too soft” to make financial decisions about things like wills or property, have morphed into a lack of female leadership in Fortune 500 Companies (only 24 were headed up by women in 2018!). We also see gender discrepancies in politics and in legal matters, as the laws regarding women’s reproductive health are made by a largely male legislative body at both the state and federal levels.

The Pay Gap

One of the most tangible effects of sexism is the gender wage gap. Despite making up nearly half (49.8 percent) of payroll employment, men vastly outnumber women in authoritative, powerful, and, therefore, high-earning jobs (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). Even when a woman’s employment status is equal to a man’s, she will generally make only 81 cents for every dollar made by her male counterpart (Payscale 2020). Women in the paid labor force also still do the majority of the unpaid work at home. On an average day, 84 percent of women (compared to 67 percent of men) spend time doing household management activities (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). This double-duty keeps working women in a subordinate role in the family structure (Hochschild and Machung 1989).

Figure 5 . In 2017 men’s overall median earnings were $52,146 and women’s were $41,977. This means that women earned 80.1% of what men earned in the United States. (Credit: Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor)

The Glass Ceiling

The idea that women are unable to reach the executive suite is known as the glass ceiling. It is an invisible barrier that women encounter when trying to win jobs in the highest level of business. At the beginning of 2021, for example, a record 41 of the world’s largest 500 companies were run by women. While a vast improvement over the number twenty years earlier – where only two of the companies were run by women – these 41 chief executives still only represent eight percent of those large companies (Newcomb 2020).

Why do women have a more difficult time reaching the top of a company? One idea is that there is still a stereotype in the United States that women aren’t aggressive enough to handle the boardroom or that they tend to seek jobs and work with other women (Reiners 2019). Other issues stem from the gender biases based on gender roles and motherhood discussed above.

Another idea is that women lack mentors, executives who take an interest and get them into the right meetings and introduce them to the right people to succeed (Murrell & Blake-Beard 2017).

Women in Politics

One of the most important places for women to help other women is in politics. Historically in the United States, like many other institutions, political representation has been mostly made up of White men. By not having women in government, their issues are being decided by people who don’t share their perspective. The number of women elected to serve in Congress has increased over the years, but does not yet accurately reflect the general population. For example, in 2018, the population of the United States was 49 percent male and 51 percent female, but the population of Congress was 78.8 percent male and 21.2 percent female (Manning 2018). Over the years, the number of women in the federal government has increased, but until it accurately reflects the population, there will be inequalities in our laws.

Figure 6 . Breakdown of Congressional Membership by Gender. 2021 saw a record number of women in Congress, with 120 women serving in the House and 24 serving in the Senate. Gender representation has been steadily increasing over time, but is not close to being equal. (Credit: Based on data from Center for American Women in Politics, Rutgers University)

Global Sexism

Gender stratification through the division of labor is not exclusive to the United States. According to George Murdock’s classic work, Outline of World Cultures (1954), all societies classify work by gender. When a pattern appears in all societies, it is called a cultural universal. While the phenomenon of assigning work by gender is universal, its specifics are not. The same task is not assigned to either men or women worldwide. But the way each task’s associated gender is valued is notable. In Murdock’s examination of the division of labor among 324 societies around the world, he found that in nearly all cases the jobs assigned to men were given greater prestige (Murdock and White 1968). Even if the job types were very similar and the differences slight, men’s work was still considered more vital.

In parts of the world where women are strongly undervalued, young girls may not be given the same access to nutrition, healthcare, and education as boys. Further, they will grow up believing they deserve to be treated differently from boys (UNICEF 2011; Thorne 1993).

Think It Over

• In what way do parents treat sons and daughters differently? How do sons and daughters typically respond to this treatment?
• How is children’s play influenced by gender roles? Think back to your childhood. How “gendered” were the toys and activities available to you? Do you remember gender expectations being conveyed through the approval or disapproval of your playtime choice?
• What can be done to lessen the sexism in the workplace? How does it harm society?
• Maglaty, J. 2011. "When did girls first start wearing pink?" The Smithsonian. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/ . ↵
• Revision, Modification, and Original Content. Authored by : Sarah Hoiland and Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Gender. Authored by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:IThELyrX@5/Gender . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected].
• Gender Equality: Now. Provided by : WorldFish. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4viXOGvvu0Y . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
• Gender Roles. Provided by : OpenStax. Located at : https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/12-1-sex-gender-identity-and-expression . Project : Sociology 3e. License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/1-introduction
• Is Gender Real? -8-bit Philosophy. Provided by : Wisecrack. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkilQ87UUj8&index=50&list=PL93FF46F5BC6A27CF . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

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What does gender equality look like today?

Date: Wednesday, 6 October 2021

Progress towards gender equality is looking bleak. But it doesn’t need to.

A new global analysis of progress on gender equality and women’s rights shows women and girls remain disproportionately affected by the socioeconomic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling with disproportionately high job and livelihood losses, education disruptions and increased burdens of unpaid care work. Women’s health services, poorly funded even before the pandemic, faced major disruptions, undermining women’s sexual and reproductive health. And despite women’s central role in responding to COVID-19, including as front-line health workers, they are still largely bypassed for leadership positions they deserve.

UN Women’s latest report, together with UN DESA, Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2021 presents the latest data on gender equality across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The report highlights the progress made since 2015 but also the continued alarm over the COVID-19 pandemic, its immediate effect on women’s well-being and the threat it poses to future generations.

We’re breaking down some of the findings from the report, and calling for the action needed to accelerate progress.

The pandemic is making matters worse

One and a half years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, the toll on the poorest and most vulnerable people remains devastating and disproportionate. The combined impact of conflict, extreme weather events and COVID-19 has deprived women and girls of even basic needs such as food security. Without urgent action to stem rising poverty, hunger and inequality, especially in countries affected by conflict and other acute forms of crisis, millions will continue to suffer.

A global goal by global goal reality check:

Goal 1. Poverty

In 2021, extreme poverty is on the rise and progress towards its elimination has reversed. An estimated 435 million women and girls globally are living in extreme poverty.

And yet we can change this .

Over 150 million women and girls could emerge from poverty by 2030 if governments implement a comprehensive strategy to improve access to education and family planning, achieve equal wages and extend social transfers.

Goal 2. Zero hunger

The global gender gap in food security has risen dramatically during the pandemic, with more women and girls going hungry. Women’s food insecurity levels were 10 per cent higher than men’s in 2020, compared with 6 per cent higher in 2019.

This trend can be reversed , including by supporting women small-scale producers, who typically earn far less than men, through increased funding, training and land rights reforms.

Goal 3. Good health and well-being

Disruptions in essential health services due to COVID-19 are taking a tragic toll on women and girls. In the first year of the pandemic, there were an estimated 1.4 million additional unintended pregnancies in lower and middle-income countries.

We need to do better .

Response to the pandemic must include prioritizing sexual and reproductive health services, ensuring they continue to operate safely now and after the pandemic is long over. In addition, more support is needed to ensure life-saving personal protection equipment, tests, oxygen and especially vaccines are available in rich and poor countries alike as well as to vulnerable population within countries.

Goal 4. Quality education

A year and a half into the pandemic, schools remain partially or fully closed in 42 per cent of the world’s countries and territories. School closures spell lost opportunities for girls and an increased risk of violence, exploitation and early marriage .

Governments can do more to protect girls education .

Measures focused specifically on supporting girls returning to school are urgently needed, including measures focused on girls from marginalized communities who are most at risk.

Goal 5. Gender equality

The pandemic has tested and even reversed progress in expanding women’s rights and opportunities. Reports of violence against women and girls, a “shadow” pandemic to COVID-19, are increasing in many parts of the world. COVID-19 is also intensifying women’s workload at home, forcing many to leave the labour force altogether.

Building forward differently and better will hinge on placing women and girls at the centre of all aspects of response and recovery, including through gender-responsive laws, policies and budgeting.

Goal 6. Clean water and sanitation

In 2018, nearly 2.3 billion people lived in water-stressed countries. Without safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and menstrual hygiene facilities, women and girls find it harder to lead safe, productive and healthy lives.

Change is possible .

Involve those most impacted in water management processes, including women. Women’s voices are often missing in water management processes. 

Goal 7. Affordable and clean energy

Increased demand for clean energy and low-carbon solutions is driving an unprecedented transformation of the energy sector. But women are being left out. Women hold only 32 per cent of renewable energy jobs.

We can do better .

Expose girls early on to STEM education, provide training and support to women entering the energy field, close the pay gap and increase women’s leadership in the energy sector.

Goal 8. Decent work and economic growth

The number of employed women declined by 54 million in 2020 and 45 million women left the labour market altogether. Women have suffered steeper job losses than men, along with increased unpaid care burdens at home.

We must do more to support women in the workforce .

Guarantee decent work for all, introduce labour laws/reforms, removing legal barriers for married women entering the workforce, support access to affordable/quality childcare.

Goal 9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure

The COVID-19 crisis has spurred striking achievements in medical research and innovation. Women’s contribution has been profound. But still only a little over a third of graduates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics field are female.

We can take action today.

 Quotas mandating that a proportion of research grants are awarded to women-led teams or teams that include women is one concrete way to support women researchers. 

Goal 10. Reduced inequalities

Limited progress for women is being eroded by the pandemic. Women facing multiple forms of discrimination, including women and girls with disabilities, migrant women, women discriminated against because of their race/ethnicity are especially affected.

Commit to end racism and discrimination in all its forms, invest in inclusive, universal, gender responsive social protection systems that support all women. 

Goal 11. Sustainable cities and communities

Globally, more than 1 billion people live in informal settlements and slums. Women and girls, often overrepresented in these densely populated areas, suffer from lack of access to basic water and sanitation, health care and transportation.

The needs of urban poor women must be prioritized .

Increase the provision of durable and adequate housing and equitable access to land; included women in urban planning and development processes.

Goal 12. Sustainable consumption and production; Goal 13. Climate action; Goal 14. Life below water; and Goal 15. Life on land

Women activists, scientists and researchers are working hard to solve the climate crisis but often without the same platforms as men to share their knowledge and skills. Only 29 per cent of featured speakers at international ocean science conferences are women.

 And yet we can change this .

Ensure women activists, scientists and researchers have equal voice, representation and access to forums where these issues are being discussed and debated. 

Goal 16. Peace, justice and strong institutions

The lack of women in decision-making limits the reach and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergency recovery efforts. In conflict-affected countries, 18.9 per cent of parliamentary seats are held by women, much lower than the global average of 25.6 per cent.

This is unacceptable .

It's time for women to have an equal share of power and decision-making at all levels.

Goal 17. Global partnerships for the goals

There are just 9 years left to achieve the Global Goals by 2030, and gender equality cuts across all 17 of them. With COVID-19 slowing progress on women's rights, the time to act is now.

Looking ahead

As it stands today, only one indicator under the global goal for gender equality (SDG5) is ‘close to target’: proportion of seats held by women in local government. In other areas critical to women’s empowerment, equality in time spent on unpaid care and domestic work and decision making regarding sexual and reproductive health the world is far from target. Without a bold commitment to accelerate progress, the global community will fail to achieve gender equality. Building forward differently and better will require placing women and girls at the centre of all aspects of response and recovery, including through gender-responsive laws, policies and budgeting.

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Understanding Gender Roles and Their Effect On Our Relationships

Sarah Fielding is a freelance writer covering a range of topics with a focus on mental health and women's issues.

Ivy Kwong, LMFT, is a psychotherapist specializing in relationships, love and intimacy, trauma and codependency, and AAPI mental health.  

While they ought to be outdated, there are certain molds that men and women are traditionally taught and pressured to fit into: A man is strong and takes financial care of the family, while a woman is nurturing and takes  emotional care  of everyone.

Men take out the trash, and women do the dishes. Men pay for dinner, and women take care of the children. Men make straightforward, unemotional decisions, and women fret and follow along.

These are but a few of the many gender roles that perpetuate in society, forcing people into small boxes and frustrating dynamics. These ideals of how a person should behave based on their gender can harm an individual’s mental health and relationships as a whole. 

“Gender roles can have a significant impact on our relationships by creating power imbalances and limiting our ability to express ourselves authentically,” says Satadeepa Som , a psychologist and sexual wellness therapist at Allo Health , India’s first dedicated sexual health clinic. “When we internalize traditional gender roles, we may feel pressure to conform to certain expectations of how men and women should behave in relationships. This can lead to frustration, resentment, and a lack of intimacy.” 

Identifying, understanding, and challenging gender roles aids in dismantling their power and removing their limitations from existing and future relationships. To that end, here’s what you need to know about gender roles, how they limit people, and the importance of breaking them down. 

What are gender roles?

“Gender roles are not biologically determined,” says Som. “Gender roles are socially constructed and can vary widely between different societies and cultures.”

At their core, gender roles are an arbitrary set of characteristics society believes each person should embody based on their gender. For men, this often means foregoing emotion in favor of a big wallet and a strong presence. Women are supposed to be subdued, emotional, and caring, with an underlying subservience to the men in their lives. 

Gender roles based in patriarchy, a system of social, legal, economic, political, and cultural practices that position men as the dominant social group, have been shaped and further emphasized in a myriad of places around the world.

Cultural beliefs throughout time have reinforced the part of men as the provider and women as the homemaker in spaces such as religious and educational institutions and in government bodies, says Som.

Societal norms have reflected the teachings of these establishments, with families, peers, and the media following “unwritten rules about what is considered acceptable behavior for men and women in a particular society or culture.” Everything, from television to magazines, has also helped curate how women and men “should” each act. 

Traditional ideology separates men’s and women’s tasks as they have historically been treated—men are the breadwinner, and women are the caregiver. An egalitarian stance, on the other hand, seeks to remove gender as any determination of who takes on what tasks. In the middle, where much of society, consciously or unconsciously lives, is something known as transitional ideology, the man is the breadwinner, but he also supports the woman in household tasks.  

How gender roles are limiting

Feminist movements throughout the 20th century fought for gender equality and women's rights. Feminists call attention to and address a number of issues affecting women and girls around the world and advocate ending sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression to achieve full gender equality in law and practice.

This resulted in significant and important changes.White women were granted the right to vote in 1920, Black women gained the right to vote in 1965, and women began wearing pants, getting graduate degrees, holding full-time jobs, and, overall, becoming more independent with greater freedom, choices, and opportunities.

Over the past two decades, activists have continued to push for an extinction of gender roles and a society in which people are defined by who they are, not the gender they are. Progress exists but is still slow, with many people inclined to default to and protect gender roles and keep people in small boxes. 

To this day, the ways in which gender roles can impact people are endless. Regardless of if a person thinks these stereotypes are helping them or making them look tough or caring, being forced into a box based on your gender is incredibly limiting and can cause a range of repercussions.

According to Rebecca Minor , LICSW, a gender specialist and part-time faculty at Boston University specializing in the intersection of gender and sexuality, three major areas where this is the case are job choices, emotional expression, and household responsibilities.

There are certainly many men who love finance and many women who want to be a teacher or an artist. But there are also lots of women who love math and men who want to instill lessons into young minds.

It’s not wrong for a person to want a job that falls within their traditional gender role, as long as they have the option to do any they please—and get paid equally for it. Without that opportunity, a person can get stuck in a job their entire life that is in no way related to their passions. 

Emotionally, men are told that they shouldn’t dare have any sensitive emotions, and if they do, they better bottle them up quickly. Women can be emotional and nurturing, but they’re not allowed to be strong or powerful. “These expectations can hinder individuals from expressing their emotions authentically, leading to emotional suppression and strained relationships,” says Minor. 

Regardless of if women work, household tasks and child caring are often left to them. If the man makes more money (which is not always the case and ignores the pay gap), why should they help out at home? If they do, some people still view it as demeaning or unusual. 

Gender roles can also have a tremendously negative impact on a person’s mental health. “Oppressive gender roles and stereotypes can have a negative impact on mental health by creating feelings of shame, self-doubt, and low self-esteem,” says Som. “When individuals are unable to meet society’s expectations of how they should behave based on their gender, they may feel isolated, misunderstood, and even punished.” As a result, individuals might develop a sense of failure, anxiety, stress, or depression. 

Breaking down gender norms for healthier relationships

Dating and relationships often prove to be the ultimate test for gender roles. They create this idea that there is a “right” and “wrong” way for each person to behave in a relationship when all that matters is their character and compatibility. “Traditional gender roles can also limit our ability to express ourselves authentically in relationships,” says Som.

Not only are gender roles in relationships archaic, but many people are not even in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship. “Gender roles can reinforce stereotypes and lead to discrimination and oppression,” says Som. “For example, LGBTQ+ individuals may face discrimination in relationships and society based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. This can create feelings of isolation and impact mental health.”

When we let go of these unnecessary ideas of how a person should act in a relationship, it creates space for a healthy, supportive relationship. “Breaking down gender roles allows individuals to communicate openly and honestly about their needs, desires, and emotions without fear of judgment or reprisal,” says Minor.

“This leads to more effective and empathetic communication, fostering greater understanding and connection between partners.” It also provides space for people to pursue their interests, work on power imbalances generated by society, and create an intimate, healthy space for the relationship to grow. 

Somech, A., & Drach-Zahavy, A. (2016). Gender role ideology. In A. Wong, M. Wickramasinghe, renee hoogland, & N. A. Naples (Eds.),  The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies  (pp. 1–3). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss205

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11.1 Understanding Sex and Gender

Learning objectives.

• Define sex and gender and femininity and masculinity.
• Critically assess the evidence on biology, culture and socialization, and gender.
• Discuss agents of gender socialization.

Although the terms sex and gender are sometimes used interchangeably and do in fact complement each other, they nonetheless refer to different aspects of what it means to be a woman or man in any society.

Sex refers to the anatomical and other biological differences between females and males that are determined at the moment of conception and develop in the womb and throughout childhood and adolescence. Females, of course, have two X chromosomes, while males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. From this basic genetic difference spring other biological differences. The first to appear are the different genitals that boys and girls develop in the womb and that the doctor (or midwife) and parents look for when a baby is born (assuming the baby’s sex is not already known from ultrasound or other techniques) so that the momentous announcement, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” can be made. The genitalia are called primary sex characteristics , while the other differences that develop during puberty are called secondary sex characteristics and stem from hormonal differences between the two sexes. In this difficult period of adolescents’ lives, boys generally acquire deeper voices, more body hair, and more muscles from their flowing testosterone. Girls develop breasts and wider hips and begin menstruating as nature prepares them for possible pregnancy and childbirth. For better or worse, these basic biological differences between the sexes affect many people’s perceptions of what it means to be female or male, as we shall soon discuss.

Gender as a Social Construction

If sex is a biological concept, then gender is a social concept. It refers to the social and cultural differences a society assigns to people based on their (biological) sex. A related concept, gender roles , refers to a society’s expectations of people’s behavior and attitudes based on whether they are females or males. Understood in this way, gender, like race as discussed in Chapter 7 “Deviance, Crime, and Social Control” , is a social construction . How we think and behave as females and males is not etched in stone by our biology but rather is a result of how society expects us to think and behave based on what sex we are. As we grow up, we learn these expectations as we develop our gender identity , or our beliefs about ourselves as females or males.

These expectations are called femininity and masculinity . Femininity refers to the cultural expectations we have of girls and women, while masculinity refers to the expectations we have of boys and men. A familiar nursery rhyme nicely summarizes these two sets of traits:

What are little boys made of?

Snips and snails,

And puppy dog tails,

That’s what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice,

And everything nice,

That’s what little girls are made of.

As this nursery rhyme suggests, our traditional notions of femininity and masculinity indicate that we think females and males are fundamentally different from each other. In effect, we think of them as two sides of the same coin of being human. What we traditionally mean by femininity is captured in the adjectives, both positive and negative, we traditionally ascribe to women: gentle, sensitive, nurturing, delicate, graceful, cooperative, decorative, dependent, emotional, passive, and weak. Thus when we say that a girl or woman is very feminine, we have some combination of these traits, usually the positive ones, in mind: she is soft, dainty, pretty, even a bit flighty. What we traditionally mean by masculinity is captured in the adjectives, again both positive and negative, our society traditionally ascribes to men: strong, assertive, brave, active, independent, intelligent, competitive, insensitive, unemotional, and aggressive. When we say that a boy or man is very masculine, we have some combination of these traits in mind: he is tough, strong, and assertive.

Infant girls traditionally wear pink, while infant boys wear blue. This color difference reflects the different cultural expectations we have for babies based on their (biological) sex.

Abby Bischoff – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

These traits might sound like stereotypes of females and males in today’s society, and to some extent they are, but differences between men and women in attitudes and behavior do in fact exist (Aulette, Wittner, & Blakeley, 2009). For example, women cry more often than men do. Men are more physically violent than women. Women take care of children more than men do. Women smile more often than men. Men curse more often than women. When women talk with each other, they are more likely to talk about their personal lives than men are when they talk with each other (Tannen, 2001). The two sexes even differ when they hold a cigarette (not that anyone should smoke). When a woman holds a cigarette, she usually has the palm of her cigarette-holding hand facing upward. When a man holds a cigarette, he usually has his palm facing downward.

Sexual Orientation

Sexual orientation refers to a person’s preference for sexual relationships with individuals of the other sex ( heterosexuality ), one’s own sex ( homosexuality ), or both sexes ( bisexuality ). The term also increasingly refers to transgendered individuals, those whose behavior, appearance, and/or gender identity fails to conform to conventional norms. Transgendered individuals include transvestites (those who dress in the clothing of the opposite sex) and transsexuals (those whose gender identity differs from the physiological sex and who sometimes undergo a sex change).

It is difficult to know precisely how many people are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered. One problem is conceptual. For example, what does it mean to be gay or lesbian? Does one need to actually have sexual relations with a same-sex partner to be considered gay? What if someone is attracted to same-sex partners but does not actually engage in sex with such persons? What if someone identifies as heterosexual but engages in homosexual sex for money (as in certain forms of prostitution) or for power and influence (as in much prison sex)? These conceptual problems make it difficult to determine the extent of homosexuality.

A second problem is empirical. Even if we can settle on a definition of homosexuality, how do we then determine how many people fit this definition? For better or worse, our best evidence of the number of gays and lesbians in the United States comes from surveys of national samples of Americans in which they are asked various questions about their sexuality. Although these are anonymous surveys, obviously at least some individuals may be reluctant to disclose their sexual activity and thoughts to an interviewer. Still, scholars think the estimates from these surveys are fairly accurate but that they probably underestimate by at least a small amount the number of gays and lesbians.

A widely cited survey carried out by researchers at the University of Chicago found that 2.8% of men and 1.4% of women identified themselves as gay/lesbian or bisexual, with greater percentages reporting having had sexual relations with same-sex partners or being attracted to same-sex persons (see Table 11.1 “Prevalence of Homosexuality in the United States” ). In the 2008 General Social Survey, 2.2% of men and 3.5% of women identified themselves as gay/lesbian or bisexual. Among individuals having had any sexual partners since turning 18, 2.2% of men reported having had at least some male partners, while 4.6% of women reported having had at least some female partners. Although precise numbers must remain unknown, it seems fair to say that between about 2% and 5% of Americans are gay/lesbian or bisexual.

Table 11.1 Prevalence of Homosexuality in the United States

Source: Data from Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., & Michaels, S. (1994). The social organization of sexuality . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

If it is difficult to determine the number of people who are gay/lesbian or bisexual, it is even more difficult to determine why some people have this sexual orientation while most do not have it. Scholars disagree on the “causes” of sexual orientation (Engle, McFalls, Gallagher, & Curtis, 2006; Sheldon, Pfeffer, Jayaratne, Feldbaum, & Petty, 2007). Some scholars attribute it to unknown biological factor(s) over which individuals have no control, just as individuals do not decide whether they are left-handed or right-handed. Supporting this view, many gays say they realized they were gay during adolescence, just as straights would say they realized they were straight during their own adolescence. Other scholars say that sexual orientation is at least partly influenced by cultural norms, so that individuals are more likely to identify as gay or straight depending on the cultural views of sexual orientation into which they are socialized as they grow up. At best, perhaps all we can say is that sexual orientation stems from a complex mix of biological and cultural factors that remain to be determined.

The Development of Gender Differences

What accounts for differences in female and male behavior and attitudes? Do the biological differences between the sexes account for other differences? Or do these latter differences stem, as most sociologists think, from cultural expectations and from differences in the ways in which the sexes are socialized? These are critical questions, for they ask whether the differences between boys and girls and women and men stem more from biology or from society. As Chapter 2 “Eye on Society: Doing Sociological Research” pointed out, biological explanations for human behavior implicitly support the status quo. If we think behavioral and other differences between the sexes are due primarily to their respective biological makeups, we are saying that these differences are inevitable or nearly so and that any attempt to change them goes against biology and will likely fail.

As an example, consider the obvious biological fact that women bear and nurse children and men do not. Couple this with the common view that women are also more gentle and nurturing than men, and we end up with a “biological recipe” for women to be the primary caretakers of children. Many people think this means women are therefore much better suited than men to take care of children once they are born, and that the family might be harmed if mothers work outside the home or if fathers are the primary caretakers. Figure 11.1 “Belief That Women Should Stay at Home” shows that more than one-third of the public agrees that “it is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.” To the extent this belief exists, women may not want to work outside the home or, if they choose to do so, they face difficulties from employers, family, and friends. Conversely, men may not even think about wanting to stay at home and may themselves face difficulties from employees, family, and friends if they want to do so. A belief in a strong biological basis for differences between women and men implies, then, that there is little we can or should do to change these differences. It implies that “anatomy is destiny,” and destiny is, of course, by definition inevitable.

Figure 11.1 Belief That Women Should Stay at Home

Agreement or disagreement with statement that “it is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.”

Source: Data from General Social Survey, 2008.

This implication makes it essential to understand the extent to which gender differences do, in fact, stem from biological differences between the sexes or, instead, stem from cultural and social influences. If biology is paramount, then gender differences are perhaps inevitable and the status quo will remain. If culture and social influences matter much more than biology, then gender differences can change and the status quo may give way. With this backdrop in mind, let’s turn to the biological evidence for behavioral and other differences between the sexes and then examine the evidence for their social and cultural roots.

Biology and Gender

Several biological explanations for gender roles exist, and we discuss two of the most important ones here. One explanation is from the related fields of sociobiology (see Chapter 2 “Eye on Society: Doing Sociological Research” ) and evolutionary psychology (Workman & Reader, 2009) and argues an evolutionary basis for traditional gender roles.

Scholars advocating this view reason as follows (Barash, 2007; Thornhill & Palmer, 2000). In prehistoric societies, few social roles existed. A major role centered on relieving hunger by hunting or gathering food. The other major role centered on bearing and nursing children. Because only women could perform this role, they were also the primary caretakers for children for several years after birth. And because women were frequently pregnant, their roles as mothers confined them to the home for most of their adulthood. Meanwhile, men were better suited than women for hunting because they were stronger and quicker than women. In prehistoric societies, then, biology was indeed destiny: for biological reasons, men in effect worked outside the home (hunted), while women stayed at home with their children.

Evolutionary reasons also explain why men are more violent than women. In prehistoric times, men who were more willing to commit violence against and even kill other men would “win out” in the competition for female mates. They thus were more likely than less violent men to produce offspring, who would then carry these males’ genetic violent tendencies. By the same token, men who were prone to rape women were more likely to produce offspring, who would then carry these males’ “rape genes.” This early process guaranteed that rape tendencies would be biologically transmitted and thus provided a biological basis for the amount of rape that occurs today.

If the human race evolved along these lines, sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists continue, natural selection favored those societies where men were stronger, braver, and more aggressive and where women were more fertile and nurturing. Such traits over the millennia became fairly instinctual, meaning that men’s and women’s biological natures evolved differently. Men became, by nature, more assertive, daring, and violent than women, and women are, by nature, more gentle, nurturing, and maternal than men. To the extent this is true, these scholars add, traditional gender roles for women and men make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, and attempts to change them go against the sexes’ biological natures. This in turn implies that existing gender inequality must continue because it is rooted in biology. As the title of a book presenting the evolutionary psychology argument summarizes this implication, “biology at work: rethinking sexual equality” (Browne, 2002).

According to some sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, today’s gender differences in strength and physical aggression are ultimately rooted in certain evolutionary processes that spanned millennia.

Vladimir Pustovit – Couple – CC BY 2.0.

Critics challenge the evolutionary explanation on several grounds (Hurley, 2007; Buller, 2006; Begley, 2009). First, much greater gender variation in behavior and attitudes existed in prehistoric times than the evolutionary explanation assumes. Second, even if biological differences did influence gender roles in prehistoric times, these differences are largely irrelevant in today’s world, in which, for example, physical strength is not necessary for survival. Third, human environments throughout the millennia have simply been too diverse to permit the simple, straightforward biological development that the evolutionary explanation assumes. Fourth, evolutionary arguments implicitly justify existing gender inequality by implying the need to confine women and men to their traditional roles.

Recent anthropological evidence also challenges the evolutionary argument that men’s tendency to commit violence, including rape, was biologically transmitted. This evidence instead finds that violent men have trouble finding female mates who would want them and that the female mates they find and the children they produce are often killed by rivals to the men. The recent evidence also finds those rapists’ children are often abandoned and then die. As one anthropologist summarizes the rape evidence, “The likelihood that rape is an evolved adaptation [is] extremely low. It just wouldn’t have made sense for men in the [prehistoric epoch] to use rape as a reproductive strategy, so the argument that it’s preprogrammed into us doesn’t hold up” (Begley, 2009, p. 54).

A second biological explanation for traditional gender roles centers on hormones and specifically on testosterone, the so-called male hormone. One of the most important differences between boys and girls and men and women in the United States and many other societies is their level of aggression. Simply put, males are much more physically aggressive than females and in the United States commit about 85%–90% of all violent crimes (see Chapter 7 “Deviance, Crime, and Social Control” ). Why is this so? As Chapter 7 “Deviance, Crime, and Social Control” pointed out, this gender difference is often attributed to males’ higher levels of testosterone (Mazur, 2009).

To see whether testosterone does indeed raise aggression, researchers typically assess whether males with higher testosterone levels are more aggressive than those with lower testosterone levels. Several studies find that this is indeed the case. For example, a widely cited study of Vietnam-era male veterans found that those with higher levels of testosterone had engaged in more violent behavior (Booth & Osgood, 1993). However, this correlation does not necessarily mean that their testosterone increased their violence: as has been found in various animal species, it is also possible that their violence increased their testosterone. Because studies of human males can’t for ethical and practical reasons manipulate their testosterone levels, the exact meaning of the results from these testosterone-aggression studies must remain unclear, according to a review sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences (Miczek, Mirsky, Carey, DeBold, & Raine, 1994).

Another line of research on the biological basis for sex differences in aggression involves children, including some as young as ages 1 or 2, in various situations (Card, Stucky, Sawalani, & Little, 2008). They might be playing with each other, interacting with adults, or writing down solutions to hypothetical scenarios given to them by a researcher. In most of these studies, boys are more physically aggressive in thought or deed than girls, even at a very young age. Other studies are more experimental in nature. In one type of study, a toddler will be playing with a toy, only to have it removed by an adult. Boys typically tend to look angry and try to grab the toy back, while girls tend to just sit there and whimper. Because these gender differences in aggression are found at very young ages, researchers often say they must have some biological basis. However, critics of this line of research counter that even young children have already been socialized along gender lines (Begley, 2009; Eliot, 2009), a point to which we return later. To the extent this is true, gender differences in children’s aggression may simply reflect socialization and not biology.

In sum, biological evidence for gender differences certainly exists, but its interpretation remains very controversial. It must be weighed against the evidence, to which we next turn, of cultural variations in the experience of gender and of socialization differences by gender. One thing is clear: to the extent we accept biological explanations for gender, we imply that existing gender differences and gender inequality must continue to exist. This implication prompts many social scientists to be quite critical of the biological viewpoint. As Linda L. Lindsey (2011, p. 52) notes, “Biological arguments are consistently drawn upon to justify gender inequality and the continued oppression of women.” In contrast, cultural and social explanations of gender differences and gender inequality promise some hope for change. Let’s examine the evidence for these explanations.

Culture and Gender

Some of the most compelling evidence against a strong biological determination of gender roles comes from anthropologists, whose work on preindustrial societies demonstrates some striking gender variation from one culture to another. This variation underscores the impact of culture on how females and males think and behave.

Margaret Mead (1935) was one of the first anthropologists to study cultural differences in gender. In New Guinea she found three tribes—the Arapesh, the Mundugumor, and the Tchambuli—whose gender roles differed dramatically. In the Arapesh both sexes were gentle and nurturing. Both women and men spent much time with their children in a loving way and exhibited what we would normally call maternal behavior. In the Arapesh, then, different gender roles did not exist, and in fact, both sexes conformed to what Americans would normally call the female gender role.

Margaret Mead made important contributions to the anthropological study of gender. Her work suggested that culture dramatically influences how females and males behave and that gender is rooted much more in culture than in biology.

U.S. Library of Congress – public domain.

The situation was the reverse among the Mundugumor. Here both men and women were fierce, competitive, and violent. Both sexes seemed to almost dislike children and often physically punished them. In the Mundugumor society, then, different gender roles also did not exist, as both sexes conformed to what we Americans would normally call the male gender role.

In the Tchambuli, Mead finally found a tribe where different gender roles did exist. One sex was the dominant, efficient, assertive one and showed leadership in tribal affairs, while the other sex liked to dress up in frilly clothes, wear makeup, and even giggle a lot. Here, then, Mead found a society with gender roles similar to those found in the United States, but with a surprising twist. In the Tchambuli, women were the dominant, assertive sex that showed leadership in tribal affairs, while men were the ones wearing frilly clothes and makeup.

Mead’s research caused a firestorm in scholarly circles, as it challenged the biological view on gender that was still very popular when she went to New Guinea. In recent years, Mead’s findings have been challenged by other anthropologists. Among other things, they argue that she probably painted an overly simplistic picture of gender roles in her three societies (Scheper-Hughes, 1987). Other anthropologists defend Mead’s work and note that much subsequent research has found that gender-linked attitudes and behavior do differ widely from one culture to another (Morgan, 1989). If so, they say, the impact of culture on what it means to be a female or male cannot be ignored.

Extensive evidence of this impact comes from anthropologist George Murdock, who created the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample of almost 200 preindustrial societies studied by anthropologists. Murdock (1937) found that some tasks in these societies, such as hunting and trapping, are almost always done by men, while other tasks, such as cooking and fetching water, are almost always done by women. These patterns provide evidence for the evolutionary argument presented earlier, as they probably stem from the biological differences between the sexes. Even so there were at least some societies in which women hunted and in which men cooked and fetched water.

More importantly, Murdock found much greater gender variation in several of the other tasks he studied, including planting crops, milking, and generating fires. Men primarily performed these tasks in some societies, women primarily performed them in other societies, and in still other societies both sexes performed them equally. Figure 11.2 “Gender Responsibility for Weaving” shows the gender responsibility for yet another task, weaving. Women are the primary weavers in about 61% of the societies that do weaving, men are the primary weavers in 32%, and both sexes do the weaving in 7% of the societies. Murdock’s findings illustrate how gender roles differ from one culture to another and imply they are not biologically determined.

Figure 11.2 Gender Responsibility for Weaving

Source: Data from Standard Cross-Cultural Sample.

Anthropologists since Mead and Murdock have continued to investigate cultural differences in gender. Some of their most interesting findings concern gender and sexuality (Morgan, 1989; Brettell & Sargent, 2009). Although all societies distinguish “femaleness” and “maleness,” additional gender categories exist in some societies. The Native Americans known as the Mohave, for example, recognize four genders: a woman, a woman who acts like a man, a man, and a man who acts like a woman. In some societies, a third, intermediary gender category is recognized. Anthropologists call this category the berdache , who is usually a man who takes on a woman’s role. This intermediary category combines aspects of both femininity and masculinity of the society in which it is found and is thus considered an androgynous gender. Although some people in this category are born as intersexed individuals (formerly known as hermaphrodites ), meaning they have genitalia of both sexes, many are born biologically as one sex or the other but adopt an androgynous identity.

An example of this intermediary gender category may be found in India, where the hirja role involves males who wear women’s clothing and identify as women (Reddy, 2006). The hirja role is an important part of Hindu mythology, in which androgynous figures play key roles both as humans and as gods. Today people identified by themselves and others as hirjas continue to play an important role in Hindu practices and in Indian cultural life in general. Serena Nanda (1997, pp. 200–201) calls hirjas “human beings who are neither man nor woman” and says they are thought of as “special, sacred beings” even though they are sometimes ridiculed and abused.

Anthropologists have found another androgynous gender composed of women warriors in 33 Native American groups in North America. Walter L. Williams (1997) calls these women “amazons” and notes that they dress like men and sometimes even marry women. In some tribes girls exhibit such “masculine” characteristics from childhood, while in others they may be recruited into “amazonhood.” In the Kaska Indians, for example, a married couple with too many daughters would select one to “be like a man.” When she was about 5 years of age, her parents would begin to dress her like a boy and have her do male tasks. Eventually she would grow up to become a hunter.

The androgynous genders found by anthropologists remind us that gender is a social construction and not just a biological fact. If culture does affect gender roles, socialization is the process through which culture has this effect. What we experience as girls and boys strongly influences how we develop as women and men in terms of behavior and attitudes. To illustrate this important dimension of gender, let’s turn to the evidence on socialization.

Socialization and Gender

Chapter 3 “Culture” identified several agents of socialization, including the family, peers, schools, the mass media, and religion. While that chapter’s discussion focused on these agents’ impact on socialization in general, ample evidence of their impact on gender-role socialization also exists. Such socialization helps boys and girls develop their gender identity (Andersen & Hysock, 2009).

Parents play with their daughters and sons differently. For example, fathers generally roughhouse more with their sons than with their daughters.

Jagrap – Roughhousing – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Socialization into gender roles begins in infancy, as almost from the moment of birth parents begin to socialize their children as boys or girls without even knowing it (Begley, 2009; Eliot, 2009). Many studies document this process (Lindsey, 2011). Parents commonly describe their infant daughters as pretty, soft, and delicate and their infant sons as strong, active, and alert, even though neutral observers find no such gender differences among infants when they do not know the infants’ sex. From infancy on, parents play with and otherwise interact with their daughters and sons differently. They play more roughly with their sons—for example, by throwing them up in the air or by gently wrestling with them—and more quietly with their daughters. When their infant or toddler daughters cry, they warmly comfort them, but they tend to let their sons cry longer and to comfort them less. They give their girls dolls to play with and their boys “action figures” and toy guns. While these gender differences in socialization are probably smaller now than a generation ago, they certainly continue to exist. Go into a large toy store and you will see pink aisles of dolls and cooking sets and blue aisles of action figures, toy guns, and related items.

Peer influences also encourage gender socialization. As they reach school age, children begin to play different games based on their gender (see the “Sociology Making a Difference” box). Boys tend to play sports and other competitive team games governed by inflexible rules and relatively large numbers of roles, while girls tend to play smaller, cooperative games such as hopscotch and jumping rope with fewer and more flexible rules. Although girls are much more involved in sports now than a generation ago, these gender differences in their play as youngsters persist and continue to reinforce gender roles. For example, they encourage competitiveness in boys and cooperation and trust among girls. Boys who are not competitive risk being called “sissy” or other words by their peers. The patterns we see in adult males and females thus have their roots in their play as young children (King, Miles, & Kniska, 1991).

Sociology Making a Difference

Gender Differences in Children’s Play and Games

In considering the debate, discussed in the text, between biology and sociology over the origins of gender roles, some widely cited studies by sociologists over gender differences in children’s play and games provide important evidence for the importance of socialization.

Janet Lever (1978) studied fifth-grade children in three different communities in Connecticut. She watched them play and otherwise interact in school and also had the children keep diaries of their play and games outside school. One of her central aims was to determine how complex the two sexes’ play and games were in terms of such factors as number of rules, specialization of roles, and size of the group playing. In all of these respects, Lever found that boys’ play and games were typically more complex than girls’ play and games. She attributed these differences to socialization by parents, teachers, and other adults and argued that the complexity of boys’ play and games helped them to be better able than girls to learn important social skills such as dealing with rules and coordinating actions to achieve goals.

Meanwhile, Barrie Thorne (1993) spent many months in two different working-class communities in California and Michigan observing fourth and fifth graders sit in class and lunchrooms and play on the school playgrounds. Most children were white, but several were African American or Latino. As you might expect, the girls and boys she observed usually played separately from each other, and the one-sex groups in which they played were very important for the development of their gender identity, with boys tending to play team sports and other competitive games and girls tending to play cooperative games such as jump rope. These differences led Thorne to conclude that gender-role socialization stems not only from practices by adults but also from the children’s own activities without adult involvement. When boys and girls did interact, it was often “girls against the boys” or vice versa in classroom spelling contests and in games such as tag. Thorne concluded that these “us against them” contests helped the children learn that boys and girls are two different and antagonistic sexes and that gender itself is antagonistic, even if there were also moments when both sexes interacted on the playground in more relaxed, noncompetitive situations. Boys also tended to disrupt girls’ games more than the reverse and in this manner both exerted and learned dominance over females. In all of these ways, children were not just the passive recipients of gender-role socialization from adults (their teachers), but they also played an active role in ensuring that such socialization occurred.

The studies by Lever and Thorne were among the first to emphasize the importance of children’s play and peer relationships for gender socialization. They also called attention to the importance of the traits and values learned through such socialization for outcomes later in life. The rise in team sports opportunities for girls in the years since Lever and Thorne did their research is a welcome development that addresses the concerns expressed in their studies, but young children continue to play in the ways that Lever and Thorne found. To the extent children’s play has the consequences just listed, and to the extent these consequences impede full gender inequality, these sociological studies suggest the need for teachers, parents, and other adults to help organize children’s play that is more egalitarian along the lines discussed by Lever, Thorne, and other scholars. In this way, their sociological work has helped to make a difference and promises to continue to do so.

School is yet another agent of gender socialization (Klein, 2007). First of all, school playgrounds provide a location for the gender-linked play activities just described to occur. Second, and perhaps more important, teachers at all levels treat their female and male students differently in subtle ways of which they are probably not aware. They tend to call on boys more often to answer questions in class and to praise them more when they give the right answer. They also give boys more feedback about their assignments and other school work (Sadker & Sadker, 1994). At all grade levels, many textbooks and other books still portray people in gender-stereotyped ways. It is true that the newer books do less of this than older ones, but the newer books still contain some stereotypes, and the older books are still used in many schools, especially those that cannot afford to buy newer volumes.

Women’s magazines reinforce the view that women need to be slender and wear many cosmetics in order to be considered beautiful.

Photo Editing Services Tucia.com – Glamour /Fashion Retouching by Tucia – CC BY 2.0.

Gender socialization also occurs through the mass media (Dow & Wood, 2006). On children’s television shows, the major characters are male. On Nickelodeon, for example, the very popular SpongeBob SquarePants is a male, as are his pet snail, Gary; his best friend, Patrick Star; their neighbor, Squidward Tentacles; and SpongeBob’s employer, Eugene Crabs. Of the major characters in Bikini Bottom, only Sandy Cheeks is a female. For all its virtues, Sesame Street features Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, and other male characters. Most of the Muppets are males, and the main female character, Miss Piggy, depicted as vain and jealous, is hardly an admirable female role model. As for adults’ prime-time television, more men than women continue to fill more major roles in weekly shows, despite notable women’s roles in shows such as The Good Wife and Grey’s Anatomy . Women are also often portrayed as unintelligent or frivolous individuals who are there more for their looks than for anything else. Television commercials reinforce this image (Yoder, Christopher, & Holmes, 2008). Cosmetics ads abound, suggesting not only that a major task for women is to look good but also that their sense of self-worth stems from looking good. Other commercials show women becoming ecstatic over achieving a clean floor or sparkling laundry. Judging from the world of television commercials, then, women’s chief goals in life are to look good and to have a clean house. At the same time, men’s chief goals, judging from many commercials, are to drink beer and drive cars.

Women’s and men’s magazines reinforce these gender images (Milillo, 2008). Most of the magazines intended for teenaged girls and adult women are filled with pictures of thin, beautiful models, advice on dieting, cosmetics ads, and articles on how to win and please your man. Conversely, the magazines intended for teenaged boys and men are filled with ads and articles on cars and sports, advice on how to succeed in careers and other endeavors, and pictures of thin, beautiful (and sometimes nude) women. These magazine images again suggest that women’s chief goals are to look good and to please men and that men’s chief goals are to succeed, win over women, and live life in the fast lane.

Another agent of socialization, religion, also contributes to traditional gender stereotypes. Many traditional interpretations of the Bible yield the message that women are subservient to men (Tanenbaum, 2009). This message begins in Genesis, where the first human is Adam, and Eve was made from one of his ribs. The major figures in the rest of the Bible are men, and women are for the most part depicted as wives, mothers, temptresses, and prostitutes; they are praised for their roles as wives and mothers and condemned for their other roles. More generally, women are constantly depicted as the property of men. The Ten Commandments includes a neighbor’s wife with his house, ox, and other objects as things not to be coveted (Exodus 20:17), and many biblical passages say explicitly that women belong to men, such as this one from the New Testament:

Wives be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22–24)

Several passages in the Old Testament justify the rape and murder of women and girls. The Koran, the sacred book of Islam, also contains passages asserting the subordinate role of women (Mayer, 2009).

This discussion suggests that religious people should believe in traditional gender views more than less religious people, and research confirms this relationship (Morgan, 1988). To illustrate this, Figure 11.3 “Frequency of Prayer and Acceptance of Traditional Gender Roles in the Family” shows the relationship in the General Social Survey between frequency of prayer and the view (seen first in Figure 11.1 “Belief That Women Should Stay at Home” ) that “it is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.” People who pray more often are more likely to accept this traditional view of gender roles.

Figure 11.3 Frequency of Prayer and Acceptance of Traditional Gender Roles in the Family

Percentage agreeing that “it is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.”

A Final Word on the Sources of Gender

Scholars in many fields continue to debate the relative importance of biology and of culture and socialization for how we behave and think as girls and boys and as women and men. The biological differences between females and males lead many scholars and no doubt much of the public to assume that masculinity and femininity are to a large degree biologically determined or at least influenced. In contrast, anthropologists, sociologists, and other social scientists tend to view gender as a social construction. Even if biology does matter for gender, they say, the significance of culture and socialization should not be underestimated. To the extent that gender is indeed shaped by society and culture, it is possible to change gender and to help bring about a society where both men and women have more opportunity to achieve their full potential.

Key Takeaways

• Sex is a biological concept, while gender is a social concept and refers to the social and cultural differences a society assigns to people based on their sex.
• Several biological explanations for gender roles exist, but sociologists think culture and socialization are more important sources of gender roles than biology.
• Families, schools, peers, the mass media, and religion are agents of socialization for the development of gender identity and gender roles.

For Your Review

• Write a short essay about one or two events you recall from your childhood that reflected or reinforced your gender socialization.
• Do you think gender roles are due more to biology or to culture and socialization? Explain your answer.

Andersen, M., & Hysock, D. (2009). Thinking about women: Sociological perspectives on sex and gender (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Aulette, J. R., Wittner, J., & Blakeley, K. (2009). Gendered worlds . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Barash, D. P. (2007). Natural selections: Selfish altruists, honest liars, and other realities of evolution . New York, NY: Bellevue Literary Press.

Begley, S. (2009, June 29). Don’t blame the caveman. Newsweek 52–62.

Begley, S. (2009, September 14). Pink brain, blue brain: Claims of sex differences fall apart. Newsweek 28.

Booth, A., & Osgood, D. W. (1993). The influence of testosterone on deviance in adulthood: Assessing and explaining the relationship. Criminology, 31 (1), 93–117.

Brettell, C. B., & Sargent, C. F. (Eds.). (2009). Gender in cross-cultural perspective (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Browne, K. (2002). Biology at work: Rethinking sexual equality . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Buller, D. J. (2006). Adapting minds: Evolutionary psychology and the persistent quest for human nature . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Card, N. A., Stucky, B. D., Sawalani, G. M., & Little, T. D. (2008). Direct and indirect aggression during childhood and adolescence: A meta-analytic review of gender differences, intercorrelations, and relations to maladjustment. Child Development, 79 (5), 1185–1229. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01184.x.

Dow, B. J., & Wood, J. T. (Eds.). (2006). The SAGE handbook of gender and communication . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Eliot, L. (2009). Pink brain, blue brain: How small differences grow into troublesome gaps—and what we can do about it . Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Engle, M. J., McFalls, J. A., Jr., Gallagher, B. J., III, & Curtis, K. (2006). The attitudes of American sociologists toward causal theories of male homosexuality. The American Sociologist, 37 (1), 68–67.

Hurley, S. (2007). Sex and the social construction of gender: Can feminism and evolutionary psychology be reconciled? In J. Browne (Ed.), The future of gender (pp. 98–115). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

King, W. C., Jr., Miles, E. W., & Kniska, J. (1991). Boys will be boys (and girls will be girls): The attribution of gender role stereotypes in a gaming situation. Sex Roles, 25 , 607–623.

Klein, S. S. (Ed.). (2007). Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Lever, J. (1978). Sex differences in the complexity of children’s play and games. American Sociological Review, 43 , 471–483.

Lindsey, L. L. (2011). Gender roles: A sociological perspective (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Mayer, A. E. (2009). Review of “Women, the Koran and international human rights law: The experience of Pakistan” [Book review]. Human Rights Quarterly, 31 (4), 1155–1158.

Mazur, A. (2009). Testosterone and violence among young men. In A. Walsh & K. M. Beaver (Eds.), Biosocial criminology: New directions in theory and research (pp. 190–204). New York, NY: Routledge.

Mead, M. (1935). Sex and temperament in three primitive societies . New York, NY: William Morrow.

Miczek, K. A., Mirsky, A. F., Carey, G., DeBold, J., & Raine, A. (1994). An overview of biological influences on violent behavior. In J. Albert, J. Reiss, K. A. Miczek, & J. A. Roth (Eds.), Understanding and preventing violence: Biobehavioral influences (Vol. 2, pp. 1–20). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Milillo, D. (2008). Sexuality sells: A content analysis of lesbian and heterosexual women’s bodies in magazine advertisements. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 12 (4), 381–392.

Morgan, M. (1988). The impact of religion on gender-role attitudes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 11 , 301–310.

Morgan, S. (Ed.). (1989). Gender and anthropology: Critical reviews for research and teaching . Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association.

Murdock, G. (1937). Comparative data on the division of labor by sex. Social Forces, 15 , 551–553.

Nanda, S. (1997). Neither man nor woman: The Hirjas of India. In C. B. Brettell & C. F. Sargent (Eds.), Gender in cross-cultural perspective (2nd ed., pp. 198–201). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Reddy, G. (2006). With respect to sex: Negotiating Hirja identity in South India . New Delhi, India: Yoda.

Sadker, M., & Sadker, D. (1994). Failing at fairness: How America’s schools cheat girls . New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s.

Scheper-Hughes, N. (1987). The Margaret Mead controversy: Culture, biology and anthropological inquiry. In H. Applebaum (Ed.), Perspectives in cultural anthropology (pp. 443–454). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Sheldon, J. P., Pfeffer, C. A., Jayaratne, T. E., Feldbaum, M., & Petty, E. M. (2007). Beliefs about the etiology of homosexuality and about the ramifications of discovering its possible genetic origin. Journal of Homosexuality, 52 (3/4), 111–150.

Tanenbaum, L. (2009). Taking back God: American women rising up for religious equality . New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation . New York, NY: Quill.

Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Thornhill, R., & Palmer, C. T. (2000). A natural history of rape: Biological bases of sexual coercion . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Williams, W. L. (1997). Amazons of America: Female gender variance. In C. B. Brettell & C. F. Sargent (Eds.), Gender in cross-cultural perspective (2nd ed., pp. 202–213). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Workman, L., & Reader, W. (2009). Evolutionary psychology (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Yoder, J. D., Christopher, J., & Holmes, J. D. (2008). Are television commercials still achievement scripts for women? Psychology of Women Quarterly, 32 (3), 303–311. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2008.00438.x.

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15.4: Development of Gender Identity

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From birth, children are assigned a gender and are socialized to conform to certain gender roles based on their biological sex. “ Sex ,” refers to physical or physiological differences between males, females, and intersex persons, including both their primary and secondary sex characteristics. “ Gender ,” on the other hand, refers to social or cultural distinctions associated with a given sex.

When babies are born, they are assigned a gender based on their biological sex—male babies are assigned as boys, female babies are assigned as girls, and intersex babies are born with sex characteristics that do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies, and are usually relegated into one gender category or another. Scholars generally regard gender as a social construct , meaning that it doesn’t exist naturally but is instead a concept that is created by cultural and societal norms. From birth, children are socialized to conform to certain gender roles based on their biological sex and the gender to which they are assigned.22

A person’s subjective experience of their own gender and how it develops, or gender identity , is a topic of much debate. It is the extent to which one identifies with a particular gender; it is a person’s individual sense and subjective experience of being a man, a woman, or other gender. It is often shaped early in life and consists primarily of the acceptance (or non-acceptance) of one’s membership into a gender category. In most societies, there is a basic division between gender attributes assigned to males and females. In all societies, however, some individuals do not identify with some (or all) of the aspects of gender that are assigned to their biological sex.

Those that identify with the gender that corresponds to the sex assigned to them at birth (for example, they are assigned female at birth and continue to identify as a girl, and later a woman) are called cisgender . In many Western cultures, individuals who identify with a gender that is different from their biological sex (for example, they are assigned female at birth but feel inwardly that they are a boy or a gender other than a girl) are called transgender . Some transgender individuals, if they have access to resources and medical care, choose to alter their bodies through medical interventions such as surgery and hormonal therapy so that their physical being is better aligned with their gender identity.

Recent terms such as “genderqueer,” “genderfluid,” “gender variant,” “androgynous,” “agender,” and “gender nonconforming” are used by individuals who do not identify within the gender binary as either a man or a woman. Instead they identify as existing somewhere along a spectrum or continuum of genders, or outside of the spectrum altogether, often in a way that is continuously evolving.

The Gender Continuum

Viewing gender as a continuum allows us to perceive the rich diversity of genders, from trans-and cisgender to gender queer and agender. Most Western societies operate on the idea that gender is a binary , that there are essentially only two genders (men and women) based on two sexes (male and female), and that everyone must fit one or the other. This social dichotomy enforces conformance to the ideals of masculinity and femininity in all aspects of gender and sex—gender identity, gender expression, and biological sex.

According to supporters of queer theory , gender identity is not a rigid or static identity but can continue to evolve and change over time. Queer theory developed in response to the perceived limitations of the way in which identities are thought to become consolidated or stabilized (for instance, gay or straight) and theorists constructed queerness in an attempt to resist this. In this way, the theory attempts to maintain a critique rather than define a specific identity. While “queer” defies a simple definition, the term is often used to convey an identity that is not rigidly developed but is instead fluid and changing. 24

The Genderbread Person

In 2012, Sam Killerman created the Genderbread Person as an infographic to break down gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual orientation. 25 In 2018, he updated it to version 2.0 to be more accurate, and inclusive. 26

Gender Pronouns

Pronouns are a part of language used to refer to someone or something without using proper nouns. In standard English, some singular third-person pronouns are "he" and "she," which are usually seen as gender-specific pronouns, referring to a man and a woman, respectively. A gender-neutral pronoun or gender-inclusive pronoun is one that gives no implications about gender, and could be used for someone of any gender.

Some languages only have gender-neutral pronouns, whereas other languages have difficulty establishing any that aren't gender-specific. People with non-binary gender identities often choose new third-person pronouns for themselves as part of their transition. They often choose gender-neutral pronouns so that others won't see them as female or male. 28

Here is a table based on the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife’s Handy Guide to Pronouns:

Factors that Influence Gender Identity

Although the formation of gender identity is not completely understood, many factors have been suggested as influencing its development. Biological factors that may influence gender identity include pre- and post-natal hormone levels and genetic makeup. Social factors include ideas regarding gender roles conveyed by family, authority figures, mass media, and other influential people in a child’s life. According to social-learning theory, children develop their gender identity through observing and imitating the gender-linked behaviors of others; they are then “rewarded” for imitating the behaviors of people of the same gender and “punished” for imitating the behaviors of another gender. For example, male children will often be rewarded for imitating their father’s love of baseball but punished or redirected in some way if they imitate their older sister’s love of dolls. Children are shaped and molded by the people surrounding them, who they try to imitate and follow.

Gender Roles

The term “gender role” refers to society’s concept of how men and women are expected to act. As we grow, we learn how to behave from those around us. In this socialization process, children are introduced to certain roles that are typically linked to their biological sex. The term “gender role” refers to society’s concept of how men and women are expected to act and behave. Gender roles are based on norms, or standards, created by society. In American culture, masculine roles have traditionally been associated with strength, aggression, and dominance, while feminine roles have traditionally been associated with passivity, nurturing, and subordination.

Gender Socialization

The socialization process in which children learn these gender roles begins at birth. Today, our society is quick to outfit male infants in blue and girls in pink, even applying these color-coded gender labels while a baby is in the womb. It is interesting to note that these color associations with gender have not always been what they are today. Up until the beginning of the 20th century, pink was actually more associated with boys, while blue was more associated with girls—illustrating how socially constructed these associations really are.

Gender socialization occurs through four major agents: family, education, peer groups, and mass media. Each agent reinforces gender roles by creating and maintaining normative expectations for gender-specific behavior. Exposure also occurs through secondary agents, such as religion and the workplace. Repeated exposure to these agents over time leads people into a false sense that they are acting naturally based on their gender rather than following a socially constructed role.

Gender Stereotypes, Sexism, and Gender-Role Enforcement

The attitudes and expectations surrounding gender roles are not typically based on any inherent or natural gender differences, but on gender stereotypes , or oversimplified notions about the attitudes, traits, and behavior patterns of males and females. We engage in gender stereotyping when we do things like making the assumption that a teenage babysitter is female.

While it is somewhat acceptable for women to take on a narrow range of masculine characteristics without repercussions (such as dressing in traditionally male clothing), men are rarely able to take on more feminine characteristics (such as wearing skirts) without the risk of harassment or violence. This threat of punishment for stepping outside of gender norms is especially true for those who do not identify as male or female.

Gender stereotypes form the basis of sexism or the prejudiced beliefs that value males over females. Common forms of sexism in modern society include gender-role expectations, such as expecting women to be the caretakers of the household. Sexism also includes people’s expectations of how members of a gender group should behave. For example, girls and women are expected to be friendly, passive, and nurturing; when she behaves in an unfriendly or assertive manner, she may be disliked or perceived as aggressive because she has violated a gender role (Rudman, 1998). In contrast, a boy or man behaving in a similarly unfriendly or assertive way might be perceived as strong or even gain respect in some circumstances. 31

Contributors and Attributions

24. Boundless Psychology - Gender and Sexuality references Curation and Revision by Boundless Psychology, which is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

25. The Genderbread Person by Sam Killermann is in the public domain

26. The Genderbread Person v2.0 by Sam Killermann is in the public domain

28. Pronouns by Nonbinary Wiki is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

31. Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

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• A Changing World: Global Views on Diversity, Gender Equality, Family Life and the Importance of Religion
• 2. How people around the world view gender equality in their countries

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• 1. How people around the world view diversity in their countries
• 3. How people around the world view religion’s role in their countries
• 4. How people around the world view family ties in their countries
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Organizations that track gender equality across a variety of outcomes related to health, economics, politics and education – such as the United Nations Development Program and the World Economic Forum – find widespread inequality. For example, women account for less than half of the labor force globally, and few nations have ever had a female leader .

In their most recent Global Gender Gap report , the World Economic Forum projects that it will take more than a century to close the current gender gap in the countries it covers. Yet, overall trends show increasing gender equality in many countries.

People around the world seem cognizant of these changes in their own country. Majorities in 23 of the 27 countries surveyed believe that equality between men and women in their country has increased in the past two decades.

The countries with the highest and lowest shares saying gender equality has increased can both be found in Europe. In Sweden – one of the most egalitarian countries in Europe, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality – 80% say equality has increased in the past two decades. Hungarians, however, have seen much less positive change in their country, which is one of the European Union’s least egalitarian nations, according to the same source. Fewer than a third of Hungarians (29%) believe gender equality has increased in their society.

Many in the Asia-Pacific region view their countries as becoming more egalitarian, including roughly three-quarters of Indonesians (77%), Indians (76%), Australians (75%) and South Koreans (74%). A majority of Japanese also hold this view, though 34% say there has been no change in the past two decades. Filipinos are divided, however. Fewer than half (46%) believe men and women have become more equal in their country, while the same share believes there has been no change.

In some countries, perceptions of gender equality vary by gender. In many of the countries surveyed, men are more likely than women to say that their countries have become more egalitarian. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to say there has been no change in most of these countries.

Widespread positive attitudes toward increasing gender equality

Many are in favor of the move toward greater gender equality that publics believe is happening in their countries. Respondents were classified as favoring increasing equality if they either believed gender equality was increasing and viewed this as a good thing for the country, or felt gender equality was decreasing and saw this as bad.

Again, Sweden and Hungary stand out among the nations surveyed. A large majority of Swedes (82%) favor increasing gender equality in their country. By comparison, only 29% of Hungarians agree. This share is relatively low in part because of the large number of Hungarians who say there has been no change in their country (46%), which does not allow us to categorize their view of changing gender equality. Yet, almost two-in-ten oppose increasing gender equality in their society, one of the highest shares among the countries surveyed.

Tunisians are the most likely among those surveyed to oppose growing gender equality in their country. Just under a third either say increasing gender equality is a bad thing or that decreasing gender equality is a good thing.

In about half of the countries surveyed, younger adults are more likely to favor increasing gender equality than adults ages 50 and older.

In Greece, 71% of people ages 18 to 29 approve of greater equality in their society, compared with 49% of people 50 and older. A similarly large age difference is found in the Philippines, where 53% of young adults but only 33% of older adults favor more equality between men and women.

In South Korea, this pattern is reversed; older adults are more likely than younger adults to approve of increased equality.

Attitudes toward increasing gender parity also differ by educational attainment. In 21 countries, people with more education are more likely than those with less education to favor growing equality.

This difference is especially pronounced in Argentina and Mexico. For example, 81% of Argentines with a postsecondary education favor greater gender equality, compared with 58% of Argentines with a secondary education or below.

Differences by education can also be found in the U.S., Canada, and all European countries surveyed.

There are few ideological differences in support for greater gender equality, but in Sweden and France – two countries with strong support overall – some partisan differences emerge. People who hold a favorable view of France’s National Rally are less likely to favor increasing gender parity (64%) than those with an unfavorable view of the party (76%). Similarly, people with a favorable opinion of the far-right Sweden Democrats (76%) are less likely than people with an unfavorable opinion (85%) to approve of gender equality, though support is generally high among both groups.

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How has the role of women changed over the last 50 years?

Women's representation in Congress and participation in the workforce has grown, but disparities still exist at home and elsewhere.

Updated on Thu, August 17, 2023 by the USAFacts Team

Societal structures change from generation to generation, leading to changes in the roles women play in politics and the workforce, and childrearing. But how has women's participation in different sectors of American society changed over the last 50 years?

Are more women serving in Congress?

In the past four decades, women’s representation in Congress has increased substantially. Women now make up a quarter of members of Congress, which is more than double the number who served in the 106th Congress of 1999 to 2001.

Women held 150 seats in the 117th Congress, which spanned January 3, 2021, to January 3, 2023, making up about 25% of Congress. Even though women’s participation in Congress is up 56% from a decade prior, to reach representation proportional with the population, that number would need to double.

Read more about women’s participation in Congress.

Has women’s participation in the workforce increased?

Women’s labor force participation rate grew from 34% in 1950 to 60% in 2000, and is expected to 0.7% per year through 2050. This figure, however, varies among different demographic groups.

Despite Congress passing the Equal Pay Act in 1963, a wage gap remains. In 2020, women earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . Even with educational advancements and entry into higher-paying fields, women tend to be more represented in lower-paying sectors.

For instance, 77% of public elementary and secondary school teachers were women in the 2020–2021 school year.

Even though 95% of elementary, middle and high school teachers have a bachelor’s degree or higher, their pay was lower than that of their similarly educated peers. Average earnings were $53,800 for elementary and middle school teachers, and $57,840 for high school teachers. To compare, biological scientists earn $69,880, urban and regional planners earn $79,790, and statisticians earn $96,320.

Read about women’s income and teacher salary .

How do women balance work and childcare?

Data indicates that mothers are four times more likely than fathers to miss work due to childcare , a trend that has continued even as women’s increasing participation in the workforce. Issues such as paid parental leave complicate this picture. Although the Family and Medical Leave Act mandates a 12-week parental leave for many employees, it does not require that this leave be paid. Recent data shows that 89% of workers had access only to unpaid family and medical leave .

Read more about how men and women use time differently .

Women’s roles in the United States— in political arenas, the workforce, and at home—have experienced significant shifts over the decades. As women’s representation in Congress has grown, so has their participation in the labor force. But, while some disparities shrink, others persist. Understanding the data behind these trends can add context to gender roles and inform debate and policy on future equity initiatives.

There’s a lot more where this came from: learn more in this interview between USAFacts’ Sasha Anderson and News Not Noise’s Jessica Yellin. Then see the differences in how men and women spend their time differently, and get the latest data by signing up for our newsletter .

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Male and Female Roles in Human Society Essay

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The role of a man and a woman in human society has been a burning question since human society appeared. Many researchers from different scientific fields devote much time and effort to the study of gender roles in society in general and in separate communities as well. The present paper is devoted to the analysis of the article under the title “Male Space and Female Space within the Provencal Community” by Lucienne Roubin.

In the introduction to the article, the authoress offers a brief description of her research, she acquaints the audience with her methodology, and it is as follows: “direct observation, archival research, and comparative methodology” (Roubin 152). It is possible to state at once that the methods used by Roubin can be characterized as objective, reliable, diverse, and scientifically proven. She also states the brief results of her study, mentioning two forms in the institution under study, French province of Provence. They are the traditional form and the present-day form. Ruben promises to analyze the second form to trace the evolution of male society in order to clarify the mechanisms of its existence and development.

The author makes use of a subheading “Two Universes”, describing the enormous gap between male and female components of society that are so detached from each other. Among the main components of male space in Provence, Roubin mentions wine cellars as male domain that has remained till nowadays (154). Other components of male space are the village square and the church chancel. The latter is, evidently, appropriated by men unfairly as the primary function of the church is to unite all village dwellers instead of separating them. The village square is described by the author as “the very heart of male space” (Roubin 154). Women are allowed to cross it but they never stop to have a talk. There is a tendency of weakening of male space as it spreads out from the village square. For instance, if the fields are considered to be male space as well, women are allowed to enter it as they provide necessary help for men. In Provencal village, they stress the municipal male role more than the agrarian one (Roubin 156). Still, it seems that the author’s explanation of the attitude of a man and land seems difficult and needs a deeper explanation.

A separate section of the article is devoted to the concept of female space. In comparison with male space, this one is, evidently, narrower and more cohesive. An interesting idea is offered by the author who states that there is certain discrepancy between patterns of female behavior and the real conduct of women. She ascribes this discrepancy to the gender of ethnologists, who are preferably male. Thus, legally a woman was presented as a minor individual guided by male authority (father, husband). In fact, the status of a woman depended on land ownership and a husband and a wife often were in relationship of cooperation and competition instead of subordination.

Roubin contrasts two “universes” of the Provencal citizens based on their cohesiveness. The space of women is dominated by them only; women observe the rules and etiquette typical of their villages (Roubin 157), though these groups were temporary and flexible. Besides, a peasant’s house was also controlled by women as they were the sovereigns of the kitchen that used to be the central room in a house. We have mentioned the church chancel earlier as the realm of men, there was also a special space in a church that belonged to female space and there was a strict hierarchy among women and places they occupied. If fields were parts of male territory, gardens were female space.

The fact that a woman was a mother contributed to the extension of her space. In fact, it was not extension exactly; it can be described as the strengthening of her role in a house. The authoress equates the kitchen to the village square, making them two centers of the analyzed spaces. In this relation, the detachment of chamberette-clubs for women and their appreciation by men become absolutely evident.

As the author suggests, the separation of the spaces needed some points of contact and there were special occasions and officers to oversee them. Roubin singles out the groups on the basis of age distinction, mentioning the election of the Abbot. Among his chief duties, she mentions the collection of the pelote, “a fee imposed upon all newlyweds” (Roubin 163). She traces the presence of the remnants of this fee collection in contemporary Provence. Among other duties of the abbot was the preparation of the annual patron saint’s day. The signs of this officer can be observed nowadays as well under the name the Feast Committee (Roubin 165). Women also had the counterpart of the Abbot, the Abbess. The young woman was influential in community but her authority was not so strong as the Abbots.

The authoress devotes a separate section to the newlyweds, explaining this by their intermediate status between the youth and the adult citizens. The main focus of the section is on the male participants of the rituals. Newlyweds were to pay special tribute as it has been mentioned above already and the town captain collected it. Still, one more principal function of the heads of the families and the town captain was the defense of the town and the performance of the rituals of hospitality. The bravade reflected the social stratification of the town and it was controlled by the town captain. Due to the status of the house as the realm of a woman, there was no such festival controlled by them. However, we think that there was no necessity of such a festival since defense of the village was, evidently, the duty of male citizens.

Roubin also dwells on the veneration of tutelary powers as the necessary element of the culture of Provencal community that has survived up to the present. Still, the author’s motivation for its detailed study is not very clear. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the description is that the veneration was a part of male universe.

The last but one section of the article provides necessary information concerning the festivals as the means of integration of the whole community. Roubin states that “free competition transcends family ties and unites the town in its admiration of the victors” (177). Finally, the main idea of the final section is that the chief function of village festivals was to unite all members of community together, to establish the link between the sexes.

The language of the article and the manner of presentation of the material by the author are accessible, the subsequent sections explain the concepts that seem difficult at first, so that by the end of the article the authors’ idea is absolutely clear.

As for the personal examples of the concepts used by the author, it is necessary to mention that female space in our community has much in common with the female space in Provencal region. This can be explained by the primary role of a woman in society: she is a mother; her primary duties are to give birth to children and to bring them up by our religious traditions. However, there is a difference between the status of the house in its relation to women. According to Islamic traditions, the private part of a house is the realm of a woman while the public part is male space. Still, there is a segregation of society into two spaces, male and female. Men perform the same functions as Provencal men do: they should defend and support their families.

Concluding, it is possible to state that the spaces of a man and a woman have been determined historically in many cultures. Certainly, marriage and traditions are the factors that constitute the points of intersection of female and male spaces.

Works Cited

Roubin, Lucienne. “Male Space and Female Space within the Provencal Community.” Rural Society in France . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977: 152-180.

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IvyPanda. (2021, December 10). Male and Female Roles in Human Society. https://ivypanda.com/essays/male-and-female-roles-in-human-society/

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IvyPanda . (2021) 'Male and Female Roles in Human Society'. 10 December.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Male and Female Roles in Human Society." December 10, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/male-and-female-roles-in-human-society/.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Male and Female Roles in Human Society." December 10, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/male-and-female-roles-in-human-society/.

Gender Roles in Society Essay

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Essay on Gender Roles in Society

Students are often asked to write an essay on Gender Roles in Society in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Gender Roles in Society

Understanding gender roles.

Gender roles refer to societal expectations of behaviors, attitudes, and activities traditionally associated with males and females. They are shaped by cultural, historical, and social contexts.

Gender Roles in Different Cultures

Cultures worldwide have diverse gender roles. In some, men are seen as breadwinners while women manage home. In others, roles are more balanced, promoting equality.

Changing Gender Roles

Modern society is witnessing a shift in gender roles. Women are increasingly participating in professional fields, while men share domestic responsibilities.

Understanding gender roles is crucial for creating an equal society. It’s important to respect individual choices and promote flexibility in roles.

250 Words Essay on Gender Roles in Society

Introduction.

Gender roles, the societal expectations and norms associated with one’s sex, have been integral in shaping human behavior and interactions. These roles have been subject to significant changes over time, reflecting the evolving understanding of gender and its impact on society.

The Traditional View

Historically, gender roles were distinctly defined. Men were primarily seen as breadwinners, expected to provide for their families, while women were relegated to the domestic sphere, tasked with child-rearing and household chores. These roles were deeply ingrained, limiting individual potential and perpetuating gender inequality.

Modern Perspectives

In contemporary society, the perception of gender roles has undergone a paradigm shift. The feminist movement, LGBTQ+ rights activism, and increased awareness about gender diversity have challenged traditional norms. Men are now more involved in child-rearing and household tasks, and women have made significant strides in professional fields. Yet, gender-based stereotypes and biases persist, influencing career choices, income levels, and social interactions.

Impact of Evolving Gender Roles

The evolution of gender roles has profound implications for society. It fosters diversity, promotes equality, and allows individuals to explore their potentials beyond traditional confines. However, it also presents challenges, such as resistance to change and the struggle for identity.

Gender roles in society are not static but evolve with cultural, economic, and technological shifts. The challenge lies in fostering a society that acknowledges and respects this diversity, ensuring equal opportunities for all, irrespective of gender.

500 Words Essay on Gender Roles in Society

Gender roles are socially constructed and culturally specific norms that dictate the behavioral expectations of men and women in a society. These roles, deeply entrenched within the social fabric, profoundly influence individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, and identities.

The Evolution of Gender Roles

Historically, societies have been predominantly patriarchal, with gender roles strictly delineated. Men were typically associated with the public sphere – working, providing for the family, and making decisions, while women were confined to the private sphere – caring for children, managing the household, and nurturing relationships. However, the feminist movements of the 20th century challenged these stereotypes, advocating for gender equality and women’s rights.

In contemporary society, we are witnessing a shift in gender roles, with an increasing number of women entering the workforce and men partaking in household chores and child-rearing. Despite these changes, traditional gender roles persist, subtly influencing our perceptions and expectations.

Impact of Gender Roles on Society

Gender roles exert a significant influence on societal structures and individual lives. They contribute to gender inequality, limiting the opportunities and potential of individuals based on their gender. For instance, traditional roles often stereotype women as emotional and men as rational, influencing career choices and opportunities, and perpetuating wage gaps.

Moreover, these roles perpetuate harmful stereotypes, impacting mental health. The stereotype of men as strong and unemotional can lead to toxic masculinity, suppressing men’s emotional expression and promoting aggression. Similarly, the ideal of women as caregivers can limit their personal and professional growth.

Challenging Gender Roles

Challenging and reshaping gender roles is crucial for societal progress. Encouraging a culture that values individual capabilities over gender stereotypes can foster equality. Education plays a vital role in this process, promoting critical thinking about gender norms and fostering an understanding of gender as a social construct.

Additionally, media can play a significant role in challenging gender roles. By representing diverse gender identities and roles, media can help break stereotypes and promote a more inclusive understanding of gender.

In conclusion, gender roles, deeply embedded in our society, significantly shape our lives and experiences. While we have made strides towards equality, traditional gender roles continue to persist. Therefore, it is crucial to continually challenge these norms, fostering a society that values individuals for their capabilities and potential, rather than their gender. Through education and media, we can facilitate this shift, promoting a more inclusive, equal, and diverse society.

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Role of Men and Women in Society

How it works

Both men and women are constrained by the binary gender system. Men and women are labeled in society. Men are made to prove themselves in society. To show just how powerful they are and that they are expected to do more than women. Society label men as independent people. That they do not need help from other people especially women. In the binary system the masculine side is valued whereas the feminism side is undervalued. The hierarchy favores men over women.

Because of the foundation of hierarchy, men had a dominance over women.Men were able to control and objectify women. Men could set their dominance over women and see them as just sex toys.

In the hierarchy Women are able to do whatever they want but it comes at a price. Meaning they have to behave as a well-proper-raised women in society, need to be dependent on men’s privilege and power. Out in society they still have to listen to men even those that are not their husbands and fathers. The hierarchy not only favors men and devalues feminism but it makes it so that masculinity is better than feminism. Masculinity has always been proven that it is better than feminism. Society believed that only males were able to get jobs, make payments, give direct orders to others. Especially the men that grew up in higher class in society. Because of this it creates a rift between feminism and masculinity. Women are able to do masculine traits. Such as jobs, clothes, and activities. In some cases women were able to lift 30 lbs, get jobs in the government,become doctors, nurses. The big job that women had was flight attendants in planes, but the downfall on that job was once they were 30 they were fired. They were only hired because of their looks. But for men they are only able to do masculine things and if women take over they have to find something else that is seemed masculine.

In contemporary American society, men are encouraged to avoid femininity and women are strongly encouraged to embrace both femininity and masculinity. Women used three phenomenon to help them. Those phenomenon are called Emphasized Femininity, Emphasized Sameness and Gender Equivocation. Emphasized femininity is that men have more power and resources than women. Emphasized sameness is when women try to be “one of the guys”. A way for women to gain more power as an individual and society. The last one is Gender equivocation. Gender equivocation is when women alternate between emphasized femininity and emphasized sameness. Women normally used gender equivocation because gender equivocation incorporated both the femininity and sameness when it was needed and culturally expected.

The three examples helped women to stand up and show that they can act and be just like men. They have proved that labels have no meaning and no power over them. Women used all three to get what they wanted. Which was being able to be “one of the guys” and get the power as both an individual and as a group. The biggest example that helped women embrace both femininity and masculinity was gender equivocation. Gender equivocation helped women to be something that at the time was hard to achieve. Because of gender equivocation women were able to gain power, respect, responsibility and choice. They had the choice if they wanted to have kids and have a family or have a job and not starting a family. It was a big change for women when they started gaining what they were pushing for.

Women make patriarchal bargains in order to maximize their autonomy to reduce sexism, androcentrism, and subordination. Whereas men make bargains to some degree in the masculine hierarchy. Women used gender equivocation to prove that they were “one of the guys”.”

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Role of Men and Women in Society. (2020, Mar 13). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/role-of-men-and-women-in-society/

"Role of Men and Women in Society." PapersOwl.com , 13 Mar 2020, https://papersowl.com/examples/role-of-men-and-women-in-society/

PapersOwl.com. (2020). Role of Men and Women in Society . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/role-of-men-and-women-in-society/ [Accessed: 4 Jun. 2024]

"Role of Men and Women in Society." PapersOwl.com, Mar 13, 2020. Accessed June 4, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/role-of-men-and-women-in-society/

"Role of Men and Women in Society," PapersOwl.com , 13-Mar-2020. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/role-of-men-and-women-in-society/. [Accessed: 4-Jun-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2020). Role of Men and Women in Society . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/role-of-men-and-women-in-society/ [Accessed: 4-Jun-2024]

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