I am going to start a new Gender Role Stereotyping discussion on my blog because this whole area needs to be urgently addressed and we don’t seem to have got anywhere in the last 30 years. Gender stereotypes are still holding strong: Beliefs about the roles of men and women are “as firmly held now as they were in 1980”, according to a 2014 study by psychologists in New Jersey and yet we are not doing the right things to address the main issues.
Firstly, I need to make something clear; my intention is not to attempt to prove that males and females are exactly the same, clearly they are not. But instead, to show that the ways that they differ do not justify the vast differences in gender role stereotyping that is found to pervade each and every one of the socialising agents – namely: parents, teachers, peer groups and the mass media. All we ultimately want are happy, stable children and adults who are doing exactly what they want in life and getting acknowledged financially for doing so. Recognised for their individuality as human beings rather than for their gender.
Instead, the aim is to look at the areas that are causing the issues and try to find ways to improve them. We are not doing enough in schools for example and we have to discourage the new trend for “Gender Reveal Parties” whereby new parents are told the sex of their unborn child at a (basically) blue or pink party. Social media has created a huge breeding ground for further imbalance and it’s time we looked at this whole area too.
BUT because it’s my blog and I don’t have an editor I’m just going to throw out some random thoughts to start with and take it from there…because I’ve got a lot of research notes about previous studies, but it’s better if I put those out slowly. My big thing is trying to find a way to increase a woman’s worth financially whether she decides to stay at home to bring up her children or go out to work. The big issue is that we will never be “equal” in the world of careers because we have the babies. Which I’m not complaining about by the way. I’m extremely pleased that I was able to produce babies and bring up children, but we have to find a way to equate that sort of care with financial independence moving forward so that our children can thrive no matter what their choices are.
We were doing so well….and in so many ways society has obviously moved on to a far more fluid understanding and acceptance of gender, however early findings remain deeply entrenched and then along comes Donald John Trump and his wife Melania. The Ken and Barbie of our new world order. The Beauty and The Beast and it is all I can do not to throw my arms up in despair (and discuss her hair, her eyes and her clothes with my daughter). THEN we have Theresa May – a great female role model (in that she’s a female Prime Minister) discussing boys jobs and girl jobs when she’s at home with her husband. NOT HELPFUL. Try being a single parent – that should help – kids see the parent having to cook AND put the bins out, change the lightbulbs (aka sit in the dark), brush their daughter’s hair in the morning, SHOUT….it creates a far more level playing field and yet my three children are little mini stereotypes in so many ways (but more of that another time).
What is Gender Role Stereotyping?
Classification by gender refers to the psychological and cultural definitiions of the dimensions “masculinity” and “femininity” (Unger 1979). This is different to the term “sex” which refers to the distinction between males and females based on physiological characteristics such as genitals, hormones, internal reproductive organs, chromosomes and so on.
On the basis of sex, one of two different series of personality traits are assigned – the male and female stereotypes. The traits associated with these stereotypes vary from culture to culture and from time to time.
Much of the theorising and research in the sex stereotyping are has been confused by inadequate distinctions between terms, however, sex roles and gender roles can both be defined as a “constellation of generalised expectations about the traits and behaviours of the members of each sex”.
In 1985, for my degree course I did a Psychology dissertation called “Gender Role Stereotyping in Children’s Comics” whereby I reviewed all the latest research and scoured comics for gender differences. It wasn’t difficult to find. Girls had Bunty and Twinkle, Boys had Victor and Battle Action Force. Older girls had Jackie, My Guy and Blue Jeans – the boys seem to move on to newspapers and books by then. Jackie was all about “my neurotic search for my Fella” (and I loved it). Hopefully my research singlehandedly destroyed the market for gender based comics. There were around 40 a week then – not many now (owing to the dramatic changes in publishing obviously, not me) and the role models are vastly improved (I think, although I need to check what’s out there now). NB I’ve just checked and it’s WAY worse than I thought! A whole row of comics with free pink sparkly things and another whole row with free blue, activity things or dinosaurs). This is where we are going wrong.
Psychologists in New Jersey compared attitudes towards gender stereotypes from around 200 college students 1983 and 2014, and found that they have not changed much over that time. This included the idea that woman should clean and cook and that men should repair and maintain cars. The idea men are less likely to look after house and children has risen, but both genders are judged equally responsible for financial obligations.
Well if the financial responsibilities are now equal then the gender pay gap is a huge issue that needs addressing. If women are still predominantly going into teaching and medicine – THEN PAY THEM MORE. Teachers should be paid FAR MORE MONEY TO LOOK AFTER OUR CHILDREN. Doctors and nurses ditto. Female sports people too should be paid the same as men (but lets discuss football salaries another time).
That’s all I’m going to say on the matter for now because it’s a minefield and if I don’t start with something, it will take me forever to formulate and TIME IS RUNNING AWAY WITH US IN THE WRONG DIRECTION I fear.
How many schools are providing “Life Skills” lessons for kids? Bringing in gender non-specific people doing different sorts of jobs – female mechanics, engineers, computer programmers and doctors, male nurses, teachers, dancers, stay at home dads. Our kids simply need to be shown the vast possibilities open to them in the world these days without being put off by the crap pay of some of them.
