Culture and social structure interact to create sex typing, a way of thinking that splits the world into two basic categories—male and female—and suggests that most behaviors, thoughts, actions, professions, emotions, and so on fit one gender more than the other (Liben & Bigler, 2002; Maccoby, 2002). Today we are finding that although there are fewer sex-typed assignments and attitudes than there were years ago, sex typing still exists (Lueptow et al., 2001).
These stereotypes become so basic to our way of thinking that we do not even realize the powerful hold they have over our conceptions of the world. Many cultures build their entire world views around masculinity and femininity. Some cultures have taken these ideas and created models of the universe based on masculine and feminine traits.
The Chinese concept of yin and yang, which we discussed in Chapter 1, is a good example of this type of world view. The male/female dimension of yin and yang are represented by a series of traits that are considered associated with each. Yang represents the masculine, firm, strong side of life, and yin represents the feminine, weak, yielding side. There are thousands of other yin/yang polarities, and the goal of Chinese life is to keep these forces in balance.
Gender is socially constructed; that is, societies decide how gender will be defined and what it will mean. Williams & Best (1994) collected data about masculinity and femininity in 30 different countries and found that throughout the world, people largely agree on gender role stereotypes. In a study of 37 countries, Buss (1994) found that women and men value different qualities in each other. Women place a higher value on the qualities of being “good financial prospects” and “ambitious and industrious” for their mates. This finding was true in all 37 countries, showing that throughout the world masculinity is judged, at least in part, in terms of a man’s ability to succeed as a provider and as an aggressive worker.
In American society, conceptions of “masculinity” and “femininity” have been seen as mutually exclusive; that is, a person who is feminine cannot also be masculine and vice versa (Spence, 1984). But research has shown that masculinity and femininity are independent traits that can exist in people separately (Bem, 1977; Spence, 1984). Bem (1978) suggests that this can lead to four types of personalities: those high in masculinity and low in femininity; those high in femininity and low in masculinity; those low in both (“undifferentiated”); and those high in both (“androgynous”). Such categories may challenge traditional thinking about gender. So may examples of ambiguous gender categories, such as transsexualism or asexuality, which we’ll discuss later in this chapter. In fact, the more one examines the categories of gender that really exist in the social world, the clearer it becomes that gender is more complicated than just splitting the world into male and female.