Gender Roles in America - Research Paper Example

?Typing individuals into specific, defined categories of people is a general practice that helps human beings deal with the inherent perceptual complexity of the real world. Forming categories aids in quickly and efficiently understanding the stimuli that face us in every second. With regard to the people around us, the ease and quickness with which we can ascribe labels (as female, male, gay, straight, rich, poor, etc.) to people represents a greater length of time and a greater amount of effort that we can spend attending to other things requiring attention. If someone defies the typing system that our minds have in place, it is frustrating and open to resistance because that additional attention is being taken away. This is the essence of work in social psychology on androgyny—the state of displaying both male and female gender characteristics (Clarke, 2002, p. 300). Gender, particularly in America, is a useful tool for both describing and prescribing the behavior that individuals of a certain type should exhibit. A study of gender roles that focuses on describing, rather than prescribing, behavior will look at current research in how these roles are functioning in their local context, and what this research suggests about gender roles in general. To give adequate attention, however, to what a gender role is, one must first define what gender is. Etymologically, gender comes from the Latin word genus, meaning “kind” or “type,” which ties in quite nicely with the discussion above about how human beings tend to type or classify individuals according to their similarities with others within a sub-group. Money (1955) introduced the idea of gender as a role in 1955, something to be contrasted with a biologically defined sex. However, the idea that gender is a “kind” or “type” is still implied in the observation that it is a “role,” since any role contains certain defined functions or goals that unite members of the category. In the case of gender roles, this classification is based on clothing, speech patterns, movement, occupations, and other factors not limited to the biological sex distinction that Money (1995) introduced for the first time. Accordingly, a gender role is a set (or collection) of behaviors, characteristics, and norms prescribed for individuals of a particular biological sex by a particular culture or by their sexual physiology. It is important to note that this definition admits that both culture and physiology lead to respective gender roles: admitting that there are inherent physiological differences between men and women (Luders, Gaser, Narr, & Toga, 2009). In addition, this definition incorporates the fact that a particular culture is responsible for how gender roles are prescribed. For instance, gender roles between Arab countries and the United States differ greatly, and the scope of this analysis is constrained only to looking at gender roles in the latter category. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that gender roles are culturally specific in how they are affected, expressed, and enforced by social changes. The present analysis will look at each of these three developments in the context of gender roles in America. For how gender roles are expressed by social changes, a good strategy might be to look at the relationship between feminism and gender roles in America. Feminism, according to Hawke (2008), has left a positive effect on marriage dynamics between men and women. Even on men, who now have a greater opportunity to get to know their children, feminism has opened new opportunities for social interaction and relationship development (p. 73). The author, based on the vision of proto-feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the American marriage based on the equality of both partners is stronger today than it ever has been in its history. However, a more equal marriage has not led to a stronger notion of marriage, which exemplified by increased rates of divorce since heavy feminist influence on American thought between the 1970s and 1990s (Amato & Beattie, 2011). Thus, gender roles have a way of being expressed in social institutions (such as marriage) that are primarily gender-dependent, and changes in gender roles are exemplified in statistics regarding these related institutions. An enlightening area of study considers how gender roles play a part in the structure of mainstream American life. An analysis of gender role research is incomplete if it considers only the home life of individuals in confronting limiting boundaries. Women are pushing the limiting boundaries in the workplace, which is related but separable from their personal lives. Amanatullah and Morris (2010) studied gender differences and their effects on managerial negotiations in the workplace. Women, the authors found, are more aware of the gender-based limitations on their ability to negotiate aggressively in some contexts due to their fear of “backlash” (Amanatullah & Morris, 2010). This kind of research reveals the new contexts that we are finding gender roles still at play in American culture, which is particularly interesting because it complements the work-related progress of feminist efforts to break glass ceilings for women. That is, even as women make progress in defeating the inherently limiting gender roles that confined them to housework in the first half of the 20th century, these gender roles are arising in new contexts. This is not surprising, given that although gender roles are context-specific, the “context” in this case refers to American culture, and not to managerial contexts that Amanatullah and Morris (2010) examine. Research also demonstrates an effect of race on the perception (expression) and prescription (enforcement) of gender roles in America. Blee and Tickamyer (1995) surveyed differences between White and African-American men’s attitudes toward women’s gender roles and the influences on those attitudes. African-American men are, in general, more liberal to the possibility of a wife working outside the home, which may be conditioned by overall attitudes toward lower socioeconomic status (Blee & Tickamyer, 1995, p. 26). Thus, the study reveals that the relationship between attitudes toward gender roles (and presumably then approval of those roles) and race is mediated by the general socioeconomic position of individuals in society. As we begin to see all of these complex social factors as integrated in their effects on gender roles, interesting avenues in gender role research are opened. This research also indicates the salience of looking at attitudes in speculating about how gender roles are enforced in social settings. Lastly, a great deal of gender role studies looks at the effect, expression, and enforcement of gender roles in the media, which is a popular target for feminist authors. For instance, Collins (2011), whose subtitle is “where are we now and where should we go?” contains both elements of description (where we are now) and prescription (where we should go). The author claims that both (a) women are underrepresented in the media and (b) where they are represented, they are portrayed in a circumscribed and sexualized manner. Based on this description where media portrayals of women are now, Collins (2011) recommends that women receive more representation in the media, but that the content of this representation be simultaneously considered. The author relies on the social cognition theories of psychologists such as Albert Bandura to suggest that people learn and imitate gender roles, which they mostly gain from the media (p. 292). Therefore, the media plays a crucial role in conditioning and enforcing gender roles—a process that tends to enforce negative stereotypes of both men and women. Collins (2011) is instructive for not only the author’s integration of description and prescription with respect to gender roles, but also her ability to draw on multiple disciplines in the social sciences to make her arguments. Gender roles in the United States are not fixed and immutable; rather, they have been changing for much of the past half century. The problem is, however, that the roles themselves have not changed but instead the context-specificity in which they are expressed has expanded as opportunities for women have grown. In marriage, divorce rates have increased; in the workplace, women are too cautious in assuming stereotypically male roles. In each of these cases, gender roles continue to be regressive and oppressive. Interesting avenues of gender role research are opening up with these new contexts, and it is important to describe these roles through empirical research. Going forward, the study of gender roles lies at the heart of understanding how American culture works and how to can be changed for the better. References Amanatullah, E., & Morris, M. (2010). Negotiating gender roles: Gender differences in assertive negotiating are mediated by women’s fear of backlash and attenuated when negotiating on behalf of others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98 , 256-267. Amato, P., & Beattie, B. (2011). Does the unemployment rate affect the divorce rate? An analysis of state data 1960–2005. Social Science Research, 40 , 705-715. Blee, K., & Tickamyer, A. (1995). Racial differences in men's attitudes about women's gender roles. Journal of Marriage and Family, 57 , 21-30. Clarke, R. (2002). Androgyny and miscegenation in "the crying game": The case for a performative model of gender and race. In P. Mohammed, Gendered realities: Essays in Caribbean feminist thought (pp. 297-313). Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. Collins, R. (2011). Content analysis of gender roles in media: Where are we now and where should we go? Sex Roles, 64 , 290-298. Hawke, L. (2008). Gender roles within American marriage: Are they really changing? ESSAI, 5 , 70-74. Luders, E., Gaser, C., Narr, K., & Toga, A. (2009). Why sex matters: Brain size independent differences in gray matter distributions between men and women. The Journal of Neuroscience, 11 , 14265-14270. Money, J. (1955). Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism: Psychologic findings. Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 96 , 253-264. Read More