Sex-role stereotypes

Question 1

What is a person’s sex?

Answer 1

Whether they are biologically male or female

Question 2

What is a person’s gender?

Answer 2

The way a person identifies themselves as having social and psychological characteristics of male or female

Question 3

What are sex-role stereotypes?

Answer 3

Types of qualities and characteristics that are seen as appropriate for each sex

Question 4

What does being taught sex-role stereotypes create?

Answer 4

Norms which people feel pressured to conform to

Question 5

What are roles considered to have been learned from?

Answer 5

Socialisation

Question 6

What are 5 traditional sex-roles for women?

Answer 6

Dependent, submissive, domestic, nurturing, emotional

Question 7

What are 5 traditional sex roles for men?

Answer 7

Independent, dominant, aggressive, suppress feelings, main provider for family

Question 8

What did Seavey et al (1975) find?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

What did Langlois and Downs (1980) find?

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

What did Sood (2014) find?

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

What did Renzetti and Curran (1992) find?

Answer 11

• Teachers gave positive praise to boys for their ‘cleverness’ and girls for their ‘neatness’
• Teachers enforce sex-role stereotypes

Question 12

How are sex-role stereotypes passed onto children?

Answer 12

• Interactions with adults
• Different types of toys
• Children policing roles
• Education pressures to study gender suitable subjects
• Media
• Culture

Question 13

Criticism of sex role stereotypes?

Answer 13

• Vary greatly by culture, suggesting they are culturally transmitted
• Categorising behaviours as either male or female may place restrictive barriers

Question 14

AO3 content to include -

Answer 14

• 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?