CHAPTER 3 GENDER

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CHAPTER 3 - GENDER
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Similarities

• Men and women have many similarities
• erotic response
• fundamental needs - self-esteem, intimacy,
  growth

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Differences (how much is biological?)

• Women better
• at verbal ability
• better at understanding complex language,
  creative writing, analogies, spelling
• More relationship oriented. -they have more
  interactions per day with people and have more
  meaningful interaction (especially compared to
  men-men relationships)

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Other Differences

• Women ask more questions, questioning tone to
  statements, use more tag questions like isnt
  it?, also use attention getters like guess
  what, also use more qualifiers (sort of, maybe
  and intensifiers like really-Nonverbal
  behavior (women more skilled at interpreting) up
  to 80 of communication is non-verbal.

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Men- Better at

• Spatial and visual stuff skills
• Such as hunting, architecture, video games
• Math
• Aggression

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Nature or Nurture?

• Are these differences in men and women due to our
  nature (genes, biology), or our nurture (how we
  were brought up, the environment we grew up in
  etc.)?
• In this lecture, I will present the evidence that
  the reason boys and girls act the way they do is
  because of our nurture or how society influences
  us (take my other class, HDCF 241, to get the
  nature perspective).

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Who/what influences us?

• Parents -encourage children to do gender-typed
  activities, give boys more boy toys and girls
  more girl toys.
• Discuss emotions more with their daughters
  (except for anger) (chap. 3 Rel.)
• Schools- teachers treat boys and girls
  differently
• Media- Men are usually dominant in TV and movies

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Other Influences

• Peers
• Religion- the head of the women is her husband
  (
• Larger culture - Presidents are men etc.

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Consequences of Traditional Gender roles

• For men
• Required to earn the money
• Identity is tied up in his occupational role
• homophobia- more for men with traditional ideas
  of gender roles
• Type A behavior (aggressive, competitive linked
  to coronary heart disease)

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Other Consequences for men

• less likely to disclose information about
  themselves
• want to be in control in intimate relationships
• Emotional Stereotypes - express less emotion,
  have fewer intimate relationships than women,
  etc.
• Tend to hold emotions in and thus develop more
  medical problems and die sooner than women

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Benefits of Tradtional Gender Roles for Men

• Have more positive Self-Concept
• Have greater self-confidence and social status
  than women

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Consequences for Women

• Negative self-concept-Not valued and taken as
  seriously as men are
• feminization of poverty
• 3) frustrations with marriage
• 4) brief motherhood role

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Other Consequences for women

• Marriage and motherhoodachievement barriers?
• overload as an employed wife and mother
• -tend to have primary responsibility for domestic
  and childrearing chores.

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Benefits for Women of Traditional Gender Roles

• women live longer
• -express emotions easier
• -having a closer bond with children
• -have an identity independent of occupational
  role
• -more likely to be awarded children.
• -kids have mom's value system

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Androgeny (The best of both worlds?)

• Androgeny ( Sandra Bem, 1974) possessing both
  masculine (instrumental traits) and feminine
  (expressive traits)
• Suggests that androgynous folks are healthier and
  more adaptable than others.
• Dean-Church Gilroy (1993) elderly people who
  were androgynous were more satisfied with life.
• Androgyny facilitates the development of close
  friendships (Jones, Bloys, Wood 1990)