Gender Role - Gender Role Theory

Gender Role Theory

Gender role theory posits that boys and girls learn the appropriate behavior and attitudes from the family and overall culture they grow up with, and so non-physical gender differences are a product of socialization. Social role theory proposes that the social structure is the underlying force for the gender differences. Social role theory proposes that the sex-differentiated behavior is driven by the division of labor between two sexes within a society. Division of labor creates gender roles, which in turn, lead to gendered social behavior.

The physical specialization of the sexes is considered to be the distal cause of gender roles.Men’s unique physical advantages in terms of body size and upper body strength provided them an edge over women in those social activities that demanded such physical attributes such as hunting, herding and warfare. On the other hand, women’s biological capacity for reproduction and child-bearing is proposed to explain their limited involvement in other social activities. Such divided activity arrangement for the purpose of achieving activity-efficiency led to the division of labor between sexes. Social role theorists have explicitly stressed that the labor division is not narrowly defined as that between paid employment and domestic activities, rather, is conceptualized to include all activities performed within a society that are necessary for its existence and sustainability. The characteristics of the activities performed by men and women became people's perceptions and beliefs of the dispositional attributes of men or women themselves. Through the process of correspondent inference (Gilbert, 1998), division of labor led to gender roles, or gender stereotype. Ultimately, people expect men and women who occupy certain position to behave according to these attributes.

These socially constructed gender roles are considered to be hierarchical and characterized as a male-advantaged gender hierarchy (Wood & Eagly, 2002). The activities men were involved in were often those that provided them with more access to or control of resources and decision making power, rendering men not only superior dispositional attributes via correspondence bias (Gilbert, 1998), but also higher status and authority as society progressed. The particular pattern of the labor division within a certain society is a dynamic process and determined by its specific economical and cultural characteristics. For instance, in an industrial economy, the emphasis on physical strength in social activities becomes less compared with that in a less advanced economy. In a low birth rate society, women will be less confined to reproductive activities and thus more likely to be involved in a wide range of social activities. The beliefs that people hold about the sexes are derived from observations of the role performances of men and women and thus reflect the sexual division of labor and gender hierarchy of the society (Eagly et al., 2000).

The consequences of gender roles and stereotypes are sex-typed social behavior (Eagly et al., 2004) because roles and stereotypes are both socially shared descriptive norms and prescriptive norms. Gender roles provide guides to normative behaviors that are typical, ought-to-be and thus “likely effective” for each sex within certain social context. Gender roles also depict ideal, should-be, and thus desirable behaviors for men and women who are occupying a particular position or involving in certain social activities.Put it another way, men and women, as social beings, strive to belong and seek for approval by complying and conforming to the social and cultural norms within their society. The conformity to social norms not only shapes the pattern, but also maintains the very existence of sex-typed social behavior (Eagly et al., 2004).

In summary, social role theory “treats these differing distributions of women and men into roles as the primary origin of sex-differentiated social behavior, their impact on behavior is mediated by psychological and social processes” (Eagly, 1997), including “developmental and socialization processes, as well as by processes involved in social interaction (e.g., expectancy confirmation) and self-regulation” (Eagly et al., 2004).

The cognitive development theory of gender roles is mentioned in Human Sexuality by Janelle Carroll. This assumes that children go through a pattern of development that is universal to all. This theory follows Piaget's proposition that children can only process a certain amount of information at each stage of development. As children mature they become more aware that gender roles are situational. Therefore theorists predict that rigid gender role behavior may decrease around the ages of 7 or 8. Carroll also mentions a theory under the name of "Gender Schema Theory: Our Cultural Maps" which was first proposed by Sandra Bem. Bem believed that we all thought according to schemas, which is a cognitive way to organize our world. She further said that we all have a gender schema to organize the ways we view gender around us. Information is consistently being transferred to us about gender and what it is to be masculine and feminine. This is where Bem splits from cognitive theorists who believe gender is important "to children because of their physicalistic ways of thinking". Carroll also says that the gender schema can become so ingrained that we are not aware of its power.