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Gender Stereotypes and Roles
Gender Stereotypes and Roles
1. ‘Woman’ is more compassionate than man and has a greater prosperity to tears.But the male is more disposed to give
assistance in danger and is more courageous than female “ (Aristotle,cited in Miles,1935)
2. A man will say what he knows , a woman says what will please”. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile 1762/1995).
3. ”Love is a mood-no more-to a man , And love to a woman is life and death “(Ella Wheeler Wilcox Blind 1882).
4. Men do not confront a relationship problem unless absolutely necessary because the risk is that they’ll make things
much worse.Women seek out even small problems to prevent them from becoming more serious”(Lewis, why do not
you understand? A relationship dictionary 2009) .
Although the past four decades have brought a new level of awareness about the wide range of roles possible for each
gender,strong beliefs about sex differences remain. In the 1960 , researchers began asking people what personality
characteristics they consider typical of men and women.
Widespread agreement emerged in many studies.Despite intense political activism
promoting gender equality in the 1970 and 1980 these stereotypes remain essentially
unchanged. Cross-cultural research conducted in 30 nations reveals that the instrumental -
expressive dichotomy is a widely held stereotype around the world. (williams and Best
1990) .
Besides personality traits, other gender stereotypes exist. These include physical
characteristics (tall, strong, and sturdy for men,soft, dainty and graceful for women),
occupations (truck driver , insurance agent, and chemist for women ; elementary school
teacher , secretary and nurse for women ) and activities or behaviors (good at fixing things
and at leading groups for men , good at child care and decorating the home for women )
( Biernat 1991, Powlishta et al,2001) .
Gender Stereotyping in Early
Childhood
Gender Stereotyping in Early Childhood
Between 18 months and 3 years, children label their
own and others’ sex, using such words as boy and girl
and lady and man. As children sort out what these
categories mean in terms of activities and behaviours,
gender stereotypes appear and expand rapidly.
Achievement Areas: After entering the elementary school, children figure out which
academic subjects and skill areas are “masculine” and which are “feminine”. They often
regard reading, spelling art, and music as more for girls and mathematics, athletics, and
mechanical skills as more for boys. These stereotypes influence children’s preferences for
and sense of competence at certain subjects.
Gender Flexibility:
Furthermore, many school-age children take a harsh view of certain violations, such as
boys playing with dolls and wearing girls clothing and girls acting noisily or roughly.
They are especially intolerant when boys engage in these “cross-gender” acts, which
children regard as nearly as bad as moral transgressions. When asked for open-ended
descriptions of boys and girls, children most often mention girl’s appearance and boy’s
activities and personality traits. The salience of these stereotypes helps explain why, when
children of the other sex display the behaviours just mentioned, they are likely to
experience severe peer disapproval.
Individual and Group
Differences in Gender
Stereotyping
Individual and Group Differences in Gender
Stereotyping
● By middle childhood, almost all children have acquired
extensive knowledge of gender stereotypes. But, they
vary widely in the make-up of their understanding.
● The various components of gender stereotyping -
○ Activities
○ Behaviours
○ Occupations, and
○ Personality Traits, do not correlate highly.
● A child maybe highly knowledgeable in one area without
being knowledgeable in the others.
● This suggests that gender typing is like “an intricate
puzzle that the child pieces together in a rather
idiosyncratic way”.
● To build a coherent notion of gender, children must
assemble many elements.
● The precise pattern in which they acquire the pieces,
the rate at which they do so, and the flexibility of their
beliefs vary greatly from child to child.
Group differences in gender stereotype also exist. The strongest of these is sex-related. Boys tend to hold
more gender stereotyped views than girls throughout childhood and adolescence. But as we have seen,
stereotyping of math as masculine seems to have declined, even among boys. And in one study, adolescents
of both sexes, responding to vignettes about hypothetical high-achieving peers, expressed greater liking for
high-achieving girls (Quantman, Sokolik, & Smith, 2000). A heartening possibility is that boys are
beginning to view gender roles as encompassing more varied possibilities..
Every society, ethnic group, and culture has gender role expectations, but they can be very
different from group to group. They can also change in the same society over time. For
example, pink used to be considered a masculine color in the U.S. while blue was
considered feminine.
Gender Stereotyping and Gender-Role Adoption
Does gender-stereotyped thinking influence children’s gender-role adoption, thereby restricting their experiences
and potential?
The evidence is mixed. Gender-typed preferences and behaviours increase sharply over the preschool years - the
same period in which children rapidly acquire stereotypes. And boys - the more stereotyped of the two sexes - show
greater conformity to their gender role.
But these parallel patterns do not tell us whether gender stereotyping shapes children’s behaviour. In some cases, a
reverse direction of influence may operate because certain gender-role preferences are acquired long before children
know much about stereotypes.
For example, by the middle of the second year, boys and girls favour different toys. When researchers showed 18-
month-olds paired photos of vehicles and dolls, boys looked longer than girls at vehicles, whereas girls looked
longer than boys at the dolls.
Furthermore children who are well-versed in gender-related expectations are sometimes highly gender-typed, and
sometimes not, in their everyday activities.
First, we have seen that children master components of gender-stereotyped knowledge in diverse ways, each of which
may have different implications for their behaviour.
Second, by middle childhood, virtually all children know a great deal about gender stereotypes - knowledge so universal
that it cannot predict variations in their behaviour. https://youtu.be/qv8VZVP5csA
Rather than stereotype knowledge, stereotype flexibility is a good predictor of children’s gender role adoption in
middle childhood.
Children who believe that many stereotyped characteristics are appropriate for both sexes
(for example, that it is OK for girls to play with trucks) are more likely to cross gender
lines in choosing activities, playmates, and occupational roles.
https://youtu.be/nWu44AqF0iI
This suggests that gender stereotypes affect behaviour only when children incorporate those beliefs into their
gender identities - self-perceptions of what they can and should do at play, in school, and as future participants in
society.
https://youtu.be/nrZ21nD9I-0
These are some ways in which we can raise our children without gender stereotypes.
https://youtu.be/8FyG5y4nXUU
Thank You
Presented by -
Amitha 160702
Rajeshwari 160727
Naithika 160729
Akshitha 160733
Akhila 160734
BA-III B (PPP)