Chapter 5 - Gender Flashcards
5.1 Distinguish between gender and sex.
Social scientists use the term sex to refer to the biological status of being male or female. Gender, in contrast, refers to the social categories of male and female. The process through which cultures communicate gender expectations to children and adolescents is called gender socialization.
5.2 Summarize the gender roles of adolescent girls in traditional cultures, including how gender expectations change from middle childhood to adolescence.
In traditional cultures gender roles tend to be sharply divided, and during adolescence boys’ and girls’ daily lives are often separate. Girls spend their time with adult women learning skills important for child care and running a household. From middle childhood to adolescence, the freedom of girls often becomes restricted, in order to protect them from boys and avoid the possibility of sexual activity.
5.3 List the three requirements of manhood for adolescent boys in traditional cultures, and explain the key factor that makes reaching manhood for adolescent boys different than reaching womanhood is for adolescent girls.
Boys in traditional cultures have to achieve manhood by developing the required skills for providing, protecting, and procreating. The price of failing to meet these requirements is humiliation and rejection. One striking difference between gender expectations for girls and gender expectations for boys in traditional cultures is that for boys, manhood is something that has to be achieved, whereas girls reach womanhood inevitably, mainly through their biological changes.
5.4 Explain how economic changes in developing countries are changing their gender roles.
Life in developing countries has changed in terms of gender roles because of globalization, but it remains true that adolescent girls have less in the way of educational and occupational opportunities, not only compared with boys in their own countries but compared with girls in the West. However, as globalization proceeds and traditional cultures become increasingly industrialized, traditional gender roles may change, because the greater physical strength of males is less economically valuable.
5.5 Explain how gender expectations for adolescent girls through American history both supported and restricted them more than adolescent girls today.
Adolescent girls growing up in the American middle class in the 18th and 19th centuries were narrowly constricted in terms of their occupational roles, cultural perceptions of females as fragile and innocent and incapable of important physical work, and in terms of their sexuality and physical appearance. However, girls of those times also benefited from the existence of a wide range of voluntary organizations in which adult women provided a “protective umbrella” for the nurturing of adolescent girls.
5.6 Describe how views of the values of self-control and self-expression in men changed in the course of American history.
According to historian Anthony Rotundo, American values associated with the male role shifted from “communal manhood” in the 17th and 18th centuries, which emphasized self-control, to self-made manhood in the 19th century, with self-control and self-expression both valued, to passionate manhood in the 20th century, with a strong emphasis on self-expression.
5.7 Summarize the changes in beliefs about gender in American society since the 1970s.
An annual national survey of American adults shows a clear trend toward more egalitarian gender attitudes in recent decades. However, the results of the survey also show that a considerable proportion of Americans continue to harbor beliefs about gender roles not unlike those in traditional cultures.
5.8 Describe how gender socialization changes from middle childhood to adolescence.
According to the gender intensification hypothesis, psychological and behavioral differences between males and females become more pronounced in the transition from childhood to adolescence because of intensified socialization pressures to conform to culturally prescribed gender roles.
5.9 Describe the evidence for differential gender socialization in the family, with peers, and in school.
Differential gender socialization is the term for socializing males and females according to different expectations about the attitudes and behavior appropriate to each gender. In the course of growing up, children get encouragement from parents, peers, and teachers to conform to gender roles. In the family, parents dress their boys and girls differently, give them different toys, and decorate their bedrooms differently. Children (especially boys) who deviate from gender norms in play suffer peer ridicule and are less popular than children who conform to gender roles. With regard to school, research has found that teachers generally reinforce the traditional cultural messages regarding gender.
5.10 Summarize how adolescent girls respond to gender socialization in social media.
Use of social media has been found to be associated with heightened insecurity about physical appearance and an enhanced “drive for thinness” in adolescent girls. Viewing their friends’ photos on Facebook, adolescent girls tend to make unflattering comparisons to their own appearance.
5.11 Contrast adolescent boys and girls in the major problem that results from their gender socialization.
For girls, the focus on physical appearance that is the heart of the female gender role can produce many kinds of distress. For boys, the problem at the core of their gender role in adolescence is aggressiveness.
5.12 Explain how gender schemas guide expectations for how males and females should behave.
According to gender schema theory, gender is one of our most important schemas from early childhood onward. By the time we reach adolescence, on the basis of our socialization we have learned to categorize an enormous range of activities, objects, and personality characteristics as “female” or “male.” Gender schemas influence how we interpret the behavior of others and what we expect from them.
5.13 Connect the concept of expressive and instrumental traits to research on adolescents’ views of the ideal man or woman.
In general, femininity is associated with being nurturing (sympathetic, compassionate, gentle, etc.) and compliant (yielding, soft-spoken, childlike, etc.). In contrast, masculinity is associated with being independent (self-reliant, self-sufficient, individualistic, etc.) and aggressive (assertive, forceful, dominant, etc.). The difference in traits associated with each gender role has been described by scholars as a contrast between the expressive traits ascribed to females and the instrumental traits ascribed to males.
5.14 Describe the challenges facing transgender youth and how they respond.
Transgender people are those whose self-identification does not match their biological sex. Transgender adolescents and emerging adults are at notable risk for verbal and physical aggression. Although most research on transgender youth focuses on the problems they face, recent studies have found them to be resilient when facing hostility or discrimination.
5.15 Explain how the gender roles of African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans arerooted in their distinctive cultural histories.
African American women have a long tradition of showing exceptional strength and resilience, whereas African American men saw their masculinity undermined during slavery and long afterward. Latino tradition emphasizes machismo and marianismo, which entails dominance for men and submissiveness for women. Asian American women have been stereotyped as “exotic” and Asian American men as unmasculine.
