Gender Flashcards
What is Sex?
Sex refers to an individual’s biological status as either male or female (or hermaphrodite possessing both male and female genitals).
What is gender?
Gender refers to a person’s sense of, and expression of, their maleness or femaleness.
What is Gender dysphoria?
Refers to an individual’s sense of feeling uncomfortable/inappropriate with their sex and gender others assign to them.
What is Androgyny/androgynous?
Androgyny/androgynous refers to people who are possessed of equally male and female characteristics.
What are sex-role stereotypes?
This relates to the role (how we behave and think we should behave) we play as a result of the sex we are, and our own and others thought about our sex and gender.
Why do people conform to sex-role stereotypes?
Conforming to stereotypes is often rewarded i.e. praise for being brave (boy) or pretty (girl), and not conforming to stereotypes is often punished (disapproval, abuse etc.)
What do difference cultures’ social norms about gender relate to?
Different cultures’ social norms about gender often relate to stereotypes about what is appropriate in terms of behaviour for your gender.
Although we tend to view masculine and feminine as opposites it may be more accurate to view gender on?
A scale with most people fitting somewhere between the 2 extremes.
What questionnaire is there designed to measure how androgynous a person is?
Bem’s Sex Role Inventory
What is Bem’s Sex Role Inventory?
Bem’s sex role inventory is a questionnaire designed to measure how androgynous a person is.
What was the procedure for Bem’s Sex Role inventory study?
Bem asked 50 male and 50 female students to rate 200 traits for how desirable they were for males or females.
From this list she selected 20 traits which were regarded as desirable for men e.g. independence, aggressiveness, 20 from women e.g friendliness and 20 which were gender-neutral e.g. honesty.
She ten asked over 600 participants to rate each of the 60 items on a scale of 1 (never our of me) to 7 (always true of me).
What were the findings from Bem’s sex role inventory test?
Although many participants scores clustered around feminine or masculine, many were fairly androgynous (high scores on both masculine and feminine traits) and some were undifferentiated (low scores on both masculine and feminine traits).
What are weaknesses of Bem’s sex role inventory test?
Critics argue that the Bem SRI (sex role inventory test), developed in the 1970’s is outdated and based around stereotypes from 40+ years ago. In a 2001 a sample of 400 students failed to reach agreement on what adjectives were stereotypically masculine or feminine. Thus, the SRI may lack temporal validity.
A possible extraneous variable with Bem’s SRI (sex role inventory test) relates t o the fact that most of the traits on the SRI are positive and desirable. Therefore, respondents scoring highly on masculinity and femininity could rather simply be people with high self-esteem rather than being androgynous. It could also be argued that people high in self-esteem are more likely to rate themselves higher on traits in general rather than lower ranking responses. Again, this would confuse the issue of whether someone who scored highly for androgyny was simply someone with high self-esteem.
What is a strength of Bem’s Sex Role Inventory?
A follow-up study involving a smaller sample of the same students revealed similar scores when the students were tested a month later. This suggests that the scale has high test-retest reliability.
What link did Bem believe that was between androgyny and psychological well-being?
Bet argued that strongly sex-typed individuals i.e. those who conformed to traditional gender stereotypes had poorer psychological health than androgynous individuals.
What evidence is their supporting Bem believing that people who were androgynous had better psychological health than those who were not?
Prakash (10) found a positive correlation between androgyny and psychological.
100 married females were tested using a masculinity/femininity scale and it was found that women with high masculinity scores had lower depression and high psychical health scores.
What studies are there supporting the idea that the role of parents, peers etc can play in gender stereotyping even very young children?
Smith 78 observed mothers with a baby who were presented, in terms of their name and clothing, as either male or female. Mothers tended to select gender-appropriate toys and responded more activity when boys displayed physical play.
Fagot (‘92) found that parents who displayed the clearest patterns of differential reinforcement have children who are quickest to develop strongly gender stereotyped identities.
How is the sex of a baby determined?
The sex of a baby is determined at conception when the sperm and the ovum form a zygote.
The sperm and the egg both contribute chromosomes to the zygote. The 23rd chromosome contains dNA instructions to ermine the zygote’s sex. The ovum can only supply an X chromosome ,the sperm can contribute either an X or a Y chromosome.
If the sperm contributes a Y chromosome the zygote will be genetically male (XY), if the sperm contributes an X the zygote will be genetically female.
When do male and female embryos external genitalia look the same?
Male and female embryos up to 8 weeks have external genitalia that look the same.
When do male and female embryos external genitalia differ?
At 8 weeks, genetically XY males produce androgens which stimulates the development of male genitalia.
In XX females this process does not take place, thus female genitalia develop.
What are Atypical sex chromosome patterns?
Any sex chromosome pattern that deviates from the usual XX/XY formation and which tends to be associated with a distinct pattern of physical and psychological symptoms.
What are the two types of Atypical sex chromosome patterns?
Klinefelter’s syndrome
Turner’s syndrome
What is Klinefelter’s syndrome?
A syndrome that occurs around 1/1000 males due to an extra X chromosome e.g. (XXY). The infant is born with male genitals.
Sufferers are usually taller than average, have poor muscular coordination, and low levels of testosterone which may cause infertility and a more feminine look, with features such as less facial hair, broader hips, breast tissue.
There are also some psychological differences as well, such as poor developed language skills and reading ability, sufferers tend to be passive, shy and lack interest in sexual activity. Many tend not to respond well to stressful situations.
What is Turner’s syndrome?
A syndrome that occurs around 1/2000 females due to the 2nd sex chromosome being partially or completely missing, therefore, the infant is referred to as X0.
Sufferers have a vagina and womb but do not menstruate due to undeveloped ovaries, are shorter than average and may present symptoms such as small lower jaw, webbed neck, narrow hips etc.
Sufferers also can have higher than average reading ability, however spatial, visual memory and mathematics is lower than normal. They can also be socially immature.
What is testosterone?
Testosterone is a form of androgen, it affects brain growth as a foetus, and in childhood and adulthood is associated with stereotypically male behaviours such as aggression
Female human and animal foetuses exposed to high levels of testosterone tend to show more masculine behaviours and interests.
Who conducted a study to see the that effect testosterone has?
Wenger 79
What was Wenger 79 study on testosterone?
Wenger castrated mice which prevented the creation of any more testosterone which resulted in decreased aggression. however, when these mine were injected with testosterone, levels of aggression rose to pre-castration levels.
What is Androgen insensitivity syndrome?
Is a rare condition where an XY male foetus is insensitive to androgen, thus male genitals do not appear meaning that the newly born infant although genetically male will have female genitals and be labelled as female.
What is Oestrogen?
Oestrogen in females governs the development of secondary sexual characteristics (e.g. breasts) and menstruation from adolescence onwards.
Who investigated the link between oestrogen and maternal behaviour?
Smith (‘12)
What did Smith (‘12’) find on his investigation on the link between oestrogen and maternal behaviour?
He found a positive correlation between oestrogen levels and the number of children women desire, and between oestrogen and how feminine females’ faces were rated.
What is Oxytocin?
Oxytocin is produced by the pituitary gland and promotes feelings of bonding contentedness and calming. It is particularly important in breastfeeding to promote lactation and is released by females at times of stress to reduce the fight-flight response.
What study is there supporting that concept that oxytocin and its affect on hormones?
Taylor (‘00) found that oxytocin reduces the fight-flight response in women so they are less likely to behave aggressively during times of stress (tend and befriend i.e. caring for infants and forming friendships with other women) whereas in men oxytocin is reduced by testosterone so they are more likely to act aggressively on the face of stress.
What is the difference between sex and gender?
Sex refers to biological differences between males and females, for example chromosomes (female XX, male XY), reproductive organs (ovaries, testes), hormones (oestrogen, testosterone).
Gender refers to the cultural differences expected by society and culture of men and women according to their sex. a person’s sex does not change from brith, but their gender can.
What is the biological approach to the difference between sex and gender?
The biological approach suggests there is no distinction between sex and gender, thus biological sex creates gendered behaviour.
Gender is determined by two biological factors hormones and chromosomes.
What evidence is there supporting the biological approach to determining gender?
Geschwind (‘87) argued that gender differences in testosterone levels affect the developing brain. Male and female brains are different in many ways: females being generally better at social skills and empathy, males being less talkative but better at spacial-navigation skills.
Finger length is influenced by exposure to prenatal hormones. Women tend to have a long index finger than ring finger and vice-versa for men. Rommsayer (‘07) used the Bem sex role inventory to assess stereotypically male/female character traits and found that men with a more feminine sex role had a more feminine type index-to-ring finger ratio. Thus pre-natal hormone exposure may affect adult personality.
Money (‘72) claimed that biological sex was of little importance in deterring gender role - rather gender was learnt and intersex e.g. (Androgen insensitivity syndrome) individuals could be raised as either boys or girls. Money conducted a case study of David Reimer a boy who after damage to his penis during circumcision, was given gender reassignment surgery and raised as a girl. Although Money claimed Reimer’s case supported his belief that gender was learnt rather than biologically determined, Colapinto (00) reported that although David had no knowledge of what had happened to him as a child, he always felt unhappy as a girl and suffered depression. when his parents told him the turn in his teens he requested gender reassignment surgery. Thus, Reimer’s case supports biological explanations of gender.
What evidence is there against the biological approach to determining gender?
Despite evidence pointing towards biological factors being the main factor in determining gender, genes and hormones do not produce a simple formula for determining gender. Social, cultural and parental influences during socialisation also have a part to play.
For example, congenital adrenal hyperplasia occurs when XX females are exposed to unnaturally high levels of testosterone in the womb which results in rudimentary male genitalia at birth. Dessens (‘05) study of 250 CAH females who were raised as females found that 95% were content with the female gender assigned to them. This indicates that learning and social influences can possibly overside hormonal influences.
The study of the influence of genes and hormones in gender development is a classic example of the nature-nurture debate. In this case, evidence seems to suggest that gender is primarily determined by biology but can be modified by social-environmental factors: for example, gender is expressed by men and women in different ways in different cultures, and ideas of acceptable behaviours for genders have changed dramatically in Europe over the past century.
What is the cognitive explanation of gender development?
The cognitive-developmental approach emphasises the role of cognitions in the process of gender development.
As infants grow older physical changes in the brain mean we progress from simple to complex, abstract thoughts about our gender identity.
What two theories are used to show the cognitive explanation of gender development?
Kohlberg’s development theory?
Gender Schema theory
What was Kohlberg’s development theory?
Kohlberg theory is based on the idea that a child’s understanding of gender becomes more sophisticated with age.
The understanding of gender runs parallel to intellectual development as the child matures biologically. Gender development when we are 2-6 is thought to progress through three stages:
Gender labelling
Gender Stability
Gender consistency
