Chapter 5

Summary:

Within Chapter 5, the major topics discussed are socialization and gender roles. Covering a vast number of areas, this chapter starts out with discussing gender myths dealing with this similarities and differences between females and males. Here it defines the difference between sex and gender; sex referring to the biological characteristics with which we are born and gender referring to learned attitudes and behaviors that characterize people of one sex or the other (in other words the social and cultural expectations rather than physical attributes). The chapter then goes on to discuss the famous nature-nurture debate. It describes the different points of view and how those who argue that nature is what shapes our behavior use factors such as health differences between men and women, the effects of sex hormones, and some cases of unsuccessful sex reassignment. This differs from those who argue in favor of nurture use global variations in gender roles, international differences in male violence rate, and successful sex reassignment cases to support their argument. At the end of this section it concludes that women and men show some sex-related genetic difference s and that cross-cultural research shows a large amount of variation in the characteristics that are typically given to men and women. Following this section, the chapter goes on to discuss why gender roles differ and what could cause them to do so. In this part of the chapter, it describes the many different explanations for gender roles changing including the sociobiology, social learning, cognitive development, symbolic interaction, and feminist theories. Benokraitis then goes on to discuss the different ways that we learn gender roles including parents, the people that we play with and our peer groups, teachers and schools, and last but not least, popular culture and the media. Chapter 5 then continues to discuss the traditional views and gender roles that society still creates and follows and discusses the general benefits and costs of them. As the chapter continues, it then discusses gender roles in adulthood which covers the topics such as gender and family life touching on topics like who works in the workforce, gender and the workplace, gender and politics, gender and education, gender and interaction, and gender and religion. The chapter then concludes by discussing the global view and the different variations in gender roles. Within this section it discusses the top ten countries and discusses how the high, middle, and low rank countries’ gender roles differ, and ends it by discussing how the bottom ten countries differ too.

What was interesting/what did I learn:

I found it interesting how we separate our instrumental roles and expressive roles. Although I understand what the text is saying about how we traditionally categorize husbands and fathers as the instrumental role players, I think the times are changing where women are seen more and more as this versus the expressive role. In the expressive roles for the women, I was shocked that they referred to them as a kin-keeper. Despite that I generally see women as the ones to initiate conversations and keep in contact with the extended family, I never thought of how much that ties into the emotions, and I feel like there are some men out there now that cover this role. Perhaps it is because my brother is “mommy’s little boy” but I feel like he fits the expressive role more than the instrumental role. He seems to always feel the need to keep in contact with the family outside of the typical holidays.

Question:

With people becoming more open minded, do you think it is possible that men will eventually feel that it is acceptable to be more of the expressive role player and females to be the instrumental role player? I have heard that it is becoming more common for a mother with a child born out of wedlock to have the child take her last name, so does this give her that power to be the procreator, protector and provider? If she can feel confident in the instrumental role, what is holding back the men from feeling that it’s acceptable to be an expressive role player?