Lecture 14: Everyday life Flashcards
What is the difference between sex and gender?
Sex is genetics, anatomics and sexual identity.
Gender is a social construction, a gender identity and a gender role.
Discuss choosing to have a baby boy or girl
This is called sexual selection and was developed by Ericsson. It’s illegal to choose the gender in the UK unless there’s a medical reason. In the developed world girls requests out compete boys.
Do daughters cause divorce?
There is a 5% increase of divorce with daughters and unmarried couples are more likely to split if they have a daughter. Girl foetuses are hardier and are more likely to survive a stressful relationship. Women initiate most divorces.
Discuss early sex differences
If babies are raised as a particular gender then they conform to gender roles however, if they’re raised as X then the child can decide how to act without any influences. Stern 1989 found this.
Girls tend to spend more time working, have better verbal abilities, engage in more contact and play, engage in more grooming and pay greater attention to faces. Boys spend more time playing, have better spatial abilities, better arithmetic, more aggression and rough and tumble play and more attention to mechanical movements.
Discuss the gender differences in curfews
Peters 1994 found that boys could use the car more and girls had more curfews. There was also sex differences in chores. Bulcroft 1998 found that boys had more freedom outside the home. A mother’s attitude against premarital sex was associated with delays in daughters’ sexual activity but not sons.
This could all be because of daughter-guarding (evolution), which enhances status. Daughter-guarding involves restricting movements, threatening men interested in the daughter and chaperoning.
Parents are more upset if their daughter is sexually active compared to their sons. Daughter have more control over their curfew. Fathers find it much more important to approve of their daughter’s mate compared to their son’s.
Discuss the case of David Reimer
He was born male, his penis was accidentally destroyed during circumcision and was then raised female. However, Reimer failed to identify as female and identified as a male. He made a case saying that males shouldn’t be raised as the gender they aren’t.
Discuss sex differences in adults
Men are taller, by about 5 inches on average. This is a large effect size; 1.7. Men and women have the same average IQ scores but men have a bigger range, showing the highest and lowest scores. Men are better on average at spatial rotation of objects like cubes. Women are better at reading facial expressions. Men are more aggressive but women are more aggressive in terms of ostracising, gossiping and spreading rumours. This was shown through meta-analysis. For example Hyde 1986.
Byrnes 1999 found that men take more risks but the differences are small. The risk taking was a lot higher in men in terms of driving and gaming. Men are more aggressive, suspicious, work harder and are decisive. Women are more reflective, avoid harm, have high morals, are vulnerable and sociable.
Discuss sex differences in terms of sexuality
Men report more sexual partners and desire sexual partners more. They have more sexually permissive attitudes and have more paraphilias. Buss’ cross cultural study found that men find youth and health in women more attractive and women prefer men with resources and social status. His study was of 37 cultures. The top two characteristics for both was intelligence and kindness. Women prefer men with resources because of the structural powerlessness hypothesis; the women are otherwise excluded from power and resource access. Their preference varies with their wealth and so does a man’s.
What are the three types of feminism?
Equity feminism; equal rights for men and women
Gender feminism; counteracting gender based discrimination and male favoured social structures.
Difference feminism; there are differences between genders and those differences don’t all need to be considered equal.
Women are outperforming men in many areas, for example, employment. Women live longer and are healthier. Problems like war and death are very pronounced for men. However, women are still more responsible for childcare and are less likely to go into higher paying fields.
