14-4 How do gender roles and gender identity differ?

For many people, biological sex and gender coexist in harmony. Biology draws the outline, and culture paints the details. The physical traits that define us as biological males or females are the same worldwide. But the gender traits that define how men (or boys) and women (or girls) should act, interact, or feel about themselves may differ from one place to another (APA, 2009).

Cultures shape our behaviors by defining how we ought to behave in a particular social position, or role. We can see this shaping power in gender roles—the social expectations that guide our behavior as men or women. Gender roles shift over time. A century ago, American women could not vote in national elections, serve in the military, or divorce a husband without cause. And if a woman worked for pay, she would more likely have been a midwife or a seamstress than a surgeon or a shopkeeper.

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Gender roles can change dramatically in a thin slice of history. At the beginning of the twentieth century, only one country in the world—New Zealand—granted women the right to vote (Briscoe, 1997). Today, worldwide, only Saudi Arabia denies women the right to vote. More U.S. women than men now graduate from college, and nearly half the workforce is female (DOL, 2015). The college gender role landscape will likely continue to change. Men comprise most faculty positions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Ceci et al., 2014; Sheltzer & Smith, 2014). Yet, in one recent study that invited U.S. professors to evaluate faculty candidates for STEM positions, most preferred hiring a highly talented woman over a highly talented man (Williams & Ceci, 2015). The modern economy has produced jobs that rely not on brute strength but on social intelligence, open communication, and the ability to sit still and focus (Rosin, 2010).

Gender roles also vary from one place to another. Nomadic societies of food-gathering people have had little division of labor by sex. Boys and girls receive much the same upbringing. In agricultural societies, where women typically work in the nearby fields and men roam while herding livestock, cultures have shaped children to assume more distinct gender roles (Segall et al., 1990; Van Leeuwen, 1978).

Take a minute to check your own gender expectations. Would you agree that “When jobs are scarce, men should have more rights to a job?” In the United States, Britain, and Spain, barely over 12 percent of adults agree. In Nigeria, Pakistan, and India, about 80 percent of adults agree (Pew, 2010). We’re all human, but my how our views differ. The Scandinavian countries offer the greatest gender equity, Middle Eastern and North African countries the least (World Economic Forum, 2014).

A gender role describes how others expect us to think, feel, and act. Our gender identity is our personal sense of being male, female, or, occasionally, some combination of the two. How do we develop that personal viewpoint?

Social learning theory assumes that we acquire our identity in childhood, by observing and imitating others’ gender-linked behaviors and by being rewarded or punished for acting in certain ways. (“Tatiana, you’re such a good mommy to your dolls”; “Big boys don’t cry, Armand.”) Some critics think there’s more to gender identity than imitating parents and being repeatedly rewarded for certain responses. They point out that gender typing—taking on a traditional male or female role—varies from child to child (Tobin et al., 2010). No matter how much parents encourage or discourage traditional gender behavior, children may drift toward what feels right to them. Some organize themselves into “boy worlds” and “girl worlds,” each guided by assumed rules. Others conform to these rules more flexibly. Still others seem to prefer androgyny: a blend of male and female roles feels right to them. Androgyny has benefits. Androgynous people are more adaptable. They show greater flexibility in behavior and career choices (Bem, 1993). They tend to be more resilient and self-accepting, and they experience less depression (Lam & McBride-Chang, 2007; Mosher & Danoff-Burg, 2008; Ward, 2000).

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How we feel matters, but so does how we think. Early in life we form schemas, or concepts that help us make sense of our world. Our gender schemas organize our experiences of male-female characteristics and help us think about our gender identity, about who we are (Bem, 1987, 1993; Martin et al., 2002). Our parents help to transmit their culture’s views on gender. In one analysis of 43 studies, parents with traditional gender schemas were more likely to have gender-typed children who shared their culture’s expectations about how males and females should act (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2002).

As a young child, you (like other children) were a “gender detective” (Martin & Ruble, 2004). Before your first birthday, you knew the difference between a male and female voice or face (Martin et al., 2002). After you turned 2, language forced you to label the world in terms of gender. If you are an English speaker, you learned to classify people as he and she. If you are a French speaker, you learned to classify objects as masculine (“le train”) or feminine (“la table”).

Once children grasp that two sorts of people exist—and that they are of one sort—they search for clues about gender. In every culture, people communicate their gender in many ways. Their gender expression drops hints not only in their language but also in their clothing, interests, and possessions. Having divided the human world in half, 3-year-olds will then like their own kind better and seek them out for play. “Girls,” they may decide, are the ones who watch My Little Pony and have long hair. “Boys” watch Transformers battles and don’t wear dresses. Armed with their newly collected “proof,” they then adjust their behaviors to fit their concept of gender. These rigid stereotypes peak at about age 5 or 6. If the new neighbor is a boy, a 6-year-old girl may assume she cannot share his interests. For young children, gender looms large.

For a transgender person, gender identity differs from the behaviors or traits considered typical for that person’s assigned birth sex (APA, 2010; Bockting, 2014). Even as 5- to 12-year-olds, transgender children typically view themselves in terms of their expressed gender rather than their biological sex (Olson et al., 2015). A person may feel like a man in a woman’s body, or like a woman in a man’s body. Some transgender people are also transsexual: They prefer to live as members of the other birth sex. Some transsexual people (about three times as many men as women) seek medical treatment (including sex-reassignment surgery) to achieve their preferred gender identity (Van Kesteren et al., 1997).

Note that gender identity is distinct from sexual orientation (the direction of one’s sexual attraction). Transgender people may be sexually attracted to people of the other birth sex (heterosexual), the same birth sex (homosexual), both sexes (bisexual), or to no one at all (asexual).

Transgender people sometimes express their gender identity by dressing as a person of the other biological sex typically would. Most who dress this way are biological males who are attracted to women (APA, 2010).