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PubMed1997

Androgyny and successful adaptation across the life span among Japanese adults.

The purposes of this study were (a) to examine androgynous, masculine, feminine, and undifferentiated traits of Japanese respondents ranging in age from 13 to 92 years old, as measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory and (b) to measure the relationship between androgyny and successful adaptation. The respondents were randomly sampled from Yokohama City (634 men, 802 women) and were classified by age as follows: 13-24 years old, 25-44 years old, 45-64 years old, and 65 and older. Successful adaptation was measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the CES-Depression Scale, the Hassles Scale, and by subjective health. No age effects for androgyny and masculinity were found in men. The undifferentiated type was predominant in adolescents, both male and female. In the oldest age group, most women were classified as feminine. Adaptation of the four sex roles was different depending on sex and age. Throughout the life span of both sexes, there was a relationship between androgyny and successful adaptation. Self-esteem and subjective health seemed to be the most effective predictors of adaptation.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1995

Sex role orientation and fear.

Data from previous studies suggest that women report higher levels of fear than men do and that individuals who identify with the feminine sex role report higher levels of fear than do individuals who identify with the masculine sex role (Carey, Dusek, & Spector, 1988; Dillon, Wolf, & Katz, 1985). The relationship between sex role orientation and fear was investigated further in the present study, using self-report and behavioral measures. The female participants reported significantly higher levels of fear than did the male participants. Individuals who identified with a feminine sex role reported significantly higher levels of fear than did individuals who identified with a masculine sex role. However, we found no significant difference in behavioral fear among the various sex-typed groups.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

Gender schema and gender role discrepancy as correlates of body image.

Past studies of gender role and body image have focused on women's self-reported levels of femininity and masculinity as correlates of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. This study explored how college-aged women's and men's self-reported discrepancies in actual and ideal femininity and masculinity are linked to three measures of body image. For this group of women, physical size, but not gender role discrepancy, was predictive of body image. For the men, in addition to physical size, falling short of their masculine ideal was predictive of more negative body image. Results are discussed in relation to gender schema theory and cultural ideals of female thinness and male muscularity.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

The relationships among sex role orientation, egalitarianism, attitudes toward sexuality, and attitudes toward violence against women.

Relationships among U.S. college students' (N = 618) attitudes toward rape myths and their sex role orientation, affective responses to sexuality, sex role egalitarianism, and attitudes toward violence against women were investigated. Results indicated that men were more tolerant of rape, more likely to attribute blame for rape to the victim, and less negative in their views of rapists than women were. In addition, for men, but not for women, masculinity and femininity were predictive of rape attitudes and attributions of blame to rape victims. Positive attitudes toward sexuality were predictive of intolerance of rape for the total sample and for men, but not for women, and were predictive of perceptions of women as innocent victims of rape for both the total sample and the sexes separately. Attitudes toward pornography were unrelated to attitudes toward rape. Acceptance of violence against women and a lack of sexual egalitarianism were predictive of acceptance of rape myths. Androgynous, masculine, and feminine individuals were less tolerant of rape than undifferentiated persons were.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Gender role/identity and sibling sex ratio in homosexual men.

Previous research has suggested that homosexual men's sibling sex ratio-the ratio of brothers to sisters collectively reported by a group of individuals-is elevated but only in samples of extremely feminine (e.g., transsexual) homosexual men. I conducted an additional test of a sibling sex ratio effect in a general sample of homosexual men (N = 237), and examined the correlation between sibling sex ratio and childhood gender identity. I found no significant effects. My discussion focuses on why little evidence of a relationship between sibling sex ratio and cross-gender behavior in childhood occurs within this general sample of homosexual men when samples selected for very feminine homosexual men have detected an elevated sibling sex ratio.

Birth Order↗

PubMed1994

The concept of gender identity disorder in childhood and adolescence after 39 years.

The term "gender role" appeared in print first in 1955. The term "gender identity" was used in a press release, November 21, 1966, to announce the new clinic for transsexuals at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was disseminated in the media worldwide, and soon entered the vernacular. The definitions of gender and gender identity vary on a doctrinal basis. In popularized and scientifically debased usage, sex is what you are biologically; gender is what you become socially; gender identity is your own sense or conviction of maleness or femaleness; and gender role is the cultural stereotype of what is masculine and feminine. Causality with respect to gender identity disorder is subdivisible into genetic, prenatal hormonal, postnatal social, and postpubertal hormonal determinants, but there is, as yet, no comprehensive and detailed theory of causality. Gender coding in the brain is bipolar. In gender identity disorder, there is discordancy between the natal sex of one's external genitalia and the brain coding of one's gender as masculine or feminine.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

Handedness and its association with gender-related psychological and physiological characteristics.

Prenatal exposure to a high level of testosterone is thought to result in sinistrality and increased masculinization in females. This paper seeks to determine whether sinistral females show more masculine characteristics relative to dextral females. Demonstration of such a relationship would support the proposition that testosterone affects laterality. Masculine and feminine personality characteristics, breast size, age at menarche, and regularity of menstruation were measured via a questionnaire administered to 40 dextral and 40 sinistral female university students. Sinistrals were found to score significantly higher on the masculine subscale and lower on the feminine subscale of the Bem Sex Role Inventory relative to their dextral counterparts. No differences were found between the groups for breast size, menstrual regularity, or age at menarche. These results demonstrate that hand preference is associated with gender-related psychological characteristics, but not the physiological characteristics measured. Thus, the possibility that the different sex roles adopted by sinistrals and dextrals is the result of socialisation rather than biological mechanisms, such as testosterone, cannot be ruled out.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Gender typing of sports: an investigation of Metheny's classification.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if children perceived certain sports to be masculine, feminine, or neutral. Students attending a University Laboratory school (grades K-12) were asked to fill out a survey about sports during a class period, Children in grades K-6 were given a sport (such as baseball) and asked if a boy named David would play it, if a girl named Jane would play it, or if both David and Jane would play the sport. Students in grades 7-12 were asked to name their favorite athlete or team and sport and indicate what sports they felt was best for a girl and a boy. Then they were given a list of sports and asked to indicate, using a 5-point Likert-type scale, whether they believed the sport was masculine, neutral, or feminine. Results from loglinear analyses indicated that students sex-typed certain sports, such as aerobics and football. Additionally, although some responses from students in grades 7-12 indicated that individuals should be able to play any sport they wanted, there were many gendered rsponses in terms of what sport(s) girls and boys should participate in. The results are discussed with reference to Metheny's categories of permissible sports for girls and in the framework of the gender typing of sport.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The portrayal of the menstruating woman in menstrual product advertisements.

Because menstrual product advertisements act as mediators of a subset of meanings of femininity linked to menstruation, we performed a comparative conceptual analysis of these advertisements to explicate media-constructed realities of contemporary women. We sought to understand the portrayed women's definition of menstruation and their status as menstruating women. Textual and conceptual analyses led us to conclude that the portrayed women, in an attempt to avoid others' discovery of their menstruation, employed a complex menstrual management system, which often includes feminized menstrual products, to act as an antidote to a tainted state of femininity.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1995

Sex differences in cardiovascular reactivity as a function of the appraised gender relevance of the stressor.

Previous research suggests that sex differences in cardiovascular reactivity are a function of the gender relevance of the stressor. The authors examined the role of a stressor's gender relevance as a mediator of sex differences in cardiovascular reactivity. The cardiovascular reactivity of 121 male and female college students to the cold-pressor test was compared under feminine- and masculine-relevant stressor instructions. The women were expected to show greater cardiovascular reactivity than the men were to the test relevant to women, whereas the men were expected to show greater cardiovascular reactivity than the women were to the masculine cold-pressor test. Results supported these predictions for systolic blood pressure reactivity, but not heart rate reactivity. Diastolic blood pressure results were mixed. The women showed greater diastolic reactivity than the men did to the feminine-relevant test, but the men did not show greater diastolic reactivity than the women did to the masculine test. The influence of sex differences in cognitive appraisal of situations on cardiovascular reactivity and coronary heart disease is discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Cultural expectations of thinness in Chinese women.

The present study examined the ideal woman's figure among Chinese people in Hong Kong over the past three decades by analyzing the data from the Miss Hong Kong Beauty Pageant from 1975-2000. Results indicate that Miss Hong Kong Pageant winners and Miss Photogenic winners have always been taller and thinner than average women in Hong Kong. The data also suggest that a curvaceous body shape with a narrow waist set against full hips appears to be an important component of feminine beauty among the Chinese. This ideal matches closely to what has been depicted in classical Chinese literature and challenges the commonly held belief that Chinese feminine beauty standards value plumpness.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2005

Female sexuality in Nairobi: flawed or favoured?

Studies of female sexuality in Africa tend to adopt an instrumental approach, many times problematizing sexual conduct in relation to HIV infection and/or reproduction. This study aimed to explore sexuality as a relational concept. Using interviews and participant observation, the paper shows how sexuality becomes a point of self-identification for young professional women in Nairobi between 20 and 30 years-old. These women form a group who implicitly and explicitly criticize conventional gender roles through the overt pursuit of sexual pleasure as recognition of their womanhood. This aspect of the feminine sense of self is at odds with normative notions of femininity. To avoid criticism for being 'un-proper', women adopt a deferential attitude towards men. The focus on upwardly mobile professional women and their experiments with new types of heterosexual relations in dating provides insight into both sexuality and gender.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Bioethics' gender.

I argue that the field of bioethics is gendered feminine, but that the methods it uses to resist this gender identity pose real harm to actual women. Starting with an explanation of what I take 'gender' to be, I enumerate four drawbacks to being gendered feminine. I then argue that bioethics suffers from three of the same four drawbacks. I show how the field escapes the fourth disadvantage by adopting a masculine persona that inflicts damage on women, and conclude by urging bioethicists to reflect on their complicity in abusive power systems such as gender, race and class.

Authoritarianism↗

PubMed2001

Sex-role strain in alcoholic women.

We investigated sources of sex-role strain between alcoholic and non-alcoholic women. We compared alcoholic (n = 55) and non-alcoholic (n = 51) women on the presence of strain in their sex-role identity and strain between sex-role identity, attitudes, and behaviors in 1996. One source of sex-role strain for alcoholic women was the discrepancy between their perceived femininity when intoxicated versus when sober. A second source of strain for alcoholic women was the discrepancy between their traditionally feminine sex-role identity as well as attitudes toward marital, parental, and educational roles and their participation in male-valued activities. We offer suggestions for future research.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Situating gender: Marie E. Zakrzewska and the place of science in women's medical education.

Marie E. Zakrzewska (1829-1902) is known among historians of women and medicine for her advocacy of the natural sciences at a time when most women physicians preferred to emphasize their nurturing qualities. This article suggests that Zakrzewska's views have been poorly understood because scholars have tried to position them along a fault line that divides femininity and sympathy from masculinity and science. It suggests instead that feminist scholarship on the "situatedness of gender" offers a more promising conceptual framework for understanding the diverse strategies women (and men) have utilized in trying to achieve their goals. Zakrzewska, unlike many of her colleagues, did not seek to empower feminine virtues as a way of justifying women's entry into the medical profession. Instead, she tried to reappropriate science for women and to use it as a weapon against the barriers designed to keep women out of the public sphere. She was fighting her own battle against the gendering of science.

Education, Medical↗

PubMed2006

Gender differences in the consumption of meat, fruit and vegetables are similar in Finland and the Baltic countries.

BACKGROUND: Women's diets are healthier than men's. Finnish women eat more fruits and vegetables but less meat than men. Gender differences may be larger in the Baltic countries, which represent Eastern European transition societies than in Finland, a society characterized by the Scandinavian welfare ideology and a high degree of gender equality. METHODS: The data are based on questionnaires to random samples of adults in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The data provide a way of addressing gender differences at the turn of the century in the economically and culturally different countries. The purpose is to explore whether the consumption of foods classified as masculine or feminine-meat, fruits and vegetables-follow a similar gender pattern in Finland and the Baltic countries. RESULTS: Men ate meat more often while women ate fruits and vegetables. A high educational level was associated with frequent consumption of fruits and vegetables. Educational differences in the consumption of meat were few and inconsistent. The consumption of fruits and vegetables was more common in urban areas except in Finland. Gender differences were similar in all countries throughout age and educational groups and in rural and urban areas. CONCLUSION: The consistent association of gender and food and the similarity of gender patterning in population subgroups point to the stability of masculine versus feminine food habits. The similarity suggests that food habits contribute equally to the gender gap in health in the Baltic countries as they do in Finland.

Adult↗

PubMed1985

The proestrous surge of prolactin enhances sexual receptivity in the rat.

The influence of the proestrous surge of prolactin (Prl) on expression of feminine sexual behavior (lordosis) has been investigated. In the first experiment, proestrous rats were treated with a dopamine agonist, bromocriptine (CB-154; 100 micrograms at 1200, 1300, and 1600 h), which blocked the proestrous surge of Prl without affecting the preovulatory surge of luteinizing hormone. Such animals displayed depressed lordosis quotients (LQs) when compared to control animals at 2000 h on proestrus. However, in CB-154-treated animals given ovine Prl (10 I.U.) at 1400 h on proestrus, LQs were restored to control levels. Ovariectomized (OVX) rats primed with estradiol benzoate (EB; 2 micrograms for 2 days) produced surges of Prl that were similar in timing to those of proestrous. Once again, CB-154 treatment blocked this Prl surge and significantly depressed the LQ, whereas replacement with ovine Prl returned the LQ to control values. These results suggest that the Prl surge facilitates the expression of lordosis. Ovariectomized/adrenalectomized (ADX) and OVX/sham ADX rats were treated with EB (2 micrograms for 2 days) and tested for lordosis on Day 3. Adrenalectomized rats responded with lower levels of lordosis than did sham controls. Administration of progesterone (P4) to ADX rats on Day 3 enhanced the LQ compared to sham ADX values. CB-154 was ineffective in reversing the enhanced LQ, indicating that Prl may be acting through stimulation of adrenal progestins. These data taken together suggest that the proestrous surge of Prl contributes to the normal expression of feminine sexual behavior on proestrus.

Adrenalectomy↗

PubMed1997

Rhinoplasty as part of gender-confirming surgery in male transsexuals: basic considerations and clinical experience.

Because psychotherapy will not change the profound incongruence between the objective biological sex and subjective gender identity experienced by transsexuals, hormonal and surgical treatment to change the body toward the experienced gender is the only way out of this dilemma. To allow the male-to-female transsexual to pass as a member of this gender in public, rhinoplasty may be as important as genital reassignment surgery. In this paper the surgical considerations on gender-confirming rhinoplasty are presented and discussed. From December 1985 to January 1996, 22 male-to-female transsexuals underwent rhinoplasty at the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of the Academisch Ziekenhuis Vrije Universiteit to obtain a less masculine appearance. Although revisional surgery was performed in four patients, all were satisfied with the final result in that they were convinced that their faces had become more feminine. We conclude that in selected patients rhinoplasty may help to create a feminine countenance for male-to-female transsexuals.

Adolescent↗