Sex-role stereotypes Flashcards
What is a person’s sex?
Whether they are biologically male or female
What is a person’s gender?
The way a person identifies themselves as having social and psychological characteristics of male or female
What are sex-role stereotypes?
Types of qualities and characteristics that are seen as appropriate for each sex
What does being taught sex-role stereotypes create?
Norms which people feel pressured to conform to
What are roles considered to have been learned from?
Socialisation
What are 5 traditional sex-roles for women?
Dependent, submissive, domestic, nurturing, emotional
What are 5 traditional sex roles for men?
Independent, dominant, aggressive, suppress feelings, main provider for family
What did Seavey et al (1975) find?
- Told adults that a baby dressed in yellow is either a boy, girl or wasn’t told the gender, in a room with a ball, a doll and a plastic ring
- Both males and females gave the baby they were told to be a girl a doll
- Both males and females gave the plastic ring (a non-gendered toy) to the baby they thought to be a boy
- If not told gender, they tried to guess the gender of the baby from its perceived strength
What did Langlois and Downs (1980) find?
- Compared peers’ to mothers’ reactions to
preschoolers’ playing with the opposite gender toys. - When boys played with girls’ toys, the mothers accepted it whereas the male peers ridiculed them and even hit them
- Shows intolerance of male peers for cross-gender behaviours
What did Sood (2014) find?
- Only 12% of primary school teachers in UK were male as teaching is seen to be a female profession
- Sex role stereotypes affect adult career choices
What did Renzetti and Curran (1992) find?
- Teachers gave positive praise to boys for their ‘cleverness’ and girls for their ‘neatness’
- Teachers enforce sex-role stereotypes
How are sex-role stereotypes passed onto children?
- Interactions with adults
- Different types of toys
- Children policing roles
- Education pressures to study gender suitable subjects
- Media
- Culture
Criticism of sex role stereotypes?
- Vary greatly by culture, suggesting they are culturally transmitted
- Categorising behaviours as either male or female may place restrictive barriers
AO3 content to include -
- Media is criticised for stereotypical presentation of sex-roles. It is harmful, especially with a negative portrayal of female sex role stereotypes
- Might see a movement towards more uniform sex-role stereotypes as cultural beliefs break down
- is gender a social construct?