PSYC 300 unit 2
"Codes of Gender" by Dr. Sut Jhally what advertising tells us about ourselves?
- "the presentation of self in everyday life" (Erving Goffman) - Stage actor to demonstrate what we think is the appropriate role of what we think is acceptable - Nothing natural about gender identity, it is part of a process where we learn to take on certain attributes that we think are appropriate - Western culture practice a binary distinction of gender
how can we make a difference interpersonally
- Be aware of sexism - Busting gender stereotypes - Working together for social justice
how can we make a difference Individually?
- Consciousness-raising groups: in which women met informally to talk about their lives as women. - Encourage social action -Taking a women's study class
Beyond the Binary In some cultures, the idea that people come in more than two sexes is commonplace. In other words, these cultures have women, men & others. In our own culture, as well as, some people are beginning to challenge the idea that one must choose between only two sex or gender categories.
- Hijras & Aravanis: third sex category - Not considered women or men, but considered to incorporate the divine powers of the goddess - "Superhuman"
Jean Kilbourne She's an award winning educator and activist thru her work on women's depiction in the media. - Advertising misuses images of women to sell products by showing them as sexual objects and setting unrealistic beauty standards
- These ads reduce women to one aspect of themselves, their looks. As a result these ads create new unrealistic ideals for female beauty that are normalized in our society. Consequently, girls and women strive to achieve this look, however, they fail and end up feeling ashamed and imperfect. Moreover, no one can achieve these looks because they are flawless, and no one is perfect.
Making a difference Individual Each of us can try to think about gender- linked differences in all their complexity, resisting the urge to treat women and men as opposites
- Thinking critically and responsibly about alleged gender differences could help foster social change on behalf of equality.
Bandura's Social learning theory: an approach that emphasizes how children learn gendered behavior from their environment. list the 3 factors
- reinforcement - imitation - observational learning
Emotional Expression Standards Bias In a study that showed identical expressions in both male and female actors, participants saw men's expressions as angrier than women's expressions as sadder than men's'.
-Participants used the same gender lens even when the expressions quite clearly represented a single emotion. - These studies show that gender stereotypes of emotion are powerful enough to lead people to misperceive other's feeling, even when they're quite clearly expressed
Expressing emotion is linked to ___ and ___ as well as to gender Emotionality may be taken as a sign of weakness if the emotions expressed are sadness, grief, or fear. - The right to get angry and show it is one kind of social power
1. status 2. power
prejudice and discrimination based on age
Ageism
this type of sexism involves both hostility & benevolence toward women - polarized views (mixed feelings) towards both individual woman and women as a group/ social class. ie. they acknowledge that "career women" are intelligent and hardworking, but they also believe that they are aggressive, selfish and cold.
Ambivalent Sexism
label of female or male given to a newborn, based on the appearance of its genitals
Assigned sex:
Women who participate in considered sex-appropriate (figure skating, gymnastics, tennis) receive more coverage than women engaged in other sports, but they are still underrepresented.
Athletic Women
emphasizes that women are special beings to be cherished & protected, as measured by items such as these: - A good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man - Many women have a quality of purity that few men possess. - This type of sexism exaggerates the differences between women and men - It may lead women to accept rules & regulations about where they could go & what they could do because "it's for their own good"
Benevolent Sexism
____ ____ refers to both the mental picture one has of one's appearance and the associated feelings about the size, shape and attractiveness of one's body. - Many researchers have studied the link between body image and overall self-esteem and most have found that women are more strongly increased in their physical appearance and are more dissatisfied with their bodies than men are.
Body image:
children more thru a series of cognitive development; there are concepts which can not be grasped until reaching the corresponding cognitive stage
Cognitive developmental
dominant groups use these type of conversational tactics to gain and maintain social status and power
Conversational dominance
a fundamental sense of belonging to one sex or the other
Core Gender Identity:
people likely to agree/ acknowledge discrimination (sexism, racism) occurs in theory, but are less likely to acknowledge it has happened to them personally
Denial of personal discrimination
involves treating people unfairly because of their membership in a particular group
Discrimination
people who think women are old at an earlier age than men, and they see being old as more negative for women. - Historically, women's value and status often depend on their sexual attractiveness and reproductive ability. Men's status, in contrast, was derived from their achievements. - A woman is considered old when she could no longer attract men or reproduce, whereas a man was not old until he became mentally or physically incapacitated.
Double Standard of Aging:
like baby talk as though incompetent Elders may create a self-fulfilling prophecy, by elderspeak, it reinforces the belief of his or her incompetence. Resulting in infantilized & being treated like a child.
Elderspeak
feel deserving of social/ material goods/ benefits
Entitlement
idea women are all the same and therefore basically interchangeable - Used to justify oppression of women and violence towards them
Essentialism:
_____ is measured as the proportion of the overall image devoted to the face - The facial prominence is usually higher for men. - 2/3 of a typical photo image of a man featured his face, while less than half of a typical image of a woman featured hers - even when women and men are in similar occupations, they are depicted differently
Face-ism
killing newborn female infants
Female infanticide:
aborting healthy fetuses only because they are female
Female- selective abortion:
less gender- typed flexible gender schema. Less likely to use stereotypes in thinking.
Gender Aschematic
is an official psychiatric category for those individuals who experience a disjunction between their assigned sex and their core gender identity
Gender Dysphoria:
increases pressure to conform to gender roles beginning in early adolescence
Gender Intensification:
identifying something to be of a particular gender - "Basketball" women's basketball" - Refer to men's and women's teams; the underlying message is that men's basketball is the norm while women's is the variation
Gender Marking:
individuals ascribe themselves the traits, behaviors, and roles normative for people - Women & men come to accept gender distinctions visible at the social structural level and enacted at the interpersonal level as part of the self- concept
Gender Typed (typing)
understanding gender, as a personal characteristic similar to learning one's eyes won't chance color. - Young children struggle with hair color/cut change - is now seen as a developmental stage of understanding permanency/ change in the development of cognitive flexibility
Gender constancy
ways of behaving that are aimed at softening a woman's impact, reassuring others that she is not threatening, and displaying niceness as well as (not too much) competence - lower status purposeful behaviors aimed at softening a woman's impact, so she is non- threatening to others, balancing competence with slight display of "niceness"
Gender management Strategies
gender schema information is learned early and guides individuals in thinking & understanding "gender"
Gender schema :
are networks of related beliefs that reflect the "common wisdom" about women and men. People associate gender with a variety of attributes including physical characteristics, personality, behaviors and roles - Women- dainty, soft, graceful - Traits are affective and communal: they describe a person who is concerned with feelings and other people - Men- tall, strong, sturdy - Traits are instrumental and agentic: they describe a person who is an active agent and effective "doer"
Gender stereotypes:
individuals become gender typed or identified using their gender schema for reference.
Gender typing
highly gender- typed; strong & rigid gender scheme. More likely to use gender stereotypes in thinking
Gender- Schematic
negative attitudes and belief about lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual people.
Heterosexism
this type of sexism involves the belief that women are inferior & that the beliefs that women are inferior & that they are threatening to take over men's rightful (dominant) place - These people believe: women seek to gain power by getting control over men. Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist.
Hostile Sexism
Gender in the child's Daily Life: the child's concept of gender interacts with all influences as he/she forms cognitive schemas and progresses to more cognitively mature ways of thinking about gender
Individual level:
this type of bias can lead to characterizing an entire group by the actions of one member. - "I worked for a woman (outgroup) once and she was impossible. Never again" (they will never work for a woman because they "are all" impossible)
Intergroup bias effect:
this type of bias effect is when people tend to perceive their own social group more positively than other groups
Intergroup bias effect:
people with any of these variations: Klinfelter's syndrome, complete androgen insensitivity, CAH, Turner's syndrome
Intersexed-
is a collective term for a number of specific variations on the theme of biological sex;
Intersexuality
these kinds of Interruptions are active attempts to end the other speakers turn and take over the conversation. - Men make the larger proportion of these - If a woman interrupts she's risks social disapproval
Intrusive Interruption
____ Women- "Any woman who is not white, young, thin, rich, feminine, and sexually available." - White women are overrepresented - Asian, native, African, and Latina's are underrepresented
Invisible women
these myths are attitudes, values, and beliefs that serve to justify hierarchal social practices - patriarchy emphasize that women are fundamentally different from men - These myths are so normalized in society women are perceived as: evil, catty
Legitimizing myths NORMALIZE THE DOMINATION & SUBORDINATION OF WOMEN
the unequal treatment of women and men that is built into the language. - Marked both men and women who deviated from the expected occupations and roles with terms such as "career woman" and "male nurse" - Ex of Lady jacks
Linguistic Sexism:
Study of positive performance evaluations
Low- status people should feel more appreciation; whereas high- status people should feel more pride
Study of negative performance evaluations
Low- status people should feel sad or guilty; whereas high- status people should feel angry
this type of communication patterns convey a clear message about who is more powerful and important - High status people have more _____ privileges and fewer _____ obligations - They can take up more space, invade peoples space, touch them and their possessions, less obligates to show interest - One function if to signal the unequal status of women.
Nonverbal Messages
_____ theory explains that in a sexually objectifying culture, girls and women learn to "internalize an observers perspective as a primary view of their physical selves
Objectification theory
a widespread and systematic pattern of prejudice and discrimination.
Oppression
this type of effect happens when the ingroup tend to characterize the outgroup members as being all-alike and having similar qualities. - Suggesting that the outgroup members are not only viewed as all alike but not quite as good as the ingroup
Outgroup homogeneity effect
is a negative attitude or feeling toward a person because of his or her membership in a particular social group - The belief that it is acceptable or right to treat others unequally. - Distain, hatred, feeling uncomfortable around members of the devalued group -___ on the basis of sex or gender is termed sexism
Prejudice
these stereotypes prescribe how the ideal woman or man should think, look, & behave.
Prescriptive stereotypes
describe female and male as a binary (only 2 choices- easier on the brain)
Role stereotypes
mental framework, that guides people as they experience the world around them.
Schema:
expectations can make the expected events come true ie. When a particular was led to believe that a particular child was gifted, the child's IQ score went up, even though that child had been randomly selected. - The teachers' beliefs led them to unwittingly treat the "gifted" children in ways that fostered their intellectual growth.
Self-fulfilling prophecy:
this objectification involves habitual and chronic preoccupation with self-surveillance that disrupts a woman's connection to her subjective (personal/internal) experiences and divides her attention. - Women perceive themselves as objects that exist to be evaluated by others - Continual body monitoring not only creates a sort of splitting of self- between the subjective and the self as an object- it also claims cognitive resources and interrupts thinking with feeling about appearance concern. - "I look and compare myself to women constantly"
Self-objectification
ie. Teacher who pays more attention to the boys in class or committee that preferentially awards scholarships to male students is engaging in is an example of a type of discrimination
Sex discrimination
how sex is formed during prenatal development Sexual differentiation involves coordinated processes influenced by both genetic and hormonal factors
Sexual Differentiation:
When women's bodies are sexualized in the media, women themselves are often reduced to those bodies- or even just parts of them. - These images not only reduce women to their bodies, they represent women unrealistically- in idealized and distorted ways. - Substantial modification of women's natural appearance
Sexual Objectification
it encompasses not only sexual behavior, but also sexual attraction, love intimacy, fantasies and most important, the individual's subjective sense of his or her sexual identity
Sexual orientation:
multidimensional concept, involving erotic attraction, affectional relationships, sexual behavior, erotic fantasies, and emotional attachments
Sexual orientation:
_____ ______ idealized beauty images make women feel bad because their own appearance suffers by comparison. - "You can't be beautiful unless you alter your natural body."
Social Comparison
is a general measure of how much an individual supports the domination of supposedly inferior groups by superior groups. - show racial and ethnic prejudice, sexism, heterosexism People who are high in SDO tend to agree with statements like these: - This country would be better off is inferior groups stayed in their place - To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups of people.
Social dominance orientation (SDO)
Gender in the child's Daily Life: environmental influences support social influences, as they provide highly gendered messages
Social/ Cultural level:
Stereotype Threat: when people know that there is a negative stereotype about their group's abilities, their pressure caused by their fear of confirming the stereotype can interfere with their performance. - Aisha may perform below par on a math test because she is preoccupied with concern about confirming the stereotype that women are inferior in math
Stereotype Threat:
When activated, it arouses stress- related physiological responses; it causes the person to focus too much on how she is doing on the task; and it requires her to try to suppress negative thoughts and emotions
Stereotype threat-
when people know that there is a negative stereotype about their group's abilities, the pressure caused by their fear of confirming the stereotype can interfere with their performance.
Stereotype threat-
can be thought of as theories that people carry around in their heads about how members of a particular group think, look and behave and how these attributes are linked. - beliefs & theories about how group members should think, look & behave.
Stereotypes
Making a difference Socio-culturally "Calculating the Possibilities" summer program for junior and senior high school girls funded by the National Science Foundation
Theories of human development should stress human connection and caring, such as the ability to engage in relationships that empower others and oneself; empathy, not autonomy, becomes the ideal.
a person whose gender identity does not correspond to that person's biological sex assigned at birth; person does not conform to societal gender norms or roles.
Transgendered:
a person having a strong desire to assume the physical characteristics and gender role of the opposite sex. Or a person who has undergone hormone treatment & surgery to attain the physical characteristics of the opposite sex
Transsexual:
True or false: people with more status/ power engage in more stereotyping of people with less power/ status
True
True or false: stereotypes may generate self-fulfilling prophecies because they often depict not only a consensus about the way things are but also the way they should be.
True
True or false: the word man is used to humans in general - English doesn't have a gender- neutral singular pronoun - Traditionally he was chosen to refer to both males & females. - There are cognitive biases, even when they hear gender-neutral terms; people still assume a male is the subject. - People= male bias - Animal= male bias
True
true or false: Environmental influences, foster different exposure to experiences developing belief & values schema - The child's own concept of gender interacts with all of these influences as they form gender schemas and progresses to more cognitively mature ways of thinking about gender
True - Exposure to gendered environments (colors, toys, cultural experiences) strengthens gender binary schema
Most women in media are thin with few overweight women using them as tokens and generally reinforcing negative stereotypes. - Overweight women suffer socially and economically as a result of antifat attitudes fostered in the media.
bigger women
belief about the way we think things "are" or _____ stereotypes
descriptive stereotypes
Emotional Expression: Every culture has ___ ___ that govern which emotions may be expresses, under what circumstances and how
display rules
Subordinate status creates ____ _____ or "damned if you do, damned if you don't" or no win situations - If women acts like a man, she is criticized for stepping out of her place and not being a model of her subordinate group. If she acts like the subordinate group member, she is criticized for not being as competent as dominant group members. - Women, but not men, have to choose between being unassertive(& letting others dominate them) & being assertive (& risking being disliked)
double binds
Making a Difference Feminist language reform: - Has modified old language and also created new language -Adoption of non sexist language guideline - Occupational titles and terms are now almost always gender- neutral. - Mailman → letter carrier, chairperson
efforts to eliminate gender bias in the structure, content and usage or language and to provide nonsexist alternatives
a classification system that influences access to power and resources and shapes the relations among women and men.
gender
those characteristics and traits socioculturally considered appropriate to males & females, the traits that make up masculinity & femininity (Unger, 1979).
gender
most societies are ______ or one or more dominant groups (higher up) and other subordinate groups (less power)
hierarchical
copying someone's behavior
imitation:
Gender in the child's Daily Life: at first, parents & family are the strongest influences on gender, followed by peers.
interpersonal level:
Are stereotypes accurate? To some extent, reflect the social world, and some hold a ____ of truth.
kernel
watching others behavior with positive outcome and storing it for later use.
observational learning
these women are the least visible groups in media - Negative stereotypes prevail for___ women, much more than for ___ men.
older women
many modern societies are ____: a system of allocating more social power and status to men, just because they're men
patriarchal
unconscious cognitive processing errors, leading to errors in thinking
perceptual bias
working class women are shown as out of control - Overrepresentation of middle and wealthy class
poor women
prejudice/ discrimination on the basis of perceived racial group membership - back of the bus
racism
behavior that is followed by desirable consequences
reinforcement
biological Differences in genetic composition & reproductive anatomy and function (Unger, 1979).
sex
prejudice/ discrimination on the basis of perceived gender - no votes for women
sexism
feeling entitled to unearned privilege
social entitlement
as the ability to control the outcomes of others by providing or withholding resources
social power
earned or unearned benefits. ie money, social standing & social influence/ power or special treatment
social privilege
as a social standing that elicits respect
status
True or false: Benevolent sexism correlates with hostile sexism and the two sustain patriarchy in complementary ways.
true
True or false: the word man is used to humans in general
true
Women's Voices in Authority true or false: Underrepresented as responsible or capable - Focus remains on appearance, family, or bodies versus idea or statement.
true
true or false: - Imply that for women anger is truly the forbidden emotion. Instead choose to see sadness or fear. - People make gender- bias judgments about the reasons for emotional behavior in order to hold on to their stereotypes.
true
true or false: Cognitive salience of gender leads to treating women and men as members of a group rather than individuals. - Gender is the most salient categories; people overrely on gender as a cognitive category. - Gender is so important that when gender cues are ambiguous, people engage in cognitive puzzle to figure out the "correct" gender.
true
true or false: Doing Gender Gender can be viewed as a social performance: like actors in a play, people enact "man" or "woman." With themselves and others as the audience, they actively create and construct their gender. - Women's bodies primarily serve as the canvas on which we paint gender may have to do with power
true
true or false: Doing Status When women and men do gender they are also "doing status" & women in particular are doing "subordination." - Male is socially & cognitively linked with greater prestige, prominence, & value than the gender category female. - Doing gender disadvantages females
true
true or false: Media focuses on women athletes physical appearance and sex appeal more than on their performance. - Diver was described as "beautiful goddess on the springboard" - female athletes are more likely than male athletes to be identified as parents or spouses in media reports. - World champion skier is referred to as "33 year old mother of a 10 year old"
true
true or false: Media influences contribute to gender schema - gender stereotypes are also communicated
true
true or false: Slang referring to women is much more likely to have sexual meaning than is slang referring to men. • Objectifying women by using sexualized terms like skirt, piece of ass and c*nt, referring to women as body parts. • 50% of terms used for women had sexual connotations, - Chick, babe, b*tch, sl*t • 23% of terms for men - Guy, dude, stud
true
true or false: Stereotypes become part of the self- schema and may cause stereotype threat and create harmful self-fulfilling prophecies. - They reinforce differences on status and power, - They prime sexist behavior and lead to discrimination.
true
true or false: The Gender schema become part Self- schema People may come to believe that the attributes of their gender stereotypes are true expressions of their identity
true
true or false: The term honey implies that women are to be consumed by men.
true
true or false: The widespread tendency to show more of men's faces and women's bodies may function without out awareness to focus attention on men's character and women's physical appearance.
true
true or false: When old people have meaningful roles in society, there is less emphasis on their bodies and more on their contributions. - Peacekeepers, mediators, or keepers of tradition - Asian societies, spiritual power is thought to increase as the body becomes frailer
true
true or false: gender stereotypes influence self schema. if women perceive themselves as "different from men"; they therefor have different roles, behavior, standards etc. rules, codes; naturally
true
true or false: stereotypes may act as self- fulfilling prophecies
true
true or false:Boys are generally the preferred sex= patriarchy
true
the tendency for high status people to look a at subordinates while speaking to them and look away when the subordinate speaks - Tom & Tara, Tara looks at Tom's face when he's talking. Tom gazes out the window when Tara talks.
visual dominance
