Understanding Gender and Sex Concepts

Content Warning

• This lecture contains potentially sensitive topics, including Gender, Sexuality, Sexual Objectification, Sexual Abuse/Rape/Assault, Victim Blaming, Sexism, and Mental Health.
• Students are advised to take care of their well-being if these themes are distressing.
• No images or detailed descriptions of abuse will be shown.

Defining Gender and Sex

• Gender: Socially constructed roles, behaviours, expectations, and attributes that society deems appropriate for men and women.
• Sex: Biological and physiological characteristics used to define men and women.
• Gender Identity: The gender a person identifies with.

Negative Media Reactions

• Examples of negative media reactions:
  • Denying a person's womanhood due to lack of life experiences or lack of physical traits.

Gender Roles and Perceptions

• Many people take gender roles seriously and are worked up by non-normative behaviours.
• Gender in everyday social perception isn't just a matter of biology or psychology.
• Some people believe they are living with the "wrong body".

Research on Gender Identities

• Current gender identity research is accumulating across diverse identities.
• Research is being conducted at the University of Lincoln.

Focus on Gender Binary Research

• This lecture focuses on research using a gender binary.
• Gender research is becoming more inclusive.

Gender Stereotypes (Alice Eagly's Research)

• Men: Stereotyped as higher on "agentic" traits (intelligence, physical power, capability, dominance).
• Women: Stereotyped as higher on "communal" traits (warmth, kindness, cooperation, other-before-self).
• Heilman and Eagly (2008) study on gender stereotypes in workplaces.

Stereotypes as Widely Held Beliefs

• Stereotypes are widely held beliefs, not necessarily reflecting individual beliefs.
• The lecturer is teaching general views based on research, not endorsing them personally.

Historical Advertisements (Examples)

• Historical advertisements featuring gender stereotypes.
• These include advertisements featuring women as requiring help or needing to gain weight etc.

Types of Sexism

• Benevolent Sexism: Indirect and subtle views promoting inequality ("women should be protected by men").
• Hostile Sexism: Direct and aversive negative views of women ("women exaggerate problems at work").
• Ambivalent Sexism: Mixed valence stereotypes about women that promote inequality (Glick & Fiske, 1996).

Evolved Tendencies and Social Influences

• This research is in its infancy, having for a century almost exclusively used a gender binary (for social-cultural reasons).
• Greater difficulty exists in collecting data on minorities and the tendency to use data regarding larger groups.

Stereotypes on Warmth and Competence

• People are often stereotyped based on warmth and competence.
• Women are typically rated higher in warmth but lower in competence than men.

Stereotype and Self-Objectification

• Women, especially when viewed in objectifying ways, tend to be perceived as less competent and moral than men.
• When people focus on appearance, women are often rated less positively (even when appearance is not relevant to that role or situation)..
• Exposure to objectified images of women can negatively affect women's performance due to decreased physical movement, time spent talking and a reduction in cognitive performance.
• Women are thus less effective at self-advocacy and are less likely to protest for rights.

Gender Differences in Emotional Expression

• Anger is more often seen as a masculine emotion than a feminine emotion.
• Women may be negatively evaluated for expressing anger.
• Sadness is generally viewed as more socially acceptable for women than for men.
• Men tend to express less emotion.

Smiling behaviour

• Women smile more often than men in cross-cultural studies.
• This is suggested to be due to social expectations (to maintain social cohesion), instead of it being a genuine display of happiness or joy.

Grieving and Emotional Response

• Men tend to experience grief over the loss of a spouse more intensely and chronically than women.
• This is partly due to fewer social support systems and existing cultural norms urging men to be strong and suppress emotions.

Factual Cues and Empathetic Response

• Women are more adept at reading and interpreting facial cues and emotions in voices than men.
• This ability is probably an evolutionary adaption to help them better identify those around them who may be in danger or could offer support or protection.
• Women generally score higher in empathetic responses.

Differences in Conversation Style

• Men tend to speak more loudly and interrupt more frequently than women in conversations.
• Women often utilize more indirect speech than men.

Objectification Theory

• According to objectification theory, women are more likely to have their self-worth associated with their physical appearance than men.
• Resultant rules regarding female appearance are more rigid and unattainable than for male appearance.
• This leads to the internalization of body image standards, which correlates with body shame and possible eating disorders.

Perceiving Others

• How people perceive others (especially women) changes based on the focus of attention.
• Focussing on objectified image of a women can influence perception as less competent and trustworthy.

Study Results on Gender Stereotypes

• Studies show how observers perceive the behaviours and characteristics of men and women in hypothetical situations.

Cultural Variations in Gender

• Cultural context and income inequality among genders affect the degree to which gender stereotypes are apparent.
• Women in more equal societies may be evaluated differently than seen in more patriarchal cultures.

Gerulf Rieger's Research

• Rieger's research indicates that both men and women can be attracted to both men and women; based on physical level attraction.
• This suggests that sexual orientation is less determined by physical attraction.

Prejudice Toward Same-Sex Attraction

• Some men indicate a greater emotional response to gay male pornography when they themselves score higher on prejudice toward homosexuality.

Additional Notes

• The information provided is from lecture slides provided by Nathan Heflick, PhD.