Lecture Notes

Chapter 14 Gender Roles, Female Sexuality, and Male Sexuality

Modified: 2007-05-18

• History of Gender Roles (the double standard)
  • Judaic
    • extreme double standard
    • women were chattel
    • vestiges remain in fundamentalist groups
  • Greek and Roman
    • extreme double standard
    • female roles--wives, concubines, and heterae (cultivated female companion)
    • male homosexuality practiced
    • female's gender role very restricted
  • Christian
    • ascetic single standard
    • complete celibacy
    • most sexual behavior banned
    • sex within marriage restricted
  • Romantic Love
    • troubadours--chaste
    • intercourse a reward for courtship
    • originally love for other man's wife, later shift to love for single women
    • gradual replacement of parental right of arranging marriage to love choice by lovers
  • Victorian Period
    • double standard backed up by 'science'
      • i.e., smaller brains of women
    • men 'driven', women 'chaste'
  • Modern Period
    • World Wars I and II
      • i.e., post WWI flappers
      • i.e., Rosie the riveter (WWII)
    • Contraception, especially the pill
  • Postmodern Period
    • social construction of reality
• Gender Roles and Stereotypes
  • Definitions
    • gender roles--norms or expectations about gender-based behavior
      • i.e., ordering at restaurant--What do you think?
    • stereotypes--generalizations about groups of people, contain a grain of truth but are not universally true
  • Gender Roles and Ethnicity
    • Anglo-American
    • African American
    • Latinos
    • Asian Americans
    • American Indians
  • Gender Schema Theory
    • Sandra Bem
    • Bem's gender roles
      • masculine
      • feminine
      • androgynous
      • undifferentiated
  • Socialization
    • starts before birth
    • hospital blankets
    • media
    • biological differences too
      •  
• Male - Female Psychological Differences
  • Aggressiveness
    • men higher
  • Self-disclosure
    • women higher
  • Intellectual differences (Kimura, 1992)
    • females better at:
      • tests of perceptual speed
      • object displacement tests
      • ideational fluency (i.e., list objects of same color)
      • verbal fluency (i.e., list words that start with a particular letter)
      • precise fine motor tasks
      • mathematical calculation
    • males better at:
      • spatial tasks--i.e., mental rotations of objects
      • target directed skills--i.e., guiding or intercepting projectiles
      • disembedding tests--i.e., telling foreground from background
      • tests of mathematical reasoning
• Male - Female Differences in Sexuality
  • Masturbation
    • earlier onset for males
    • group masturbation male phenomenon only (the circle jerk)
  • Attitudes About Casual Sex
    • males more willing to engage in sex without commitment
  • Arousal to Erotica
    • physiological arousal is similar
    • females may not be as aware of their own arousal as male
    • social factors in erotica
  • Orgasm Consistency
    • males much more likely to orgasm during sexual intercourse than females
• Why the Differences?
  • Biological Factors
    • anatomy
    • hormones
  • Cultural Factors
    • double standard still exists
      • women still more restricted and more observed than males (socialization)
  • Other Factors
    • fear of pregnancy
    • ineffective stimulation
    • masturbation as training
• Beyond The Young Adults
  • person-centered sex
  • body-centered sex
    • males move from body-centered to person centered
    • females move from person-centered to body centered
    • those different paths could account for many of the data
• The Future
  • Gender Similarities
    • movement in both directions for behavior
    • attitudes tend to remain as before
  • Greater Sex Drive in Women?
    • speculation on unsettling effects of unrestrained female sexuality on society
• Transsexualism
  • The Sex-Change Operation
    • Typical Process
      • Counseling
        • look for maladjustment, schizophrenics
      • Hormone therapy
        • Male to female--estrogen
          • gradual loss of erections
          • breasts enlarge
          • feminine fatty deposits
        • Female to male--androgen
          • beard growth
          • voice deepens
          • masculine fatty deposits
          • larger clitoris
          • breasts must be surgically altered
      • Real life test
        • live for long period (1 to 2 years) as new gender
        • legal issues
      • Surgery
        • Male to female
          • easier process
        • Female to male
          • erectile penis impossible to construct
          • some elect not to have surgery
  • What Causes Transsexualism?
  • Other Issues
  • Criticism of Sex-Change Surgery

• URLs
  • Women in ancient Athens--long article about Athenian sexuality
  • Sandra Bem--short biography
  • Mental rotation--explains mental rotation research
  • Factors contributing to sex differences on the mental rotation task--abstract of Luehning and Altmann article
  • Cybergrrl--an alternative view to the feminine sex role
  • ABGender.com--page for female to male transsexuals
  • Gender reassignment surgery in Montreal--information page from surgeons
  • Vaginoplasty--male to female reassignment surgery (WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC)
  • FtM Phalloplasty--female to male reassignment surgery (WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC)
  • More husbands who became women --discusses decision to make change from male to female
  • A transgendered FAQ--FAQ on transgender issues

Kimura, Doreen, (1992) Sex differences in the brain, Scientific American, 267 (3), 118-125.