FORUMS FOR HUMAN SEXUALITY HEALTH

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Chapter 5

Gender and Gender Roles

Sex, Gender, and Gender Roles

  • Sex: whether one is biologically female, male, or intersex
  • Genetic sex: chromosomal and hormonal sex characteristics
  • Anatomical sex: our physical sex; gonads, uterus, vulva, vagina, or penis
  • Gender: social and cultural characteristics associated with being male or female
  • Gender identity: gender one believes self to be

2

Sex and Gender Identity

  • Assigned gender
  • Based on anatomical appearance
  • Gender variations
  • Gender identity
  • Internalized feeling of femaleness or maleness
  • Gender role
  • The attitudes, behaviors, rights, and responsibilities that society associates with each sex
  • Influenced by culture, age, ethnicity, other factors

3

Gender-Roles

  • Gender-role stereotype:
  • A rigidly-held oversimplified belief concerning all males or all females
  • Gender-role attitude:
  • The belief one has for self and others concerning what’s appropriate for male or female traits
  • Gender-role behavior:
  • Activities or behaviors a person engages in as a female or male

4

Masculinity and Femininity

  • Sexes seen as polar opposites in traditional Western view, e.g. “opposite sex”
  • Different qualities associated with different genders
  • Sexism
  • Some qualities are biologically based, some culturally based

Gender and Sexual Orientation

  • Gender, gender identity, and gender role are conceptually independent of sexual orientation
  • However, many assume they are closely related
  • Heterosexuality has been assumed to be part of masculinity and femininity
  • Therefore, some believe that gay men can’t be masculine and lesbian women can’t be feminine.

Gender and Sexual Orientation

  • Studies show a link between individuals’
  • Negative attitudes towards gay and lesbian people
  • And those individuals’ adherence to traditional gender roles

Gender Theory

  • What is our relationship between our biological sex as male or female and our gender role as masculine or feminine?
  • Do we act the way we act because our gender role is bred in us or because of socialization?
  • Gender Theory developed as a field in the ’80s and ’90s to explore the role of gender in society

Gender Theory

  • Seeks to understand society through understanding how its organized by gender
  • Views gender as a basic element in social relationships
  • Examines socially-perceived differences between genders that are used to justify unequal power relationships

Gender Theory in Psychology

  • In psychology, gender theory focuses on:
  • How gender is created and what its purposes are
  • How specific traits, behaviors, and roles are defined as male or female
  • How gender creates advantages and disadvantages
  • Gender theory rejects the idea that gender differences are primarily biologically-driven
  • Operates from a social-constructivist framework

Theories of Socialization

  • Social learning theory

  • Cognitive development theory

Cognitive Social Learning Theory

  • Emphasizes consequences as shaping gender related behavior
  • Cognition: Mental processes such as evaluation and reflection
  • Includes ability to use language
  • Anticipate consequences
  • Modeling

Cognitive Development Theory

  • Focuses on children’s active interpretation of gender messages at various developmental stages
  • Argues that after age 6 or 7, motivation to act like one’s gender is primarily internal, and that gender-role behavior is intrinsic

Social Construction Theory

  • Gender expression is an outcome of
  • Power
  • Language
  • Meaning
  • Relationship to sexual orientation
  • Women
  • Men

Gender-Role Learning: Childhood and Adolescence

  • Parents as socializing agents
  • Manipulation
  • Channeling
  • Verbal appellation
  • Activity exposure
  • Connections between sons and mothers
  • Ethnic groups

Gender-Role Learning: Childhood and Adolescence

  • Teachers as Socializing agents
  • Females are more common
  • Bias in presentation of topics
  • Peers as socializing agents
  • Play
  • Approval
  • Perceptions
  • Media

Gender Schemas: Exaggerating Differences

  • Interrelated ideas which help information processing
  • Cognitive organization of world by gender
  • Emphasize dichotomy
  • Minimize valuing of the individual

Contemporary Gender Roles

  • Women’s roles have changed
  • Men’s roles have changed
  • Must include diverse groups
  • Egalitarian approach to gender roles

Traditional Male Gender Role

  • Aggressiveness
  • Emotional toughness
  • Independence
  • Feelings of superiority
  • Decisiveness
  • Power orientation
  • Competitiveness
  • Dominance
  • Violence

Traditional Male Sexual Scripts: Zilbergeld

  • Men should not have or express certain feelings
  • Performance is the only thing that counts
  • The man is in charge
  • A man always wants sex and is ready for it
  • All physical contact leads to sex
  • Sex equals intercourse
  • Sexual intercourse leads to orgasm

Traditional
Female Gender Role

  • There are striking ethnic differences in female role
  • American middle-class Whites: women as wives and mothers. Recently includes work outside the home
  • African Americans: more egalitarian roles for men and women
  • Latinas: women subordinate to men out of respect; Gender role affected by age

Traditional Female Sexual Scripts: Barbach

  • Sex is good and bad
  • It’s not okay to touch yourself “down there”
  • Sex is for men
  • Men should know what women want
  • Women shouldn’t talk about sex
  • Women should look like models
  • Women are nurturers: they give, men receive
  • There is only one right way to have an orgasm

Changing Gender Roles

  • Egalitarian position
  • Androgyny: flexibility in gender roles, combining elements of each traditional role

Contemporary Sexual Scripts

  • Sexual expression is positive
  • Sexual activities involve a mutual exchange of erotic pleasure
  • Sexuality is equally involving, and both partners are equally responsible
  • Legitimate sexual activities are not limited to intercourse but also include masturbation and oral-genital sex
  • Sexual activities may be initiated by either partner
  • Both partners have a right to experience orgasm, whether through intercourse, oral-genital sex, or manual stimulation
  • Non-marital sex is acceptable within a relationship context

Androgyny

  • Unique combination
  • Combination or instrumental and expressive traits

  • Difficulties with expression and expectation

When Sex is Ambiguous

  • Intersexuality

  • Tran sexuality

  • Transgenderism

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Intersexuality

  • Describes people who possess mixtures of male and female genitalia or reproductive physiology
  • Prevalence ranges from .0128% to 1.7% of population. Known until recently as “hermaphrodites”
  • Shrouded in secrecy by families and medical establishments in the past

Intersexuality

  • Hermaphrodites: Old terminology
  • Ambiguous genitals: 1/2000 births
  • Blended gonads or both gonads
  • One ovary and one testis, or testes containing ovarian tissue
  • Known until recently as “hermaphrodites”

Chromosomal Anomalies: Turner Syndrome

  • Females who lack a chromosome: XO rather than XX
  • Occurs in 1/1666 live births
  • Female external appearance
  • No ovaries
  • Hormonal therapy
  • Assisted fertility

Chromosomal Anomalies: Klinefelter Syndrome

  • Males who have extra X chromosomes: XXY, XXXY, or XXXXY rather than XY
  • Occurs in 1/1000 live births
  • Variable effects; many men never diagnosed.
  • Small firm testes; some female physical traits
  • Lower testosterone levels

Hormonal Disorders: Androgen-Insensitivity Syndrome

  • Inherited condition occurring in 1/13,000 individuals
  • Genetic males whose tissues to not respond to testosterone
  • Female genitals, no female internal organs
  • At puberty, develops hips and breasts, no pubic hair and no menstruation
  • Many experience female gender identity

Hormonal Disorders: Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

  • A genetic female with ovaries and a vagina develops externally as a male
  • Due to malfunctioning of adrenal gland
  • Occurs in 1/13,000 live births
  • At birth, child has ambiguous genitalia
  • In the past, doctors and families choose to assign female gender at birth

Hormonal Disorders: DHT Deficiency

  • Internal male organs
  • Clitoris-like penis at birth
  • Undescended testes at birth
  • Testes descend at puberty and penis grows
  • Socialization

A Related Condition: Hypospadias

  • Urethral opening located at non traditional location
  • Urethra exists on underside of glans midway through the underside of the shaft or at the base of the scrotum
  • Occurs in 1/770 male births
  • Repair is possible

Gender Identity
Disorder

  • Defined by the APA as a strong and persistent cross-gender identification and persistent discomfort about one’s assigned sex (2000)
  • Diagnosis not associated as hormonal or physiological
  • Requires experience of distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning

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Gender Identity Disorder

  • The goal of treatment for people with GID is “lasting personal comfort with the gendered self”
  • Treatment is individual and multifaceted; can affirm cross-gender identification through:
  • Psychotherapy
  • Real-life experience living externally as desired gender
  • Hormonal therapy
  • Sex-reassignment surgery

Transsexuality

  • Gender identity and sexual anatomy are not congruent
  • Prevalence of transsexuality unknown: estimated 1/50,000 people over 15 yrs
  • May occur with heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual orientations
  • Gender reassignment

Transsexual Phenomenon

  • Transgender community embraces possibility of numerous genders and multiple social identities
  • Other cultures recognize more than 2 genders
  • Paradigm shift of gender dichotomy
  • Employment protection

Summary

  • Gender
  • Gender role learning
  • Contemporary gender roles
  • Ambiguity and gender