Chapter 4

Gender and Family

Chapter Outline

• Understanding Gender and Gender Roles• Gender and Gender Socialization• How Family Matters: Learning Gender Roles• Gender Matters in Family Experiences • Constraints of Contemporary Gender Roles• Gender Movements and the Family

True or False?

• The only universal feature of gender is that all societies sort people into only two categories.

False

• In some cultures, there are more than two gender categories.

• Among some Asian and Native American societies, for example, men or women become berdaches. – They then live as members of the opposite sex.

• The Hua of Papua, New Guinea, perceive gender as fluid, capable of changing over the individual’s life span.

• In other societies, alternative categories (for example, the Hjira of India) are socially recognized for individuals who are neither male nor female.

True or False?

• Parents are not always aware that they treat their sons and daughters differently.

True

• Most parents are not aware that they treat their sons and daughters differently because of their gender.

• Although parents may recognize that they respond differently to sons than to daughters, they usually have a ready explanation—the “natural” differences in the temperament and behavior of girls and boys.

• Parents may also believe that they adjust their responses to each particular child’s personality.

Gender Roles

• A gender role is the role a person is expected to perform as a result of being male or female in a particular culture.

• Gender-role stereotypes are beliefs that males and females, as a result of their sex, possess distinct psychological and behavioral traits.

Gender Roles

• Gender role attitudes are beliefs regarding appropriate male and female personality traits and activities.

• Gender role behaviors are actual activities or behaviors that we or others engage in as males and females.

• Gender identity refers to being male or female.

Gender Roles and Jobs

• Even sex-segregated jobs such as nursing and firefighting can be performed by either gender.

Gender Differences

• Men and women are more similar than different.

• Innate gender differences are generally minimal.

• Differences are encouraged by socialization.• Within any society there are multiple versions

of masculinity and femininity, one of which comes to dominate our thinking about gender.

Bipolar Gender Role

• The dominant model used to explain male–female differences.

• In this model, males and females are seen as polar opposites, with males possessing exclusively instrumental traits and females possessing exclusively expressive ones.

Traditional Views of Masculinity and Femininity: Implications

1. If a person differs from the male or female stereotype, he or she is seen as being more like the other gender.

2. Because males and females are perceived as opposites, they cannot share the same traits or qualities.

3. Males and females are believed to have little in common with each other, and a “war of the sexes” is alleged as the norm.

The Wage Gap by Gender and Race

Year White men Black menHispanic

men

1970 100% 69 NA

1975 100 74.3 72.1

1980 100 70.7 70.8

1985 100 69.7 68

1990 100 73.1 66.3

1995 100 75.9 63.3

2000 100 78.2 63.4

2003 100 78.2 63.3

The Wage Gap by Gender and Race

YearWhite

womenBlack

womenHispanic women

1970 58.7 48.2 NA

1975 57.5 55.4 49.3

1980 58.9 55.7 50.5

1985 63 57.1 52.1

1990 69.4 62.5 54.3

1995 71.2 64.2 53.4

2000 72.2 64.6 52.8

2003 75.6 65.4 54.3

Gender Theory

• The idea that social relationships are based on socially perceived differences between males and females that justify unequal power relationships.

• Focuses on – How specific behaviors or roles are defined as

male or female.– How labor is divided into man’s work and woman’s

work, both at home and in the workplace.– How different institutions bestow advantages on

men.

Social Learning Theory

• Emphasizes learning behaviors from others through rewards and punishments and modeling.

• This approach has been modified to include cognitive processes, such as the use of language, the anticipation of consequences, and observation.

Modeling

• Playing “dress up” is one way children model the characteristics and behaviors of adults. It is part of the process of learning

• what is appropriate for someone of their gender.

Cognitive Development Theory

• Asserts that once children learn gender is permanent, they independently strive to act like “proper” boys or girls because of an internal need for congruence.

How Parents Socialize Children

Four very subtle processes:• Manipulation • Channeling • Verbal appellation• Activity exposure

Childhood Gender Socialization

• Generally, daughters are given more responsibilities than are sons.

Gender Role Socialization

• Parents, teachers, and peers are important agents of socialization during childhood and adolescence.

• Ethnicity and social class also influence gender roles.

Traditional Male Roles

• Emphasis is on dominance and work, whether for whites, African Americans, Latinos, or Asian Americans.

• A man’s central family role has been viewed as being the provider.

• For women, there is greater role diversity according to ethnicity.

Contemporary Male Gender Roles

• As contemporary male gender roles allow increasing expressiveness, men are encouraged to nurture their children.

Traditional Female Roles

• Among middle-class whites the emphasis is on being a wife and mother.

• Among African Americans, women are expected to be instrumental; there is no conflict between work and motherhood.

• Among Latinos, women are deferential to men generally from respect rather than subservience; elders, regardless of gender, are afforded respect.

Changes Affecting Contemporary Gender Roles

• Acceptance of women as workers and professionals.

• Increased questioning of motherhood as a core female identity.

• Greater equality in marital power.• Breakdown of the instrumental/ expressive

dichotomy.• Expansion of male family roles.

Limitations of Contemporary Gender Roles: Men

• The provider role limits men’s father and husband roles.

• Difficulty in expressing feelings.• A sense of dominance that precludes

intimacy.

Limitations of Contemporary Gender Roles: Women

• Diminished self-confidence and mental health.

• Association of femininity with youth and beauty creates a disadvantage as women age.

• Ethnic women may suffer both racial discrimination and gender-role stereotyping, which compound each other.

Difficulties in Changing Gender-role Behavior

• Each sex reinforces the traditional roles of its own and the other sex.

• We evaluate ourselves in terms of fulfilling gender-role concepts.

• Gender roles have become an intrinsic part of ourselves and our roles.

• The social structure reinforces traditional roles.

Social Movements Dedicated to Changing Gender Roles

• Gender-reform feminism• Gender-resistant feminism• Movements designed to emphasize how

gender overlaps with other bases of oppression, like age, race or class.

• Profeminist men’s movements • Most current men’s movements attempt to

reconnect men with families.