Gender Roles and Sexuality
• Gender: learned, socialized differences
• Sex: biological differences
• Gender role: societal expectations about
appropriate behavior for women and men
• Gender-role stereotypes: overgeneralized
(and often inaccurate) beliefs about what
males and females are like.
Gender Differences
• Males
– more active
– more developmentally vulnerable
– better spatial skills
– more physically aggressive
• Females
– verbal skills develop earlier
– more compliant
– rate selves higher in nurturance/empathy
– Flexibility and fine motor skills
– More relational aggression
Mental Rotations
Gender Differences – Parsons, 1955
• Expressive role: kind, nurturant,
cooperative and sensitive to needs of others.
• Instrumental role: dominant, independent,
assertive and competitive.
The Development of Sex-role
Concepts and Stereotypes:
• By age 3, children typically begin to assign
occupations, toys and activities to the
stereotypical gender.
• By age 5, associate personality traits with
males and females.
• By age 8/9 years this stereotypical knowledge
is well developed.
The Development of Sex Role Behavior:
Behavior is sex-typed before development of ideas
about sex roles and stereotypes.
• By 18 - 24 months, preference for sex-typed
toys, some months before normally identifying
own gender.
• By age 3, prefer own-sex playmates and more
sociable with same sex children, but do not yet
have gender stability.
• By age 6, gender divide in friendships is marked:
gender segregation.
Theories of Sex Role Development
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Psychoanalytic
Social learning theory
Cognitive Developmental
Biological Influences
Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud: relied on the concept of identification,
that occurs (in his theory) at around 4 or 5
years. His theory not compatible with
empirical findings.
Social Learning Theory
Bandura and Mischel
Social Learning Theory
• Differential reinforcement: encouraging
sex-appropriate
play and
discouraging
cross-sex play.
• Modeling
• Parental
expectations self-fulfilling prophecies
Empirical support for social
learning theory
• Parents respond more positively when their
children play with sex typed
• Such differential reinforcement is particularly
pronounced in boys
• Strongly gender stereotyped parents lead to earlier
development of gender stereotypes in children.
• Fathers are especially uncomfortable with
“girlish” behavior in their sons
Cognitive Developmental Theories
Kohlberg: Cognitive developmental theory of gender
typing: 3 phases
1) Child acquires basic gender identity (2-3 years of age)
2) Gender stability (4-5 years of age): gender does not
change
3) Gender constancy (6-7 years of age): superficial
changes in appearance don’t alter gender
Evaluation of Cognitive Theories
• Once the child realizes that s/he is a boy/girl
forever, s/he is highly motivated to behave
in the way that is expected for that gender.
• Thus, one would expect systematic same
sex imitation only after full gender
constancy has developed.
• But, children show clear differential sex
role behavior, long before achievement of
full understanding of the gender concept.
Biological Factors in Gender
Differences
• Hormones
– testosterone-aggression
– Money: high levels of androgens masculinization of females; more tomboyish
• Brain lateralization
– men’s brains are more lateralized than women’s
The Red Nails
Devon is a 3-year-old boy who enjoys spending time at his
grandmother's house. One Friday, he went to visit Grandma for
the entire weekend. On Friday evening, he watched in
fascination as Grandma painted her nails with red polish. He
asked if she would paint his nails as well. Grandma saw no
harm in it, so she painted Devon's nails. On Saturday, Grandma
and Devon spent the day at the mall and enjoyed supper together
at McDonald's. Devon especially enjoyed playing with the other
children in the McDonald's play area. On Sunday, they went to
church together. On Sunday evening, Devon's father came to
pick him up. When he saw the red polish on Devon's nails, he
became very upset and demanded an explanation. Grandma
explained what had happened and explained that she saw no
harm in painting the boy's nails. Dad disagreed and became
angrier when he learned that Grandma had taken Devon out in
public with the red polish on his nails. "If you're going to turn
the boy into a sissy, he can't visit you any more," Dad said. He
demanded that she remove the polish immediately and severely
scolded Devon for asking to have his nails painted.
The Red Nails
• Why does the father react as he does?
• Do you relate more to the grandmother or the
father?
• Would your opinion change if the child was 6
years old?
• To what theory of gender role development does
the grandmother subscribe?
• To what theory of gender role development does
the father subscribe?