A2 GENDER - SEX, GENDER AND ANDROGYNY Flashcards
Define sex vs gender
Sex is one’s biological status as either male or female and is based on chromosomal patterns of either XX (female) or XY (male)
Gender is a mixture of biological factors and psychological ones, and is described as either masculine or feminine.
Describe sex role stereotypes
Sex role stereotypes are forced upon us from when we’re young; the father is normally the breadwinner whilst the mother does the cooking and cleaning.
Male stereotypes include not being able to express emotions very well whilst female ones include having mood swings and sensitivity.
Evaluate sex role stereotypes
(+) Smith and Lloyd (1978) had four conditions: C1 (baby boys dressed in girls’ clothes), C2 (baby boys dressed in boys’ clothes), C3 (baby girls dressed in boys’ clothes) and C4 (baby girls dressed in girls’ clothes). They found that carers encouraged C1 and C4 to play more gently and with girls’ toys whilst C2 and C3 were encouraged to be more aggressive and play with boys’ toys.
Describe and evaluate the potential biological basis for gender identity as opposed to sex role stereotypes
Although sex role stereotypes do seem to play a role in the development of gender identity, there may be a biological basis for these “stereotypical” behaviours instead.
(+) Ingalhalikar (2014) did fMRI scans on men and women and found that women have more connections between the LH and RH than men, whilst men have better motor skills. This suggests that gender stereotypes might actually be real life differences.
(+) Case study of David Reimer; born Bruce but was raised as Brenda when his genitals were destroyed in a failed circumcision process; when Brenda reachedher teenage years she was “deeply troubled” and after a while decided to live as David, i.e. hormones took over
Describe androgyny and the method of measuring it.
Androgyny is a balance of both masculine and feminine characteristics. It can be measured using Bem’s BSRI…
Consists of 60 characteristics that the ppt rates themselves on a scale of 1 to 7 for. There are 20 masculine characteristics, 20 feminine and 20 neutral (10 positiv and 10 negative)
The BSRI was the first model of androgyny to consider masculine and feminine characteristics to be on different planes, i.e. one could be both masculine and feminine, rather than the idea that masculine meant just not feminine.
What did Bem believe about androgyny?
Bem believed that androgyny led to good psychological wellbeing as they have better behavioural flexibility. She showed this behavioural flexibility with her hinge oiling vs baby formula making experiment; found that when given the choice between oiling hinges for 4 cents or making baby formula for 2 cents, masculine people would oil hinges and feminine people would make formula due to stereotypes, but androgynous people would oil hinges purely because there was a higher reward fore doing so; they had the flexibility to do either.
Evaluate androgyny
(+) Good reliability as you get a similar score each time
(-) Poor validity as it was developed in the 70s so quite outdated now.
(+) Prakash (2010) got 100 married Indian females to complete a psychological wellbeing test and also a BSRI, and found that those with high masculinity scores (i.e. androgynous) had lower depression scores on average, therefore good psychological wellbeing could come from androgyny.
(-) If you have both high masculinity and femininity values, does it mean you’re androgynous or just confident in rating yourself highly? This questions the validity of the BSRI.
