Gender roles and gender role conflicts

Gender roles, or people’s perceptions of what it is to be a man or woman, are psychosocial constructions. Unlike sex, gender roles are based not on biology but rather on learned cultural norms or roles. These roles affect the course of people’s lives, influencing the areas of socialization, communication, family life, household responsibilities, occupations, hobbies, and education.

TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: Cognition

Introduction

Although many people hold certain beliefs about gender and its impact on men and women's capabilities, these perceived truths are actually evolved psychosocial constructions called gender roles. Although the sex of a person is based in biology, gender roles are learned social norms. Although there are significant biological differences between the sexes, gender is largely viewed as a social construction that affects individuals' psychosocial development. Therefore, gender roles are subject to change over time, and there are significant differences in cross-cultural perspectives on gender and gender roles.

Family Life

Researchers have found that the gender roles of married couples tend to become more clearly defined following the birth of a child. Often the woman assumes the primary responsibility for child care and the greater part of the housework. Some people see these family gender roles and the unequal distribution of familial responsibility as unfair and claim that each parent should take equal responsibility. They argue that placing too much stress on one parent is not good for the family. In most countries, even women who work outside the home complete a majority of the housework involved in raising their children and maintaining their homes. Researchers have found that these working mothers have fragmented leisure time because their off-work hours are consumed by household and child-care chores. After the 1970s, when the women’s rights movement began gaining traction, men’s participation in housework in the United States nearly doubled, and their time spent on child care has tripled. However, women still complete the majority of household chores and child care responsibilities, in accordance with traditional concepts of gender roles, even in families in which women work equivalent or longer hours outside the home and earn salaries that are equal to or higher than their husbands. On the other hand, men are more likely to work longer hours outside the home than women, and surveys have indicated that a majority of men would prefer to have more time to dedicate to raising their children.

The household structure in which a person is raised has been shown to correlate with the degree to which the person as an adult believes in and follows traditional gender roles. It makes sense logically that family members become used to a structure they have lived with for all or most of their lives and interpret it as the norm, especially if they have not experienced any other family situation. Members of such a family may not even be aware of the existence of other functional family structures. Researcher Alison Kelly found that a significantly higher number of girls than boys participated in household cleanup, a chore traditionally associated with women. Such childhood experiences are likely to produce adults who tend to follow traditional gender roles.

Occupation

Occupation is another area in which gender stereotypes abound, and gender roles can have a significant impact on men’s and women’s career trajectories and lifetime earnings. Common gender stereotypes hold that men are better at so-called "left-brained" skills such as logic and mathematics and that women are better at “right-brained” skills such as language and communication. Kelly found that parents had a tendency to guide their children toward certain occupations and interests based on the child’s gender. According to Kelly’s research, the jobs of nurse, social worker, and teacher were traditionally seen as more fitting for women, and manual jobs such as electrician and engineer were considered more suitable for men. However, Kelly noted that parents did not link all professions with a specific gender. Jobs such as doctor, manager, and computer operator were not viewed as being more suitable for either men or women. Kelly concluded that women business professionals may gain acceptance more easily than women who choose to work in a trade or craft. Furthermore, social-science research indicates that the lack of same-gender role models and mentors in traditionally gendered fields—particularly science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers for women and care-giving careers such as nursing for men—have a significant impact on dissuading individuals from pursuing their interest in a particular career.

Salaries and wages are also affected by traditional concepts of gender roles. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 2022, women across the developed world earn approximately 11.4 percent less than men employed in similar full-time jobs and with similar skill and experience levels. This wage discrepancy becomes even larger for women with children, particularly in countries that do not ensure paid maternity leave and/or paternity leave following the birth of a child. The pay gap becomes even larger when comparing all working mothers, not just full-time employees, as many women opt to return to work part time following the birth of a child, particularly when they do not have access to maternity leave or affordable child care. This phenomenon, dubbed “the mommy penalty,” relates directly to women's traditional gender role as the primary caregivers to their children. Women who take time away from their jobs to have and raise children are often penalized for their absence with lower wages and fewer opportunities for advancement.

One of Kelly’s major findings is that most of parents interviewed believed in equality of education and occupational opportunities for both genders, but with limitations. The parents’ formal commitment to equality coexisted with other attitudes that might make equality difficult or even impossible, such as a belief that women have the right to work but only if their work does not interfere with their roles as mothers. Many parents were idealistic about equality of education and work, but they saw equality as an ideal rather than as a practical, reachable goal. Therefore, in essence, these parents exhibited a subtle but real sexism that likely shaped their children's perceptions of gender and gender roles.

Education

The behavior of boys and girls at school differs, according to researchers Susan Jones and Debra Myhill of Exeter University. Boys may underachieve because they feel that they are supposed to be “macho” or “tough,” and they may view sitting in a classroom, quietly doing written work, as “wimpy” or “compliant” and therefore undesirable behavior. Another possible cause of underachievement in boys is that they typically have weaker hearing than girls; therefore, if they are placed in the back of the classroom, they may strain to hear the teacher's words and will find it harder to follow along and accomplish the assigned tasks.

Similarly, Jones notes that girls were once viewed as struggling in a male-dominated classroom and suffering from low self-esteem and poor self-confidence as a result. People often repeat the notion that girls are inferior at math and science, although this attitude is slowly growing less common. Research has shown that the gender achievement gap in math and science closes in countries that have high levels of gender equity. In countries with the highest levels of gender equality, both boys and girls perform better on standardized mathematics tests. Several researchers have explored the concept of stereotype threat, which holds that when individuals are aware of negative stereotypes about their group (and most children are aware of their culture's sex stereotypes at a young age), they are likely to conform to those negative or positive expectations. In a 2001 study by N. Ambady and colleagues, Asian American girls in kindergarten through the eighth grade were presented with tasks intended to highlight either their female identity, their Asian identity, or neither identity, and the girls then completed a grade-level-appropriate standardized math test. Compared to the group of girls who were not primed to consider either their racial or sexual identity, girls whose gender had been emphasized performed worse (conforming to the stereotype that girls are not good at math) while those girls whose race had been emphasized performed better (conforming to the stereotype that Asians are good at math). Stereotype threat may also explain boys’ relative underachievement in language arts, as children may not be motivated to try in certain subjects if they believe they have a particular gender deficit in that area. Ultimately, long-standing educational gender stereotypes have the potential to become self-fulfilling prophecies when it comes to overall achievement in school or in specific subjects, to the detriment of both girls’ and boys’ academic performance.

The stereotypes that portray girls as compliant and boys as challenging also affect the kind of attention that teachers give to each student. Jones argued that the stereotype of girls as more compliant may make it harder for teachers to identify underachieving girls than underachieving boys. If teachers do not see these girls’ performances as problematic, they are not likely to intervene and help them do better. This results in teachers paying greater attention to underachieving boys than to underachieving girls, thereby affecting the quality of the education that the children receive.

Implications

Gender roles have both positive and negative influences on society. One task for researchers is to find ways, beginning in childhood, to minimize or alter the negative effects that gender roles have on psychological and intellectual development. Society may be difficult to change, but gradual alterations in the definitions of gender roles could help. Another way to minimize negative effects is to eliminate the inferiority associated with various gender traits.

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