Do More Androgynous Self-Images Lead to Higher Levels of Moral Development?

Both Deborah Blum’s The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over? and Aaron Devor’s “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” challenges the concept of how gender behavior is socially constructed. Blum resides on the idea that gender behavior is developed mainly through adolescence and societal expectations of a gender. Based on reference from personal experiences to back her argument up, Blum explains that each individual develops their expected traits as they grow up, while she also claims that genes and testosterones also play a role into establishing the differentiation of gender behavior. Whereas, Devor focuses mainly on the idea that gender behavior is portrayed mainly among two different categories: masculinity and

Therefore, division of moral labor creates a different structure of moral thought in males and females and the cultural expectation of men and women to “exhibit moral dichotomy” (p.96) gives rise to different primary moral commitments in both genders. Due to this, Friedman argues that men are more inclined towards the moral commitment of rules and principles and females are inclined towards moral commitments of responsiveness and care. Friedman’s views about the origin of moral dichotomy resonate with Weeks.

Because they utilized other works, this article is also subject to the bias of those works. However, all of the sources referenced are fairly recently published works from credible sources such as academic journals. In the discussion, the authors include a section about how using the National Health Interview Survey Link had it limitations. Although they did a great job eliminating external variables, as mentioned in the discussion section, their results may not hold true for other demographics. By focusing on only US white women, race was not a variable and racial experience and cultural background would not vary much in the sample. However, this makes their research less generalizable to the greater population because mechanisms that work on white women may differently affect women of color. On the other hand, their sample population is very diverse in age, and results may have been influenced by differences between these women of varying generations such as a difference of values. They also admitted that because the data was only collected at the time of the survey, long term interactions could not be determined. Because this is a retroactive study, the survey was done separately from the authors, so that they later found this survey and decided to analyze it. This is problematic because the survey.did not collect all the information that the

Whether we like it or not, the stereotypes of gender are still prevalent in our life. In 2018, we like to act that stereotypes do not exist in our lives, but they do; however, this does not cause these stereotypes true. Often these stereotypes persist in how men and women morally reason. Women are more often seen as care reasoners where they make their moral decisions based on their instincts to care for others, while society perceives men as justice reasoners who make their decisions based on the law and what is just. In Moral Orientation, Carol Gilligan argues that these are the only two ways of going about moral reasoning. Women focus on care and men focus on justice. I will critique the argument made by Gilligan and propose why an alternative way that people morally reason is necessary.

From the day we are born we are categorized either a male or female. From that day onward society molds, and shapes us into what it means to be a man or women. Aaron Devor’s “Becoming Members of society: Learning The Social Meanings of Gender” discusses the formation of gender roles. Devor talks about how quickly children develop, and placed into their gender group.He also discusses about the gender role behaviors and attitudes . In Jamaica Kincaid’s ,”Girl”, Kincaid focussed on her relationship with her mother, mainly on the expectations her mother had for her. From the personal observations, examples from Devor and Kincaid’s passages, I see that gender roles are not rooted into our biology, but formed from expectations from society.

In society, children are taught expectations as to what is sociably acceptable: who to like, what to wear, and where to live, based on of the environment they grew up in. As children grow up, and go on through life, they then begin to impose these expectations onto the people around them. More often than not these societal expectations conform with that of a heteronormative mindset1. In a modern western context, heteronormativity is the notion that people fall into distinct genders, male and female, and lead natural roles in life all while conforming to the ideology of traditional binary gender roles. Such heteronormative bias asserts that traditional binary gender

I have come to this hypothesis because I believe that females, age 14-18, are vulnerable in the way that they want to be accepted by their peers and society in a whole, therefore, they will usually stay within what is seen as ‘normal’ by today’s society. I am focussing my investigation entirely on females because I believe that females are influenced more than men by society’s norms and are more sensitive to other people’s opinions.

The impact of social and cultural norms on the way an adolescent shapes and perceives identity has come under greater scrutiny in recent years. Although societies differ in the specific nature of the attributes associated with maleness and femaleness, each society attempts to communicate the gender norms to children and adolescents through various mechanisms.

In early childhood, children have already developed clearly defined ideas of what constitutes appropriate behavior for men and women (Blackmore, 2003; Mahalik et al., 2005). These ideas, called “gender role norms,” affect the way people believe they are supposed to act, think, and even feel depending on their sex (Mahalik et al., 2005).

Gender roles have been a big part of society since the eldest known cultures in history had existed. It is not only applied to an individual’s behavior, but to their appearance, their way of thinking, their ideals, and, in some cases, their importance in society. In today’s society we see people stepping outside the binary realm of gender to assume identities that better fit the perception they have of themselves on a psychological level. Because of situations like these, gender roles have proven to be obsolete in modern times; but back in the time where it was only male or female, black and white, or strong and weak, people’s duties, rights and assigned characteristics based on their gender were the way many cultures and belief systems were

The stereotype that men should do everything for the women exists because of the gender roles society has placed on everyone. Although nowadays, people are becoming aware of the stereotypes and are accepting of actions that would fall outside the boundaries set by the gender roles. From the very start of the formation of man and woman, the two were significantly different. It is believed that even during the womb that the brains of the children are already wired to respond to sexual preferences in a certain way due to the hormones that are coursing through them. When an individual decides, and makes the declaration of what they are and who they are attracted to shouldn’t be discouraged, but instead encouraged. According to a study in the article “Between Pink and Blue”, Jean Malpas said, “gender and sexual orientation and convey that research shows that” in a “large majority of gender nonconforming children might become gay and lesbian” and how some children “persist in their cross-gender identification as adolescents and adults (6). In the third study, Malpas states that the “other children’s gender nonconformity will

Research into gender differences in psychological androgyny has been an ongoing investigation throughout many years. One line of interest investigates whether gender identity is now being recognised as psychologically androgynous, as societies are perhaps now becoming less stereotyped. ‘Gender identity’ is an individual’s awareness of the extent to which they conform to their prescribed gender role (Burke, Stets and Pirog-Good 1988;Spence 1985). ‘Psychological Androgyny’ is an individual who has simultaneously or equally masculine or feminine traits (Bem, 1975). Considerable research has been conducted within this area and has found that psychological androgyny is constructive

Ever since the dawn of time, women and men have been associated with specific gender roles that can be seen controversial in the eyes of many. Traits and roles associated with a specific gender can be either innate or learned over time. Looking into the deeper concept of gender roles and stereotypes, it is clear that these fixed gender roles are not naturally born with, but rather taught, learned, or influenced by external forces.

It is normally thought that gender is something that is developed at birth and is something that is set in stone. More recently in time, people have started to express that they feel that their gender identity is different and separate from their sex at birth. Egan and Perry are considered very important researchers in the field of gender identity and psychology. The two proposed that gender identity is multi-faceted and is made up of five different components that are generally independent of one another. The categories are as follows: knowing one belongs to one gender or another, how much they feel they belong to the category, how happy they are with that gender, how much pressure they feel to conform to gender stereotypes and how much they feel their sex is superior to the opposite (Carver, Yunger & Perry, 2003, p. 95). All of these relate to adjustment in different senses. Egan and Perry found that by middle childhood, most have a fairly stable idea of their standing on all of these categories. Their perception thrives most when they are confident in themselves and when they feel that they are not constricted in their freedom to explore other

The assumption is that girl babies really are different from boy babies and the difference ought to be displayed. This different treatment continues throughout life, therefore a sex difference at birth become amplified into gender difference as people mature (Schwartz 4). Gendered experiences have a great deal of influence on sexual desire. As a boy enters adolescence, he hears jokes about boys’ uncontainable desire. Girls are told the same thing and told that their job is to resist. These gender messages have power not only over attitudes and behavior, such as, whether a person grows up to prefer sex with a lover rather than a stranger, but also over physical and biological experience. For example, a girl may be discouraged from vigorous competitive activity, which will subsequently influence how she develops physically, how she feels about her body, and even how she relates to the adrenaline rush associated with physical competition. Hypothetically, a person who is accustomed to adrenaline responses experiences sexual attraction differently from one who is not (Schwartz 5).