Summary Of Chapter Five

Question 1

Distinguish between the terms gender and sex

Answer 1

Social scientists use the term sex to refer to the biological status of being male or
female. Gender, in contrast, refers to the social categories of male and female. The
process through which cultures communicate gender expectations to children and
adolescents is called gender socialization.

Question 2

Summarize the gender roles of adolescent girls in traditional cultures, including how gender expectations change from middle childhood to adolescence.

Answer 2

In traditional cultures gender roles tend to be sharply divided, and during adolescence
boys’and girls’ daily lives are often separate. Girls spend their time with adult women
learning skills important for child care and running a household. From middle childhood
to adolescence, the freedom of girls often becomes restricted, in order to protect them
from boys and avoid the possibility of sexual activity.

Question 3

List the three requirements of manhood for adolescent boys in traditional cultures, and explain the key factor that makes reaching manhood for adolescent boys different than reaching womanhood is for adolescent girls.

Answer 3

Boys in traditional cultures have to achieve manhood by developing the required skills
for providing, protecting, and procreating. The price of failing to meet these
requirements is humiliation and rejection. One striking difference between gender
expectations for girls and gender expectations for boys in traditional cultures is that for
boys, manhood is something that has to be achieved, whereas girls reach womanhood
inevitably, mainly through their biological changes.

Question 4

Explain how economic changes in developing countries are changing their gender roles

Answer 4

Life in developing countries has changed in terms of gender roles due to globalization,
but it remains true that adolescent girls have less in the way of educational and
occupational opportunities, not only compared with boys in their own countries but
compared with girls in the West. However, as globalization proceeds and traditional
cultures become increasingly industrialized, traditional gender roles may change,
because the greater physical strength of males is less economically valuable.

Question 5

Explain how gender expectations for adolescent girls through American history both supported and restricted them more than adolescent girls today.

Answer 5

Adolescent girls growing up in the American middle class in the 18th and 19th centuries
were narrowly constricted in terms of their occupational roles, cultural perceptions of
females as fragile and innocent and incapable of important physical work, and in terms
of their sexuality and physical appearance. However, girls of those times also benefited
from the existence of a wide range of voluntary organizations in which adult women
provided a "protective umbrella" for the nurturing of adolescent girls.

Question 6

Describe how views of the values of self-control and self-expression in men changed in the course of American history.

Answer 6

According to historian Anthony Rotundo, American values associated with the male role
shifted from “communal manhood” in the 17th and 18th centuries, which emphasized
self-control, to self-made manhood in the 19th century, with self-control and self-
expression both valued, to passionate manhood in the 20th century, with a strong
emphasis on self-expression.

Question 7

Summarize the changes in beliefs about gender in American society since the 1970s

Answer 7

An annual national survey of American adults shows a clear trend toward more
egalitarian gender attitudes in recent decades. However, the results of the survey also
show that a considerable proportion of Americans continue to harbor beliefs about
gender roles not unlike those in traditional cultures.

Question 8

Describe how gender socialization changes for middle childhood to adolescence

Answer 8

According to the gender intensification hypothesis, psychological and behavioural
differences between males and females become more pronounced in the transition
from childhood to adolescence because of intensified socialization pressures to
conform to culturally prescribed gender roles.

Question 9

Describe the evidence for differential gender socialization in the family, with peers, and in school.

Answer 9

Differential gender socialization is the term for socializing males and females according
to different expectations about the attitudes and behavior appropriate to each gender. In
the course of growing up, children get encouragement from parents, peers, and
teachers to conform to gender roles. In the family, parents dress their boys and girls
differently, give them different toys, and decorate their bedrooms differently. Children
(especially boys) who deviate from gender norms in play suffer peer ridicule and are
less popular than children who conform to gender roles. With regard to school, research
has found that teachers generally reinforce the traditional cultural messages regarding
gender.

Question 10

Summarize how adolescent girls respond to gender socialization in social media

Answer 10

Use of social media has been found to be associated with heightened insecurity about
physical appearance and an enhanced “drive for thinness” in adolescent girls. Viewing
their friends’ photos on Facebook, adolescent girls tend to make unflattering
comparisons to their own appearance.

Question 11

Contrast adolescent boys and girls in the major problem that results from their gender socialization.

Answer 11

For girls, the focus on physical appearance that is the heart of the female gender ro
can produce many kinds of distress. For boys, the problem at the core of their gende
role in adolescence is aggressiveness.

Question 12

Explain how gender schema‘s guide expectations for how males and females should behave.

Answer 12

According to gender schema theory, gender is one of our most important schemas from
early childhood onward. By the time we reach adolescence, on the basis of our
socialization we have learned to categorize an enormous range of activities, objects,
and personality characteristics as “female” or “male.” Gender schemas influence how
we interpret the behavior of others and what we expect from them

Question 13

Connect to the concept of expressive and instrumental traits to research on adolescents’ views of the ideal man or woman.

Answer 13

research on adolescents’ views of the ideal man or woman.
In general, femininity is associated with being nurturing (sympathetic, compassionate,
gentle, etc.) and compliant (yielding, soft-spoken, childlike, etc.). In contrast,
masculinity is associated with being independent (self-reliant, self-sufficient,
individualistic, etc.) and aggressive (assertive, forceful, dominant, etc.). The difference
in traits associated with each gender role has been described by scholars as a contrast
between the expressive traits ascribed to females and the instrumental traits ascribed
to males.

Question 14

Describe the challenges facing transgender youth and how they respond

Answer 14

Transgender people are those whose self-identification does not match their biological
sex. Transgender adolescents and emerging adults are at notable risk for verbal and
physical aggression. Although most research on transgender youth focuses on the
problems they face, recent studies have found them to be resilient when facing hostility
or discrimination.

Question 15

Explain how the gender rules of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans are rooted in their distinctive cultural histories.

Answer 15

African American women have a long tradition of showing exceptional strength and
resilience, whereas African American men saw their masculinity undermined during
slavery and long afterward. Latino tradition emphasizes machismo and marianismo,
which entails dominance for men and submissiveness for women. Asian American
women have been stereotyped as “exotic” and Asian American men as unmasculine.

Question 16

Explain why gender stereotypes persist despite limited evidence for their validity

Answer 16

Gender stereotypes attribute certain characteristics to others simply on the basis of
whether they are male or female. Gender stereotypes can be viewed as one aspect of
gender schemas. Gender schemas tend to shape the way we notice, interpret, and
remember information according to our expectations about the genders. Once we have
formed ideas about how males and females are different, we tend to notice events and
information that confirm our expectations and disregard or dismiss anything that does
not. A second reason for the persistence of our beliefs about gender differences in
capabilities is that the social roles of men and women seem to confirm those beliefs,
because of the way boys and girls have been socialized to conform to gender roles.