The target group manipulation was randomly assigned to male and female raters. Subsets of this overall design were used to address our specific research questions. The attributes were presented in differing orders to participants, randomized by the survey tool we used. Using an inductive procedure, scale development proceeded in four steps. In the first step, we identified a set of 74 attributes, representative of how agency and communality have been measured by researchers in the past consisting of adjectives, traits, and descriptors; see Appendix Tables A , B for the full list.
The attributes were chosen from earlier investigations of gender stereotypes, including those of Broverman et al. They were selected to represent a broad array of agentic and communal attributes with a minimal amount of redundancy.
In the second step, three judges the first two authors and another independent researcher sorted the descriptive attributes into categories based on their conceptual similarity. The total set of attributes measured was included in the sorting task, and there was no limit placed on the number of categories to be created and no requirements for the number of attributes to be included within each created category.
Specifically, the instructions were to use as many categories as needed to sort the attributes into conceptually distinct groupings. The sorting results were then discussed by the judges and two additional researchers. During the discussion, agreement was reached about the number of categories necessary to best capture the distinct dimensions of the sorted attributes. Attributes for which no consensus was reached about category placement were omitted.
Then decisions were made about how each of the categories should be labeled. Seven categories were identified, four of which represented dimensions of agency — instrumental competence, leadership competence, assertiveness, independence — and three of which represented dimensions of communality — concern for others, sociability, emotional sensitivity.
In the third step, we had a different set of three independent judges all graduate students in a psychology program do a sorting of the retained attributes into the labeled categories.
This was done to make sure that their sorting conformed to the identified categories; items that were misclassified by any of the judges were eliminated from the item set. Finally, in a fourth step, we used confirmatory factor analysis procedures to further hone our categories. Following standard procedures on increasing model fit e. We later conducted a conclusive confirmatory factor analysis, for which the results are reported in the next section. As a result of these steps, we created seven scales, each composed of the attributes remaining in one of the seven designated categories.
The scales ranged from 3 to 4 items, the coefficient alphas all surpassed 0. Table 1 presents the attributes comprising each of the scales as well as the Cronbach alphas and corrected-item-scale correlations. The four scales composed of agentic attributes and denoting dimensions of agency were: instrumental competence, leadership competence, assertiveness, and independence.
Thus, the sorting process not only distinguished between competence and other elements of agency as has been suggested by others like Carrier et al. Assertiveness concerns acting on the world and taking charge. Furthermore, competence was subdivided into two separate dimensions — one focused on performance execution instrumental competence , and the other focused on capability to perform as a leader leadership competence.
Both leadership competence and assertiveness imply high social power whereas instrumental competence and independence are not typically associated with power relations. The three scales composed of communal attributes and denoting dimensions of communality were: concern for others, sociability, and emotional sensitivity.
Concern for others and sociability both entail a focus on others, but the former involves a one-way relationship of giving and nurturance while the latter involves a transactional relationship focused on relationship building. Emotional sensitivity implies an orientation that focuses on feelings as an antecedent or consequence of interactions with others.
We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis using the R package lavaan Rosseel, to test the factor structure of the four final agency scales and the three final communality scales. Results revealed that for agency, the theoretically assumed four-factor model i. Similarly, for communality the theoretically posited three-factor model i. Overall, these results indicated that even though there were high correlations among the agency scales and also among the communality scales as we would expect given our idea that in each case the multiple scales are part of the same construct; see Table 2 , the four scales for agency and the three scales for communality represent different dimensions of these constructs.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of agentic and communal dimension scales. To provide a point of comparison for our multi-dimensional framework, we also determined scales for overall agency and overall communality. We did not have the opportunity to do the same for race because our subsamples of Asian, African American, and Hispanic participants were not large enough. To determine whether there were differences in the pattern of responses depending upon the age of the rater, we chose the age of 40 as a midlife indicator, divided our sample into two age groups 39 years and younger, 40 years and older , and included age as an additional independent variable in our analyses.
We also divided our sample into two education level groups those who had graduated from college or had advanced degrees and those who had not graduated from college , and included educational level as an additional independent variable in our analyses. As a consequence we combined data from both younger and older participants and from those who were and were not college educated in the analyses reported below.
To address our research questions, we conducted a series of ANOVAs on subsets of our participant sample. For each question, we first conducted ANOVAs on the overall agency scale and the overall communality scale. Then, to determine whether the results differed for different agency and communality dimensions, we conducted mixed-model ANOVAs that included either agency dimension instrumental competence, leadership competence, assertiveness, independence or communality dimension as a within-subjects factor concern for others, sociability, and emotional sensitivity.
We followed up with LSD comparisons see Table 4. Table 3. LSD comparisons see Table 4 of the overall agency ratings indicated that male raters rated women in general as lower in overall agency than men in general. They further indicated that female raters rated women in general and men in general as equally agentic. LSD comparisons of the individual agency scales indicated that this result held true for most of the agency dimensions.
With the exception of the instrumental competence dimension on which there were no differences in ratings of women and men in general whether the rater was male or female , male raters rated women in general lower than men in general on the agency dimensions leaderhip competence, assertiveness, and independence. In contrast to the ratings of male raters but in line with the overall agency result, female raters rated women in general no differently than they rated men in general in leadership competence and independence.
Yet, in contrast to the results of the overall agency ratings, female raters differentiated between women and men in ratings of assertiveness.
That is, much like male raters, female raters rated women in general as less assertive than men in general. Figure 1 displays the results for the agency dimensions. Figure 1. Ratings of agency dimensions instrumental competence, leadership competence, assertiveness, independence of men in general and women in general by male and female raters.
Additional LSD comparisons again see Table 4 lent further insight into the source of the gender discrepancy in the comparative ratings of women and men in general. Comparisons of the overall agency ratings indicated that ratings of men in general did not differ as a result of rater gender, but women in general were rated lower by male as compared to female raters.
LSD comparisons of the agency dimensions were in line with the overall agency result in ratings of women in general — they were rated lower by male raters as compared to female raters on all four agency dimensions. However, comparisons of the agency dimensions in ratings of men in general were not uniform and deviated from the overall agency results.
Although men in general were rated no differently by male and female raters on the instrumental competence, assertiveness, or independence dimensions, female as compared to male raters rated men in general higher in leadership competence again see Figure 1.
LSD comparisons see Table 4 for overall communality indicated that men in general were rated lower in communality than women in general by both male and female raters. In line with this overall finding, results of the LSD comparisons indicated that both female and male raters rated men in general as lower than women in general on all three communality dimensions: concern for others, sociability, and emotional sensitivity.
Thus, using the overall measure yielded the same information as did the multidimensional measure. Additional LSD comparisons again see Table 4 of the communality ratings indicated that both male and female raters rated men in general similarly in communality, but female raters rated women in general higher in communality than male raters did. LSD comparisons of male and female raters rating men in general using the three communality dimensions were aligned with the overall communality result: male and female raters did not differ in ratings of concern for others, sociability, or emotional sensitivity.
However, when rating women in general, results of the LSD comparisons of male and female raters were aligned with the overall measure result for only two of the communality dimensions: Female raters rated women in general higher in concern for others and emotional sensitivity than male raters did. On the dimension of sociability, male and female raters did not differ in their ratings of women in general. We again followed up with LSD comparisons see Table 6.
Table 5. LSD comparisons see Table 6 of overall agency showed that, as was indicated by the non-significant gender main effects, women rated themselves as equally agentic as men.
Yet, the results for the analyses including the four agency dimensions indicated that only findings for instrumental competence and independence were consisent with the pattern of results for the overall agency ratings there were no differences in the self-ratings of female and male raters.
There were, however, significant differences in ratings of leadership competence and in ratings of assertiveness. For both of these dimensions of agency, women rated themselves lower than men did see Figure 2. Figure 2. Ratings of agency dimensions instrumental competence, leadership competence, assertiveness, independence by male and female self-raters. LSD comparisons again see Table 6 , in line with the main effect for rater gender, indicated that men rated themselves lower on overall communality than women.
LSD comparisons on the dimension scales indicated that, consistent with the overall communality results, men rated themselves as less concerned for others and less emotionally sensitive than women. However, in contrast to the results for overall communality, there was no difference in how men and women characterized themselves in terms of sociability see Figure 3. Figure 3. Ratings of communality dimensions concern for others, emotional sensitivity, sociability by male and female self-raters.
Table 7. It also indicated a significant main effect for agency dimension and significant interactions of dimension with both rater gender and target group, as well as a three-way interaction between rater gender, target group, and agency dimension see Table 7.
LSD comparisons see Table 8 , means and standard deviations are displayed in Tables 4 , 6 of overall agency indicated that male raters rated themselves as more agentic than male raters rated men in general. Results for the agency dimensions were more varied: For the independence and instrumental competence dimensions results were in line with the overall agency result, but male raters rated themselves no differently in leadership competence or assertiveness than male raters rated men in general see Figure 4.
Figure 4. Ratings of agency dimensions instrumental competence, leadership competence, assertiveness, independence by male raters rating self and men in general. LSD comparisons see Table 8 , means and standard deviations are displayed in Tables 4 , 6 of the overall agency ratings indicated that female raters rated themselves no differently than female raters rated women in general.
However, comparisons of the four agency dimensions depicted a different pattern. Although ratings of independence were in line with the overall agency result, female raters rated themselves higher in instrumental competence than female raters rated women in general. Most striking, however, were the differences in ratings on the leadership competence and assertiveness dimensions.
Figure 5. Ratings of agency dimensions instrumental competence, leadership competence, assertiveness, independence by female raters rating self and women in general. LSD comparisons see Table 8 , means and standard deviations are displayed in Tables 4 , 6 of overall communality indicated that male raters rated themselves as more communal than male raters rated men in general.
LSD comparisons of the three communality dimension scales were consistent with the finding for overall communality. Male raters rated themselves significantly higher than male raters rated men in general in concern for others, sociability and emotional sensitivity see Figure 6. Figure 6. Ratings of communality dimensions concern for others, emotional sensitivity, sociability by male raters rating self and men in general. LSD comparisons see Table 8 , means and standard deviations are displayed in Tables 4 , 6 of the overall communality ratings indicated that there was no difference in how female raters rated themselves and how female raters rated women in general.
LSD comparisons for sociability and emotional sensitivity were consistent with this finding. However, female raters rated themselves higher in concern for others than they rated women in general see Figure 7. Figure 7. Ratings of communality dimensions concern for others, emotional sensitivity, sociability by female raters rating self and women in general.
It was the objective of this research to investigate gender stereotyping of others and self. To do so, we aimed to take into account multiple dimensions of the agency and communality constructs.
It was our contention that perceptions on some of these dimensions of agency and communality would differ from one another, and that there would be a benefit in viewing them separately. Our results support this idea. While there were overall findings for agency and communality, analyses of individual aspects of them were not always consistent with these findings. What often appeared to be a general effect when using the overall measures of agency and communality in fact proved to be more textured and differentiated when the multidimensional framework was used.
These results support the idea that distinguishing between different agency and communality facets can offer a deeper, more nuanced understanding of gender stereotypes today. Indeed, some important information appears to get lost by only focusing on the overall constructs. Our results clearly indicate that gender stereotypes persist. They also indicate that stereotypes about agency were more prevalent for male than for female raters.
Specifically, male raters described women in general as lower in most aspects of agency than men in general, and also rated women in general lower on each of the agency dimensions than female raters did. Nonetheless, female raters were not stereotype-free with respect to agency: they described women in general as less assertive than men in general and rated men in general as more leadership competent than male raters did.
These findings were masked by the overall measure of agency, which indicated no differences in agency ratings. Stereotypes about communality also were strongly indicated by our data, but their strength did not tend to differ greatly between male and female raters. All participants rated women higher than men on the three communality dimensions. Despite the overall agency measure indicating no difference in self-ratings of agency, the analyses incorporating dimensions of agency painted a different picture.
Whereas there was no difference in the self-characterizations of men and women in instrumental competence or independence, women rated themselves lower than men in leadership competence and assertiveness. There also were differences in communality self-ratings. Male raters rated themselves as higher in independence and instrumental competence, but no different in assertiveness or leadership competence than they rated men in general.
Female raters rated themselves higher in instrumental competence but lower in assertiveness and leadership competence than they rated women in general. These findings are at odds with the results of the overall agency ratings, which imply that male raters consistently rated themselves higher in agency, and that female raters consistently rated themselves no differently than they rated their gender group.
While female raters only rated themselves higher than they rated women in general in concern for others, male raters rated themselves as higher than they rated men in general on all three dimensions of communality. What does our analysis of current stereotypes tell us? On the one hand, our results indicate that despite dramatic societal changes many aspects of traditional gender stereotypes endure. Both male and female respondents viewed men in general as being more assertive than women in general, and also viewed women in general as more concerned about others, sociable and emotionally sensitive than men in general.
On the other hand, our results indicate important departures from traditional views. This can be seen in the findings that unlike male respondents, female respondents indicated no gender deficit in how independent or how competent in leadership they perceived other women to be.
Self-descriptions also tended to conform to traditional gender stereotypes, with men describing themselves as more assertive and more competent in leadership than women did, and women describing themselves as more concerned about others and more emotional than men did. However, there were aspects of agency and communality for which self-characterizations of men and women did not differ.
Together with the findings about characterizations of men and women in general, these results attest not only to the possible changing face of stereotypes, but also highlight the importance of considering specific dimensions of both agency and communality in stereotype assessment.
Research has shown that in such dangerous environments, women prefer men with indicators of good genes e. Similarly, in a country cross-cultural study, pathogen prevalence was associated with greater perceived importance of attractiveness for both sexes and lower perceived importance of paternal investment for women Gangestad and Buss, These findings challenged an over-simplified view of sexual selection that overlooks environment-induced variations in the sex differences in mate preferences, which help to shape gender roles in different societies.
Similarly, Lu et al. Finally, experimental studies found that men identified as present-oriented in life history strategy expressed greater preference for fertility and good-gene-related mate qualities, and were more sensitive to neoteny female faces representing fertility. Conversely, future-oriented reproductive strategies supported by gender-equal competition foster modernized mate preferences and gender roles.
As discussed earlier, population-level sociosexuality aggregating between sexes may not reflect present-oriented reproductive goals or gender relations e. Nevertheless, from the life history perspective, we predict sex differences in sociosexuality should be a function of the prevalence of present-oriented reproductive goals.
In support of this prediction, Schmitt found that the magnitude of sex differences in sociosexuality did differ across countries. Similarly, a more recent survey found that in the United States, women, but not men, reported lower desire for uncommitted sex in states with more demanding environments e.
Sexism is often regarded as a justification of traditional gender roles and the patriarchal system Barreto and Ellemers, However, it also reflects psychological adaptations of both sexes to advance their reproductive interests in the face of extrinsic risks and societal competition. Previous studies generally revealed that men score higher than women on both hostile and benevolent sexism e. This is understandable from the evolutionary perspective, as men benefit more from justifying traditional gender roles that facilitate present-oriented reproductive goals because of their higher reproductive rates.
In addition, in societies with greater between-sex conflicts over parental investment which reflects present-oriented reproductive goals , men should exhibit higher hostile sexism whereas women should reject such hostile sexism. Consistent with this prediction, Glick et al. Moreover, using the World Values Survey data, Newson and Richerson showed that countries with earlier decline in fertility reflecting cultural endorsement of future-oriented reproductive goals exhibited higher gender empowerment attitudes opposite to sexist attitudes than those with later decline in fertility.
These findings, although preliminary, suggest life history strategies might affect attitudes and beliefs about gender relations. In summary, multiple lines of evidence suggest that sex-differentiated mate preferences, which support traditional gender roles, likely represent present-oriented reproductive strategies adapted to extrinsic risks. Similarly, sex differences in sociosexuality and sexism are also better conceived as evolutionary products of flexible life history strategies than fixed aspects of human nature or purely sociohistorical artifacts.
However, further research is needed to support detailed hypotheses. The current life history account goes beyond acknowledging environmental influences on gender relations through life history strategies. We also seek to predict nuanced patterns of cross-society and within-society variations in gender relations by examining distal environmental effects, which also operate in the human environment of evolutionary adaptedness EEA. In particular, the interaction between extrinsic risks and societal competition might shed light on an array of cultural phenomena mostly documented in ethnographic studies relevant to gender roles and gender inequality.
Small-scale, nonagricultural societies, some of which probably resemble those inhabiting the human EEA Volk and Atkinson, , generally face high extrinsic risks. A study on contemporary hunter—gatherers and historical data estimated that the infant mortality and child mortality rates in the human EEA are 27 and Higher reproductive efforts to offset elevated juvenile and adult mortality rates might lead to present-oriented life history strategies and more imbalanced parental investment between the sexes, which would contribute to the perpetuation of traditional gender roles in nonagricultural societies.
Among nonagricultural societies including hunter-gatherer, horticulturalist, and pastoralist societies , the degree of polygyny was positively linked to social stratification Marlowe, ; Betzig, , which reflects the variations of male social status. Given people in these societies also face high degree of extrinsic risks, intense societal competition is more likely leads to violent conflicts and dominance hierarchies, rather than skill contests and prestige hierarchies.
In other words, in societies facing high extrinsic risks, less intense societal competition shown as lower levels of social stratification might actually prevent the emergence of extreme power asymmetry favoring men. This seemed to be the case for most hunter-gatherer societies, whose subsistence style cannot support a dense population necessary for more complex social structures compared with horticulturalists and pastoralists, hunter-gatherers are the lowest in social stratification; Marlowe, , and the degree of polygyny is typically low e.
Therefore, consistent with our theoretical prediction, an absence of dominance hierarchies might explain why some hunter—gatherers are less susceptible to gender inequality in marital system, even though they do adopt traditional gender roles Marlowe, , Polygyny is also rare in agricultural societies, but this might be due to socially imposed monogamy, rather than indicating equal power between sexes in such societies Alesina et al.
In societies that practice intensive agricultural labor, women usually have a far lower status than do men Alesina et al. Ethnographic research demonstrated that agricultural societies had a lower degree of female affairs than did any type of nonagricultural societies Marlowe, This includes the foot-binding practice in feudal China Carroll, and the fashion of corset and tightlacing in 19th century Europe Steele, Both practices are sexually appealing to men but concurrently limit female mobility: for example, foot-binding causes difficulty in walking among women without the support of their shoes Bossen, A common feature of these two cultural practices is that they emerge in highly stratified societies with male-dominated hierarchies before the demographic transition Lee, This is compatible with our postulation that a combination of intensive male-male competition for dominance status and high reproductive efforts contributes to gender inequality.
Two interrelated reasons might account for this cultural practice and cultural value transition. First, increased concentration of population in urban areas and in industrial jobs leads to large-scale cooperative societies comprising mostly strangers, instead of kin-groups Henrich et al. From the perspective of cultural evolution, cultural transmission from relatives which usually encourages present-oriented reproductive goals declined in such modern environments, allowing future-oriented reproductive goals to prevail in these competitive societies Newson and Richerson, Meanwhile, third-party punishment and policing against violence are vital for the stability and order in such large-scale societies Henrich et al.
Together with future-oriented reproductive strategy, this shift toward prestige competition might render male-dominance cultural practices and relevant gender inequality values obsolete. Overall, these analyses show that cultural practices and values related to gender relations are not merely arbitrary, sociohistorical constructions.
Rather, they might embody life history strategies and cultural adaptations that are sensitive to extrinsic risks and societal competition. Our life history account complement existing theories about gender relations by: 1 emphasizing the fact that the evolutionary processes, including sexual selection, that shape traditional gender roles and gender inequality are flexible rather than fixed, and 2 providing specific predictions regarding how these processes are contingent on the interaction between extrinsic risks and societal competition.
Future research is needed to improve the evidentiary status of environmental influences on gender relations, and it faces several challenges. First, identifying the sources of extrinsic risks in modern environments while ruling out confounding genetic effects can be difficult. Previous research has examined familial resource insecurity e.
None of these measures reflects pure environmental influences, though, as behavioral genetics studies has shown that environmental risks in shared family environment e. However, extrinsic risks assessed in the form of uncontrollable life events e.
Thus, to test our aforementioned hypotheses, it is important to use assessments with smaller genetic variance or heritability, and to interpret the results with caution when such assessments likely involve controllable aspects of environment.
Secondly, further theoretical and empirical works are needed to elaborate different evolutionary pressures for and different social developmental consequences of dominance versus prestige competition in a life history framework.
As two forms of societal competition or status-seeking strategies, dominance and prestige are conceptually separable Henrich and Gil-White, However, it is entirely possible that any status hierarchy conveys both dominance status and prestige status to various degrees, and they may lead to or end up being mixed with each other in most cases Henrich and Gil-White, Dominance and prestige as different means to status are also not tied to certain type of societies or subsistence style.
On the one hand, traditional societies are not all structured as dominance hierarchies derived from belligerent competition. Prestige-based competition can be an important way to achieve greater reproductive success without wealth accumulation in some hunter-gatherer societies e. In other hunter-gatherer groups, such as the Hadza in northern Tanzania, there is no clear dominance or prestige hierarchies Marlowe, , although the altruistic sharing of meat by good hunters can be seen as instances of prestige-based competition Hawkes et al.
In these groups, monogamy is the norm with fairly high divorce rate and women typically have a say in important decisions indicating some level of gender equality; Marlowe, In industrialized societies, on the other hand, although dominance hierarchies are largely suppressed, dominance competition still exists in some areas and continues to affect at least short-term mating preferences e.
We propose that the relative importance of dominance and prestige in societal competition might have more to do with life history tradeoffs in the face of extrinsic risks. Specifically, dominance competition might prevail in high-risk environments, as present-oriented reproductive goals prompt male—male competition and agonistic confrontations over resources Gat, Prestige competition, by contrast, might be more prevalent when extrinsic risks are low, as skill development and altruism both require future-oriented somatic efforts in relatively stable environments.
Individual differences in dominance-based or prestige-based status-seeking strategies might also depend on individual life history strategies accelerated life history might prompt individuals to rely more on dominance.
In this way, life history strategies manifesting at the culture level might affect the nature of status hierarchies, which, in turn, influences gender relations. Thus, more theoretical and empirical works are needed to extend the life history framework to the potential tradeoff between dominance and prestige in status dynamics and social structures.
A third challenge lies in recognizing individual differences in susceptibility to environmental influences at different levels Belsky, For instance, experimental evidence shows that situational cues of extrinsic risks might induce more present-oriented reproductive planning in individuals with childhood or chronic exposure to resource insecurity than in those who did not experience resource insecurity Griskevicius et al.
Similarly, a recent study revealed that individuals facing chronic resource disadvantages reduced their prosocial behaviors when exposed to competitive scenarios, whereas the opposite was true for advantaged individuals Zhu et al. Moreover, although the current account focus on only two overarching environmental forces, it does not rule out other environmental factors with more proximate influences on gender relations, such as socially-imposed marital systems, the availability of contraception and alloparents, cooperative breeding, and advances in education, legislation, and technology.
These more proximate factors complement trait plasticity shaped by life history trade-offs influenced by chronic experiences of extrinsic risks and societal competition. Taking these into consideration provides additional directions for future research on individual-level and society-level variations in gender relations. A fourth challenge is to distinguish gender inequality from gender roles—although they are occasionally intricately related to each other see Eagly and Wood, —and to avoid the pitfall of taking all gender roles as embodying gender inequality.
As evidenced by ethnographic studies, gendered division of labor e. This also cautions against the assessment of gender inequality by using a single indicator, because gender inequality might take various forms and even be concealed in ostensibly benevolent social arrangements. Finally, our position should not be mistaken as yet another version of gender essentialism. We concur with the biosocial model Wood and Eagly, , and other social constructionist accounts e.
Moreover, even peaceful, modern societies are not free from extrinsic risks in the forms of crimes, family discords, and social commotions, which might bias societal competition toward masculine dominance. This might explain the unyielding prevalence of sexist gender roles and gender inequality in postindustrial countries that have long advocated gender egalitarian ideologies.
To make people truly want gender equality and flexible gender roles, the current life history account suggests that we should begin by transforming our society toward a stable and safe one with non-agonistic, prestige competition. NZ and LC conceptualized the manuscript. NZ prepared the first draft and LC revised and finalized the manuscript.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Alesina, A. Fertility and the plough.
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Does sexual selection explain human sex differences in aggression? Brain Sci. Bailey, J. Do individual differences in sociosexuality represent genetic or environmentally contingent strategies?
Evidence from the Australian twin registry. Barreto, M. Bem refers to four categories into which an individual may fall:. According to proponents of queer theory, gender identity is not a rigid or static identity but can continue to evolve and change over time. Queer theory developed in response to the perceived limitations of the way in which identities are thought to become consolidated or stabilized for instance, gay or straight , and theorists constructed queerness in an attempt to resist this.
In this way, the theory attempts to maintain a critique rather than define a specific identity. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Gender and Sexuality. Search for:. Gender and Sociology From birth, children are assigned a gender and are socialized to conform to certain gender roles based on their biological sex. Key Takeaways Key Points Gender roles are based on norms , or standards, created by society. In the U. Gender socialization begins at birth and occurs through four major agents of socialization: family, education, peer groups, and mass media.
Repeated socialization over time leads men and women into a false sense that they are acting naturally, rather than following a socially constructed role. The attitudes and expectations surrounding gender roles are typically based not on any inherent or natural gender differences, but on stereotypes about the attitudes, traits, or behavior patterns of women or men.
Gender stereotypes form the basis of sexism , or the prejudiced beliefs that value males over females. Key Terms gender roles : A social and behavioral norm that is generally considered appropriate for either a man or a woman in a social setting or interpersonal relationship. Gender as a Spectrum and Transgender Identities Viewing gender as a spectrum allows us to perceive the rich diversity of genders, from trans- and cisgender to genderqueer and agender.
Learning Objectives Describe the gender spectrum, the gender binary, and transgender identities. Key Takeaways Key Points Most Western societies operate on the idea that gender is a binary —that there are essentially only two genders men and women based on two sexes male and female , and that everyone must fit one or the other.
The gender continuum or matrix is a multidimensional extension of the gender spectrum that includes additional gender identities outside of the spectrum. Individuals who identify with a gender that is different from their biological sex for example, they are assigned male at birth but feel inwardly that they are a girl or a gender other than a boy are called transgender.
The transgender identity umbrella includes many different and sometimes-overlapping categories, including transsexual, genderqueer, androgyne, bigender, agender, third gender, and two-spirit, among others. Key Terms binary : A state in which there are only two conditions, which are perceived to be mutually exclusive, such as on or off, true or false, male or female, black or white.
Learning Objectives Apply social-learning theory and gender-schema theory to the context of gender identity development and the gender spectrum. Key Takeaways Key Points Gender identity is the extent to which one identifies as being a man, a woman, or another gender, and is often shaped early in life. Those that identify with the gender that corresponds to the sex assigned to them at birth are called cisgender. Put simply, they lose power. But at the same time, each acknowledged how difficult that goal would be to achieve.
But change is not impossible. Barker advises demonstrating how our traditional version of masculinity may not actually be worth the fight. Detoxing society requires ripping off a mask of sorts. Sign up to get it delivered to your inbox each Thursday here , and follow New America on Twitter.
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