Sex & Gender

Question 1

What does sex refer to?

Answer 1

An individual’s biological status as either male or female
For example, chromosomes (female XX, male XY), reproductive organs (ovaries, testes), hormones (oestrogen, testosterone).

Question 2

What does gender refer to?

Answer 2

a person’s sense of, and expression of, their maleness or femaleness. Gender is often determined by the cultural differences expected by society of men and women according to their sex.

Question 3

Western viewpoint of a man?

Answer 3

independent, aggressive, dominant, problem-solvers, should be the main provider in the family, and should control and suppress their feelings.

Question 4

Western viewpoint of a woman?

Answer 4

dependent, submissive, domestic, nurturing carers, emotional.

Question 5

What may challenge western assumptions ?

Answer 5

Cross-cultural and historical evidence

Question 6

What did early 20th Century Feminism fight for?

Answer 6

Equal opportunities and challenging traditional sexism and patriarchy

Question 7

Although gender is determined after conception what can genetic and hormonal factors do?

Answer 7

Masculinise females and feminise males

All societies contain members who feel unhappy with their biological gender or the gender role assigned to them

Question 8

What do psychological theories of gender revolve around?

Answer 8

Whether gender is natural, biological or socially constructed which culture socialises children into boys and girls learning to be boys and girls

Question 9

What is the most accurate way to view gender?

Answer 9

On a scale

with two extremes

Question 10

What did Sandra Bem believe?

Answer 10

That any person can have both feminine and masculine traits

Question 11

What is Androgyny?

Answer 11

people who are possessed of equally male and female gender traits.

Question 12

What is Bem’s Sex Role Inventory

Answer 12

a questionnaire designed to measure how masculine/feminine/androgynous a person is.

Question 13

What did Bem do with her questionnaire?

Answer 13

Bem asked 50 male and 50 female students to rate 200 traits for how desirable they were for males or females.

Question 14

How did Bem lay out her questionnaire?

Answer 14

she selected 20 traits which were regarded as desirable for men (e.g. self-reliance independence, aggressiveness), 20 for women (e.g. warmth, cheerfulness, friendliness), and 20 which were gender-neutral (e.g. honesty).

Question 15

What were the results of Bam’s questionnaire?

Answer 15

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).

Question 16

What are some implications of gender?

Answer 16

Our gender identity influences how we behave and how we feel and how we think. A traditional idea is that it is ‘healthier’ for males to be masculine and females to be feminine – e.g. evolutionary psychology. Most often a person’s gender role identity conforms to expectation of society. However, there are costs involved in the maintenance of gender role stereotypes.

Question 17

Costs of implications of gender?

Answer 17

These costs included limiting opportunities for boys and girls, ignoring talent, and perpetuating unfairness in our society. Witt (1997) also suggests that an androgynous gender role orientation may be more beneficial to children than strict adherence to traditional gender roles as it opens up more opportunities in society.

Question 18

What do feminists think if androgyny?

Answer 18

The concept of androgyny implied that women were no longer expected or encouraged to resist their behavior to traditional gender role specific traits. Bem, together with other feminist psychologists, described androgyny as a liberating force, leading women to live fuller lives.

Question 19

Nature vs Nurture

Answer 19

Parents who adopt an equal attitude regarding gender roles are more likely to foster this attitude in their children. Children whose mothers work outside the home are not as traditional in sex role orientation as children whose mothers stay home.