Gender Differences Between Psychological Androgyny Masculinity And Femininity Scores

Since the inception of time, there have been differences between what society has considered masculine and feminine. Men were seen as strong, assertive and courageous while women were stereotypically viewed as emotional, compassionate, and loving. Young boys and girls were shunned and bullied for showing traits belonging to the opposite gender and, in some places, still are. In 1974, Doctor Sarah Bem developed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory by interviewing students to compile a list of stereotypical masculine and feminine traits in order to measure Androgyny - having equally high levels of both masculinity and femininity traits. Through obtaining a score from this inventory and finding which sex one’s traits are most like, one is able to introspect in order to better understand what conditions or events were influencers and how one’s interests reflect their gender status. After receiving my results

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

The gender of a person is the masculine or feminine attributes of that individual with respect to the psychological and biological role in society. (Magar, 2009) A gender role can be defined as the way that a person lives in society with respect to its lifestyle. It can be argued that over time the major differences between men and women’s gender roles have faded. In the past traditional roles have been based in their society by their biological orientation. (Magar, 2009) Gender roles can also be described as the behavior and attitudes that are expected of men and women in a society. (Faqs.org, 2011) Although different cultures impose different expectations, many cultures have the same basic gender roles.

Many people confuse the definition of gender and sex. “Gender, on the other hand, refers to the meanings, values, and characteristics that people ascribe to different sexes. Sex is a biological concept, determined on the basis of individual 's primary sex characteristics.” (Blackstone) Society gives social cues on the appropriate behavior for each sex. For example, women are to exert more feminine traits such as being dependent, emotional, passive, innocent, nurturing, and/or self-critical. On the contrary, men should be more

The Lenses on Gender by Sandra Bem (1993) focuses on gender polarization throughout chapter four. The most significant aspect the to passage to me was the concept of androgyny. At first, it was surprising to me that androgyny was harshly criticized, but I came to understand the issue with the word. Androgyny, although trying to escape the grasp of gender polarization, still encompasses gender polarizing qualities. Even knowing this, I find the word to be beautiful. It "provides both a vision of utopia and a model of mental health that does not require the individual to banish from the self whatever attributes and behaviors the culture may have stereotypically defined as inappropriate for his or her sex," (Bem, 1993, p. 124). In a society, one

For thousands of years, established gender roles have been a part of our society. Women are commonly known as sensitive, emotional, or passive. On the contrary, men are described as rational, competitive, independent, or aggressive. Believing women are more emotional than men is stereotyping. However, the stereotype is not entirely untrue. Development of gender roles is often conditioned more by environmental or cultural factors than by hereditary or biological factors. The development of gender roles between men and women involves the inference of peer community of each gender, the communication style of male and female and the intimacy or connection level of men and women.

Masculinity is a topic that has been debated in our society extensively, through research as well as in informal settings. Many wonder what it means to be masculine, and if we can really assign a definition to such a subjective term. After all, shouldn't one's own perception be the determinant of what constitutes masculinity? This self-construction would be the ideal in our society, but unfortunately, it represents a false belief. Masculinity has certain characteristics assigned to it by our culture.

Androgyny is not a term that is used often in regular conversation, but it really isn’t a difficult concept to grasp. In simplest terms, when a person is androgynous they exhibit a mixture of qualities or characteristics that are stereotypically associated with masculinity and femininity (Cook). While there are two types of androgyny, the two being behavioral androgyny and psychological androgyny (Swierzewski), this paper is going to focus on psychological androgyny and whether or not it truly exists. The term androgyny comes from classical mythology and literature so the concept isn’t particularly new (Hoffman). However, in the 1970’s Sandra Bem, a

During this week we have discussed the differences of how we describe masculine and feminine based on biological and cultural assessments of gender, while also looking at how media depicts these gender roles, and how it influences our understanding of sex and sexuality. Gender roles are drawn upon normative rules and standards that “society” create. When we distinguish between these roles, the Masculine role is more self-oriented or agentic, while the feminine role is communal. Males are understood of having a standard of being strong, aggressive, dominant, and most importantly being the provider. Females are thought of having the standard of being weak, fragile, submissive, nurturing, and subordinate. This gender socialization begins at birth starting when a girl is placed in a pink hat, while a boy is placed in a blue cap.

Sandra Bem, a pioneer in social psychology, introduced the concept of androgyny in her 1974 study, ‘The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny’. Bem was the first in her field to suggest that masculinity and femininity range on two separate dimensions as opposed to one single dichotomy. The study encountered statistically significant results to this idea and it was found that Bem’s idea of androgyny had been supported. Further psychological research has shown that Bem’s original study had great impact on the psychological and sociological communities together, influencing further researching and becoming applicable as a reference in court proceedings such as, that of Norrie May-Welby (Bibby, 2013). In 1981, Bem furthered her research with ‘Gender Schema Theory: A Cognitive Account of Sex-Typing’, a revision of the findings from her 1974 study with an additional analysis on how gender is perceived and determined by the individual and the cognitive processes involved in identifying maleness and femaleness in the environment. The BSRI remains applicable to both disciplinary and practicing psychology and will still produce similar results (Carver et al, 2013). Bem was a significant influence on the study of psychological androgyny and social psychology as a whole. The 1974 study prompted much criticism, which Bem often considered in her further works, assisting to further the understanding of androgyny and gender in psychology.

She’s the Man (2006) is a film about Viola Hastings, a girl whose passion is to simply play soccer. When her women’s team gets terminated due to lack of players, the discriminatory men’s soccer coach states, “It isn 't me talking, it’s scientific fact: girls can 't beat boys. It 's as simple as that.” Infuriated, Viola decides to impersonate her twin brother at another school in order to make the team and play soccer. She does this in order to prove that “she’s the man” and to demonstrate to the men’s coach that girls can play just as good as boys. This romantic comedy is noted for its contrasting elements between masculinity and

It is a common belief that a person’s gender is biologically determined, where in fact, gender does not occur naturally from the body (Butler 1999). Rather, gender is a social construct (Hansot & Tyack, 1988). It is a set of expectations and behavioural norms that individuals learn and perform (Butler 1999). Depending on time and culture, every society sets out what is considered appropriate behaviour for a man or a woman, based on concepts of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ practices (Holmes, 2013). It is through socialisation that we learn these expectations (Holmes, 2013). We then shape our behaviour to fit the gender that is assigned to us at birth, according to our sex category (Butler, 1999). West and Zimmerman (1987), discuss the idea that gender is a “routine, methodical and recurring accomplishment” (p. 126) and that one can never not ‘do’ gender, as every activity, attitude and behaviour is

Interpersonal Theories of Gender are described as factors that influence the development of masculinity and femininity. Our text states, “Psychodynamics theory emphasizes

Society has clearly defined boundaries between what is considered to be male or female. The development of an individual’s gender role is formed by interactions with those in close proximity. Society constantly tells us how we should look, act and live based on gender. Family, friends and the media have a tremendous impact on how these roles are formed and the expected behavior of each gender role.

As evident from the generalized patterns found in differences in behaviour and outlook observed between the sexes, it may be tempting, as has been done in the past, to conclude that gender is an unavoidable aspect of human existence as determined purely from one 's genes. Indeed, human physiology is subject to sexual dimorphism; statistically significant differences in brain size and rate of maturation of specific substructures in the brain exist between males and females (Giedd, Castellanos, Rajapakese, Vaituzis, & Rapoport, 1997), yet these physical differences fail to explain how individuals form their concept of their own gender, and why they tend to conform to their perceived gender roles as defined by the society in which they live, when these roles are ever-changing. Thus, it is important to differentiate between the physical and nonphysical traits, and how the labels of femininity and masculinity should not confuse the two aspects. As defined by Unger (1979), “sex” would be used to refer to the biological differences in males and females, while “gender” describes socioculturally determined, nonphysiological traits which are arbitrarily designated as being appropriate for either females or males. With more recent awareness and interest in matters of gender nonconformity and individual gender identity, new research now explains how these concepts of gender are shaped by social influences (Perry