gender norms assignment

Gender in the Cradle: Evaluating Gender Assignment as a Social Norm

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Pride Month

A guide to gender identity terms.

Laurel Wamsley

"Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It's how someone refers to you in conversation," says Mary Emily O'Hara, a communications officer at GLAAD. "And when you're speaking to people, it's a really simple way to affirm their identity." Kaz Fantone for NPR hide caption

"Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It's how someone refers to you in conversation," says Mary Emily O'Hara, a communications officer at GLAAD. "And when you're speaking to people, it's a really simple way to affirm their identity."

Issues of equality and acceptance of transgender and nonbinary people — along with challenges to their rights — have become a major topic in the headlines. These issues can involve words and ideas and identities that are new to some.

That's why we've put together a glossary of terms relating to gender identity. Our goal is to help people communicate accurately and respectfully with one another.

Proper use of gender identity terms, including pronouns, is a crucial way to signal courtesy and acceptance. Alex Schmider , associate director of transgender representation at GLAAD, compares using someone's correct pronouns to pronouncing their name correctly – "a way of respecting them and referring to them in a way that's consistent and true to who they are."

Glossary of gender identity terms

This guide was created with help from GLAAD . We also referenced resources from the National Center for Transgender Equality , the Trans Journalists Association , NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists , Human Rights Campaign , InterAct and the American Psychological Association . This guide is not exhaustive, and is Western and U.S.-centric. Other cultures may use different labels and have other conceptions of gender.

One thing to note: Language changes. Some of the terms now in common usage are different from those used in the past to describe similar ideas, identities and experiences. Some people may continue to use terms that are less commonly used now to describe themselves, and some people may use different terms entirely. What's important is recognizing and respecting people as individuals.

Jump to a term: Sex, gender , gender identity , gender expression , cisgender , transgender , nonbinary , agender , gender-expansive , gender transition , gender dysphoria , sexual orientation , intersex

Jump to Pronouns : questions and answers

Sex refers to a person's biological status and is typically assigned at birth, usually on the basis of external anatomy. Sex is typically categorized as male, female or intersex.

Gender is often defined as a social construct of norms, behaviors and roles that varies between societies and over time. Gender is often categorized as male, female or nonbinary.

Gender identity is one's own internal sense of self and their gender, whether that is man, woman, neither or both. Unlike gender expression, gender identity is not outwardly visible to others.

For most people, gender identity aligns with the sex assigned at birth, the American Psychological Association notes. For transgender people, gender identity differs in varying degrees from the sex assigned at birth.

Gender expression is how a person presents gender outwardly, through behavior, clothing, voice or other perceived characteristics. Society identifies these cues as masculine or feminine, although what is considered masculine or feminine changes over time and varies by culture.

Cisgender, or simply cis , is an adjective that describes a person whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Transgender, or simply trans, is an adjective used to describe someone whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth. A transgender man, for example, is someone who was listed as female at birth but whose gender identity is male.

Cisgender and transgender have their origins in Latin-derived prefixes of "cis" and "trans" — cis, meaning "on this side of" and trans, meaning "across from" or "on the other side of." Both adjectives are used to describe experiences of someone's gender identity.

Nonbinary is a term that can be used by people who do not describe themselves or their genders as fitting into the categories of man or woman. A range of terms are used to refer to these experiences; nonbinary and genderqueer are among the terms that are sometimes used.

Agender is an adjective that can describe a person who does not identify as any gender.

Gender-expansive is an adjective that can describe someone with a more flexible gender identity than might be associated with a typical gender binary.

Gender transition is a process a person may take to bring themselves and/or their bodies into alignment with their gender identity. It's not just one step. Transitioning can include any, none or all of the following: telling one's friends, family and co-workers; changing one's name and pronouns; updating legal documents; medical interventions such as hormone therapy; or surgical intervention, often called gender confirmation surgery.

Gender dysphoria refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one's sex assigned at birth and one's gender identity. Not all trans people experience dysphoria, and those who do may experience it at varying levels of intensity.

Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Some argue that such a diagnosis inappropriately pathologizes gender incongruence, while others contend that a diagnosis makes it easier for transgender people to access necessary medical treatment.

Sexual orientation refers to the enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to members of the same and/or other genders, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight orientations.

People don't need to have had specific sexual experiences to know their own sexual orientation. They need not have had any sexual experience at all. They need not be in a relationship, dating or partnered with anyone for their sexual orientation to be validated. For example, if a bisexual woman is partnered with a man, that does not mean she is not still bisexual.

Sexual orientation is separate from gender identity. As GLAAD notes , "Transgender people may be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer. For example, a person who transitions from male to female and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as a straight woman. A person who transitions from female to male and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as a gay man."

Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe people with differences in reproductive anatomy, chromosomes or hormones that don't fit typical definitions of male and female.

Intersex can refer to a number of natural variations, some of them laid out by InterAct . Being intersex is not the same as being nonbinary or transgender, which are terms typically related to gender identity.

The Picture Show

Nonbinary photographer documents gender dysphoria through a queer lens, pronouns: questions and answers.

What is the role of pronouns in acknowledging someone's gender identity?

Everyone has pronouns that are used when referring to them – and getting those pronouns right is not exclusively a transgender issue.

"Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It's how someone refers to you in conversation," says Mary Emily O'Hara , a communications officer at GLAAD. "And when you're speaking to people, it's a really simple way to affirm their identity."

"So, for example, using the correct pronouns for trans and nonbinary youth is a way to let them know that you see them, you affirm them, you accept them and to let them know that they're loved during a time when they're really being targeted by so many discriminatory anti-trans state laws and policies," O'Hara says.

"It's really just about letting someone know that you accept their identity. And it's as simple as that."

Getting the words right is about respect and accuracy, says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Kaz Fantone for NPR hide caption

Getting the words right is about respect and accuracy, says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

What's the right way to find out a person's pronouns?

Start by giving your own – for example, "My pronouns are she/her."

"If I was introducing myself to someone, I would say, 'I'm Rodrigo. I use him pronouns. What about you?' " says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen , deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

O'Hara says, "It may feel awkward at first, but eventually it just becomes another one of those get-to-know-you questions."

Should people be asking everyone their pronouns? Or does it depend on the setting?

Knowing each other's pronouns helps you be sure you have accurate information about another person.

How a person appears in terms of gender expression "doesn't indicate anything about what their gender identity is," GLAAD's Schmider says. By sharing pronouns, "you're going to get to know someone a little better."

And while it can be awkward at first, it can quickly become routine.

Heng-Lehtinen notes that the practice of stating one's pronouns at the bottom of an email or during introductions at a meeting can also relieve some headaches for people whose first names are less common or gender ambiguous.

"Sometimes Americans look at a name and are like, 'I have no idea if I'm supposed to say he or she for this name' — not because the person's trans, but just because the name is of a culture that you don't recognize and you genuinely do not know. So having the pronouns listed saves everyone the headache," Heng-Lehtinen says. "It can be really, really quick once you make a habit of it. And I think it saves a lot of embarrassment for everybody."

Might some people be uncomfortable sharing their pronouns in a public setting?

Schmider says for cisgender people, sharing their pronouns is generally pretty easy – so long as they recognize that they have pronouns and know what they are. For others, it could be more difficult to share their pronouns in places where they don't know people.

But there are still benefits in sharing pronouns, he says. "It's an indication that they understand that gender expression does not equal gender identity, that you're not judging people just based on the way they look and making assumptions about their gender beyond what you actually know about them."

How is "they" used as a singular pronoun?

"They" is already commonly used as a singular pronoun when we are talking about someone, and we don't know who they are, O'Hara notes. Using they/them pronouns for someone you do know simply represents "just a little bit of a switch."

"You're just asking someone to not act as if they don't know you, but to remove gendered language from their vocabulary when they're talking about you," O'Hara says.

"I identify as nonbinary myself and I appear feminine. People often assume that my pronouns are she/her. So they will use those. And I'll just gently correct them and say, hey, you know what, my pronouns are they/them just FYI, for future reference or something like that," they say.

O'Hara says their family and friends still struggle with getting the pronouns right — and sometimes O'Hara struggles to remember others' pronouns, too.

"In my community, in the queer community, with a lot of trans and nonbinary people, we all frequently remind each other or remind ourselves. It's a sort of constant mindfulness where you are always catching up a little bit," they say.

"You might know someone for 10 years, and then they let you know their pronouns have changed. It's going to take you a little while to adjust, and that's fine. It's OK to make those mistakes and correct yourself, and it's OK to gently correct someone else."

What if I make a mistake and misgender someone, or use the wrong words?

Simply apologize and move on.

"I think it's perfectly natural to not know the right words to use at first. We're only human. It takes any of us some time to get to know a new concept," Heng-Lehtinen says. "The important thing is to just be interested in continuing to learn. So if you mess up some language, you just say, 'Oh, I'm so sorry,' correct yourself and move forward. No need to make it any more complicated than that. Doing that really simple gesture of apologizing quickly and moving on shows the other person that you care. And that makes a really big difference."

Why are pronouns typically given in the format "she/her" or "they/them" rather than just "she" or "they"?

The different iterations reflect that pronouns change based on how they're used in a sentence. And the "he/him" format is actually shorter than the previously common "he/him/his" format.

"People used to say all three and then it got down to two," Heng-Lehtinen laughs. He says staff at his organization was recently wondering if the custom will eventually shorten to just one pronoun. "There's no real rule about it. It's absolutely just been habit," he says.

Amid Wave Of Anti-Trans Bills, Trans Reporters Say 'Telling Our Own Stories' Is Vital

But he notes a benefit of using he/him and she/her: He and she rhyme. "If somebody just says he or she, I could very easily mishear that and then still get it wrong."

What does it mean if a person uses the pronouns "he/they" or "she/they"?

"That means that the person uses both pronouns, and you can alternate between those when referring to them. So either pronoun would be fine — and ideally mix it up, use both. It just means that they use both pronouns that they're listing," Heng-Lehtinen says.

Schmider says it depends on the person: "For some people, they don't mind those pronouns being interchanged for them. And for some people, they are using one specific pronoun in one context and another set of pronouns in another, dependent on maybe safety or comfortability."

The best approach, Schmider says, is to listen to how people refer to themselves.

Why might someone's name be different than what's listed on their ID?

Heng-Lehtinen notes that there's a perception when a person comes out as transgender, they change their name and that's that. But the reality is a lot more complicated and expensive when it comes to updating your name on government documents.

"It is not the same process as changing your last name when you get married. There is bizarrely a separate set of rules for when you are changing your name in marriage versus changing your name for any other reason. And it's more difficult in the latter," he says.

"When you're transgender, you might not be able to update all of your government IDs, even though you want to," he says. "I've been out for over a decade. I still have not been able to update all of my documents because the policies are so onerous. I've been able to update my driver's license, Social Security card and passport, but I cannot update my birth certificate."

"Just because a transgender person doesn't have their authentic name on their ID doesn't mean it's not the name that they really use every day," he advises. "So just be mindful to refer to people by the name they really use regardless of their driver's license."

NPR's Danielle Nett contributed to this report.

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Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender

Feminism is said to be the movement to end women’s oppression (hooks 2000, 26). One possible way to understand ‘woman’ in this claim is to take it as a sex term: ‘woman’ picks out human females and being a human female depends on various biological and anatomical features (like genitalia). Historically many feminists have understood ‘woman’ differently: not as a sex term, but as a gender term that depends on social and cultural factors (like social position). In so doing, they distinguished sex (being female or male) from gender (being a woman or a man), although most ordinary language users appear to treat the two interchangeably. In feminist philosophy, this distinction has generated a lively debate. Central questions include: What does it mean for gender to be distinct from sex, if anything at all? How should we understand the claim that gender depends on social and/or cultural factors? What does it mean to be gendered woman, man, or genderqueer? This entry outlines and discusses distinctly feminist debates on sex and gender considering both historical and more contemporary positions.

1.1 Biological determinism

1.2 gender terminology, 2.1 gender socialisation, 2.2 gender as feminine and masculine personality, 2.3 gender as feminine and masculine sexuality, 3.1.1 particularity argument, 3.1.2 normativity argument, 3.2 is sex classification solely a matter of biology, 3.3 are sex and gender distinct, 3.4 is the sex/gender distinction useful, 4.1.1 gendered social series, 4.1.2 resemblance nominalism, 4.2.1 social subordination and gender, 4.2.2 gender uniessentialism, 4.2.3 gender as positionality, 5. beyond the binary, 6. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the sex/gender distinction..

The terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ mean different things to different feminist theorists and neither are easy or straightforward to characterise. Sketching out some feminist history of the terms provides a helpful starting point.

Most people ordinarily seem to think that sex and gender are coextensive: women are human females, men are human males. Many feminists have historically disagreed and have endorsed the sex/ gender distinction. Provisionally: ‘sex’ denotes human females and males depending on biological features (chromosomes, sex organs, hormones and other physical features); ‘gender’ denotes women and men depending on social factors (social role, position, behaviour or identity). The main feminist motivation for making this distinction was to counter biological determinism or the view that biology is destiny.

A typical example of a biological determinist view is that of Geddes and Thompson who, in 1889, argued that social, psychological and behavioural traits were caused by metabolic state. Women supposedly conserve energy (being ‘anabolic’) and this makes them passive, conservative, sluggish, stable and uninterested in politics. Men expend their surplus energy (being ‘katabolic’) and this makes them eager, energetic, passionate, variable and, thereby, interested in political and social matters. These biological ‘facts’ about metabolic states were used not only to explain behavioural differences between women and men but also to justify what our social and political arrangements ought to be. More specifically, they were used to argue for withholding from women political rights accorded to men because (according to Geddes and Thompson) “what was decided among the prehistoric Protozoa cannot be annulled by Act of Parliament” (quoted from Moi 1999, 18). It would be inappropriate to grant women political rights, as they are simply not suited to have those rights; it would also be futile since women (due to their biology) would simply not be interested in exercising their political rights. To counter this kind of biological determinism, feminists have argued that behavioural and psychological differences have social, rather than biological, causes. For instance, Simone de Beauvoir famously claimed that one is not born, but rather becomes a woman, and that “social discrimination produces in women moral and intellectual effects so profound that they appear to be caused by nature” (Beauvoir 1972 [original 1949], 18; for more, see the entry on Simone de Beauvoir ). Commonly observed behavioural traits associated with women and men, then, are not caused by anatomy or chromosomes. Rather, they are culturally learned or acquired.

Although biological determinism of the kind endorsed by Geddes and Thompson is nowadays uncommon, the idea that behavioural and psychological differences between women and men have biological causes has not disappeared. In the 1970s, sex differences were used to argue that women should not become airline pilots since they will be hormonally unstable once a month and, therefore, unable to perform their duties as well as men (Rogers 1999, 11). More recently, differences in male and female brains have been said to explain behavioural differences; in particular, the anatomy of corpus callosum, a bundle of nerves that connects the right and left cerebral hemispheres, is thought to be responsible for various psychological and behavioural differences. For instance, in 1992, a Time magazine article surveyed then prominent biological explanations of differences between women and men claiming that women’s thicker corpus callosums could explain what ‘women’s intuition’ is based on and impair women’s ability to perform some specialised visual-spatial skills, like reading maps (Gorman 1992). Anne Fausto-Sterling has questioned the idea that differences in corpus callosums cause behavioural and psychological differences. First, the corpus callosum is a highly variable piece of anatomy; as a result, generalisations about its size, shape and thickness that hold for women and men in general should be viewed with caution. Second, differences in adult human corpus callosums are not found in infants; this may suggest that physical brain differences actually develop as responses to differential treatment. Third, given that visual-spatial skills (like map reading) can be improved by practice, even if women and men’s corpus callosums differ, this does not make the resulting behavioural differences immutable. (Fausto-Sterling 2000b, chapter 5).

In order to distinguish biological differences from social/psychological ones and to talk about the latter, feminists appropriated the term ‘gender’. Psychologists writing on transsexuality were the first to employ gender terminology in this sense. Until the 1960s, ‘gender’ was often used to refer to masculine and feminine words, like le and la in French. However, in order to explain why some people felt that they were ‘trapped in the wrong bodies’, the psychologist Robert Stoller (1968) began using the terms ‘sex’ to pick out biological traits and ‘gender’ to pick out the amount of femininity and masculinity a person exhibited. Although (by and large) a person’s sex and gender complemented each other, separating out these terms seemed to make theoretical sense allowing Stoller to explain the phenomenon of transsexuality: transsexuals’ sex and gender simply don’t match.

Along with psychologists like Stoller, feminists found it useful to distinguish sex and gender. This enabled them to argue that many differences between women and men were socially produced and, therefore, changeable. Gayle Rubin (for instance) uses the phrase ‘sex/gender system’ in order to describe “a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention” (1975, 165). Rubin employed this system to articulate that “part of social life which is the locus of the oppression of women” (1975, 159) describing gender as the “socially imposed division of the sexes” (1975, 179). Rubin’s thought was that although biological differences are fixed, gender differences are the oppressive results of social interventions that dictate how women and men should behave. Women are oppressed as women and “by having to be women” (Rubin 1975, 204). However, since gender is social, it is thought to be mutable and alterable by political and social reform that would ultimately bring an end to women’s subordination. Feminism should aim to create a “genderless (though not sexless) society, in which one’s sexual anatomy is irrelevant to who one is, what one does, and with whom one makes love” (Rubin 1975, 204).

In some earlier interpretations, like Rubin’s, sex and gender were thought to complement one another. The slogan ‘Gender is the social interpretation of sex’ captures this view. Nicholson calls this ‘the coat-rack view’ of gender: our sexed bodies are like coat racks and “provide the site upon which gender [is] constructed” (1994, 81). Gender conceived of as masculinity and femininity is superimposed upon the ‘coat-rack’ of sex as each society imposes on sexed bodies their cultural conceptions of how males and females should behave. This socially constructs gender differences – or the amount of femininity/masculinity of a person – upon our sexed bodies. That is, according to this interpretation, all humans are either male or female; their sex is fixed. But cultures interpret sexed bodies differently and project different norms on those bodies thereby creating feminine and masculine persons. Distinguishing sex and gender, however, also enables the two to come apart: they are separable in that one can be sexed male and yet be gendered a woman, or vice versa (Haslanger 2000b; Stoljar 1995).

So, this group of feminist arguments against biological determinism suggested that gender differences result from cultural practices and social expectations. Nowadays it is more common to denote this by saying that gender is socially constructed. This means that genders (women and men) and gendered traits (like being nurturing or ambitious) are the “intended or unintended product[s] of a social practice” (Haslanger 1995, 97). But which social practices construct gender, what social construction is and what being of a certain gender amounts to are major feminist controversies. There is no consensus on these issues. (See the entry on intersections between analytic and continental feminism for more on different ways to understand gender.)

2. Gender as socially constructed

One way to interpret Beauvoir’s claim that one is not born but rather becomes a woman is to take it as a claim about gender socialisation: females become women through a process whereby they acquire feminine traits and learn feminine behaviour. Masculinity and femininity are thought to be products of nurture or how individuals are brought up. They are causally constructed (Haslanger 1995, 98): social forces either have a causal role in bringing gendered individuals into existence or (to some substantial sense) shape the way we are qua women and men. And the mechanism of construction is social learning. For instance, Kate Millett takes gender differences to have “essentially cultural, rather than biological bases” that result from differential treatment (1971, 28–9). For her, gender is “the sum total of the parents’, the peers’, and the culture’s notions of what is appropriate to each gender by way of temperament, character, interests, status, worth, gesture, and expression” (Millett 1971, 31). Feminine and masculine gender-norms, however, are problematic in that gendered behaviour conveniently fits with and reinforces women’s subordination so that women are socialised into subordinate social roles: they learn to be passive, ignorant, docile, emotional helpmeets for men (Millett 1971, 26). However, since these roles are simply learned, we can create more equal societies by ‘unlearning’ social roles. That is, feminists should aim to diminish the influence of socialisation.

Social learning theorists hold that a huge array of different influences socialise us as women and men. This being the case, it is extremely difficult to counter gender socialisation. For instance, parents often unconsciously treat their female and male children differently. When parents have been asked to describe their 24- hour old infants, they have done so using gender-stereotypic language: boys are describes as strong, alert and coordinated and girls as tiny, soft and delicate. Parents’ treatment of their infants further reflects these descriptions whether they are aware of this or not (Renzetti & Curran 1992, 32). Some socialisation is more overt: children are often dressed in gender stereotypical clothes and colours (boys are dressed in blue, girls in pink) and parents tend to buy their children gender stereotypical toys. They also (intentionally or not) tend to reinforce certain ‘appropriate’ behaviours. While the precise form of gender socialization has changed since the onset of second-wave feminism, even today girls are discouraged from playing sports like football or from playing ‘rough and tumble’ games and are more likely than boys to be given dolls or cooking toys to play with; boys are told not to ‘cry like a baby’ and are more likely to be given masculine toys like trucks and guns (for more, see Kimmel 2000, 122–126). [ 1 ]

According to social learning theorists, children are also influenced by what they observe in the world around them. This, again, makes countering gender socialisation difficult. For one, children’s books have portrayed males and females in blatantly stereotypical ways: for instance, males as adventurers and leaders, and females as helpers and followers. One way to address gender stereotyping in children’s books has been to portray females in independent roles and males as non-aggressive and nurturing (Renzetti & Curran 1992, 35). Some publishers have attempted an alternative approach by making their characters, for instance, gender-neutral animals or genderless imaginary creatures (like TV’s Teletubbies). However, parents reading books with gender-neutral or genderless characters often undermine the publishers’ efforts by reading them to their children in ways that depict the characters as either feminine or masculine. According to Renzetti and Curran, parents labelled the overwhelming majority of gender-neutral characters masculine whereas those characters that fit feminine gender stereotypes (for instance, by being helpful and caring) were labelled feminine (1992, 35). Socialising influences like these are still thought to send implicit messages regarding how females and males should act and are expected to act shaping us into feminine and masculine persons.

Nancy Chodorow (1978; 1995) has criticised social learning theory as too simplistic to explain gender differences (see also Deaux & Major 1990; Gatens 1996). Instead, she holds that gender is a matter of having feminine and masculine personalities that develop in early infancy as responses to prevalent parenting practices. In particular, gendered personalities develop because women tend to be the primary caretakers of small children. Chodorow holds that because mothers (or other prominent females) tend to care for infants, infant male and female psychic development differs. Crudely put: the mother-daughter relationship differs from the mother-son relationship because mothers are more likely to identify with their daughters than their sons. This unconsciously prompts the mother to encourage her son to psychologically individuate himself from her thereby prompting him to develop well defined and rigid ego boundaries. However, the mother unconsciously discourages the daughter from individuating herself thereby prompting the daughter to develop flexible and blurry ego boundaries. Childhood gender socialisation further builds on and reinforces these unconsciously developed ego boundaries finally producing feminine and masculine persons (1995, 202–206). This perspective has its roots in Freudian psychoanalytic theory, although Chodorow’s approach differs in many ways from Freud’s.

Gendered personalities are supposedly manifested in common gender stereotypical behaviour. Take emotional dependency. Women are stereotypically more emotional and emotionally dependent upon others around them, supposedly finding it difficult to distinguish their own interests and wellbeing from the interests and wellbeing of their children and partners. This is said to be because of their blurry and (somewhat) confused ego boundaries: women find it hard to distinguish their own needs from the needs of those around them because they cannot sufficiently individuate themselves from those close to them. By contrast, men are stereotypically emotionally detached, preferring a career where dispassionate and distanced thinking are virtues. These traits are said to result from men’s well-defined ego boundaries that enable them to prioritise their own needs and interests sometimes at the expense of others’ needs and interests.

Chodorow thinks that these gender differences should and can be changed. Feminine and masculine personalities play a crucial role in women’s oppression since they make females overly attentive to the needs of others and males emotionally deficient. In order to correct the situation, both male and female parents should be equally involved in parenting (Chodorow 1995, 214). This would help in ensuring that children develop sufficiently individuated senses of selves without becoming overly detached, which in turn helps to eradicate common gender stereotypical behaviours.

Catharine MacKinnon develops her theory of gender as a theory of sexuality. Very roughly: the social meaning of sex (gender) is created by sexual objectification of women whereby women are viewed and treated as objects for satisfying men’s desires (MacKinnon 1989). Masculinity is defined as sexual dominance, femininity as sexual submissiveness: genders are “created through the eroticization of dominance and submission. The man/woman difference and the dominance/submission dynamic define each other. This is the social meaning of sex” (MacKinnon 1989, 113). For MacKinnon, gender is constitutively constructed : in defining genders (or masculinity and femininity) we must make reference to social factors (see Haslanger 1995, 98). In particular, we must make reference to the position one occupies in the sexualised dominance/submission dynamic: men occupy the sexually dominant position, women the sexually submissive one. As a result, genders are by definition hierarchical and this hierarchy is fundamentally tied to sexualised power relations. The notion of ‘gender equality’, then, does not make sense to MacKinnon. If sexuality ceased to be a manifestation of dominance, hierarchical genders (that are defined in terms of sexuality) would cease to exist.

So, gender difference for MacKinnon is not a matter of having a particular psychological orientation or behavioural pattern; rather, it is a function of sexuality that is hierarchal in patriarchal societies. This is not to say that men are naturally disposed to sexually objectify women or that women are naturally submissive. Instead, male and female sexualities are socially conditioned: men have been conditioned to find women’s subordination sexy and women have been conditioned to find a particular male version of female sexuality as erotic – one in which it is erotic to be sexually submissive. For MacKinnon, both female and male sexual desires are defined from a male point of view that is conditioned by pornography (MacKinnon 1989, chapter 7). Bluntly put: pornography portrays a false picture of ‘what women want’ suggesting that women in actual fact are and want to be submissive. This conditions men’s sexuality so that they view women’s submission as sexy. And male dominance enforces this male version of sexuality onto women, sometimes by force. MacKinnon’s thought is not that male dominance is a result of social learning (see 2.1.); rather, socialization is an expression of power. That is, socialized differences in masculine and feminine traits, behaviour, and roles are not responsible for power inequalities. Females and males (roughly put) are socialised differently because there are underlying power inequalities. As MacKinnon puts it, ‘dominance’ (power relations) is prior to ‘difference’ (traits, behaviour and roles) (see, MacKinnon 1989, chapter 12). MacKinnon, then, sees legal restrictions on pornography as paramount to ending women’s subordinate status that stems from their gender.

3. Problems with the sex/gender distinction

3.1 is gender uniform.

The positions outlined above share an underlying metaphysical perspective on gender: gender realism . [ 2 ] That is, women as a group are assumed to share some characteristic feature, experience, common condition or criterion that defines their gender and the possession of which makes some individuals women (as opposed to, say, men). All women are thought to differ from all men in this respect (or respects). For example, MacKinnon thought that being treated in sexually objectifying ways is the common condition that defines women’s gender and what women as women share. All women differ from all men in this respect. Further, pointing out females who are not sexually objectified does not provide a counterexample to MacKinnon’s view. Being sexually objectified is constitutive of being a woman; a female who escapes sexual objectification, then, would not count as a woman.

One may want to critique the three accounts outlined by rejecting the particular details of each account. (For instance, see Spelman [1988, chapter 4] for a critique of the details of Chodorow’s view.) A more thoroughgoing critique has been levelled at the general metaphysical perspective of gender realism that underlies these positions. It has come under sustained attack on two grounds: first, that it fails to take into account racial, cultural and class differences between women (particularity argument); second, that it posits a normative ideal of womanhood (normativity argument).

Elizabeth Spelman (1988) has influentially argued against gender realism with her particularity argument. Roughly: gender realists mistakenly assume that gender is constructed independently of race, class, ethnicity and nationality. If gender were separable from, for example, race and class in this manner, all women would experience womanhood in the same way. And this is clearly false. For instance, Harris (1993) and Stone (2007) criticise MacKinnon’s view, that sexual objectification is the common condition that defines women’s gender, for failing to take into account differences in women’s backgrounds that shape their sexuality. The history of racist oppression illustrates that during slavery black women were ‘hypersexualised’ and thought to be always sexually available whereas white women were thought to be pure and sexually virtuous. In fact, the rape of a black woman was thought to be impossible (Harris 1993). So, (the argument goes) sexual objectification cannot serve as the common condition for womanhood since it varies considerably depending on one’s race and class. [ 3 ]

For Spelman, the perspective of ‘white solipsism’ underlies gender realists’ mistake. They assumed that all women share some “golden nugget of womanness” (Spelman 1988, 159) and that the features constitutive of such a nugget are the same for all women regardless of their particular cultural backgrounds. Next, white Western middle-class feminists accounted for the shared features simply by reflecting on the cultural features that condition their gender as women thus supposing that “the womanness underneath the Black woman’s skin is a white woman’s, and deep down inside the Latina woman is an Anglo woman waiting to burst through an obscuring cultural shroud” (Spelman 1988, 13). In so doing, Spelman claims, white middle-class Western feminists passed off their particular view of gender as “a metaphysical truth” (1988, 180) thereby privileging some women while marginalising others. In failing to see the importance of race and class in gender construction, white middle-class Western feminists conflated “the condition of one group of women with the condition of all” (Spelman 1988, 3).

Betty Friedan’s (1963) well-known work is a case in point of white solipsism. [ 4 ] Friedan saw domesticity as the main vehicle of gender oppression and called upon women in general to find jobs outside the home. But she failed to realize that women from less privileged backgrounds, often poor and non-white, already worked outside the home to support their families. Friedan’s suggestion, then, was applicable only to a particular sub-group of women (white middle-class Western housewives). But it was mistakenly taken to apply to all women’s lives — a mistake that was generated by Friedan’s failure to take women’s racial and class differences into account (hooks 2000, 1–3).

Spelman further holds that since social conditioning creates femininity and societies (and sub-groups) that condition it differ from one another, femininity must be differently conditioned in different societies. For her, “females become not simply women but particular kinds of women” (Spelman 1988, 113): white working-class women, black middle-class women, poor Jewish women, wealthy aristocratic European women, and so on.

This line of thought has been extremely influential in feminist philosophy. For instance, Young holds that Spelman has definitively shown that gender realism is untenable (1997, 13). Mikkola (2006) argues that this isn’t so. The arguments Spelman makes do not undermine the idea that there is some characteristic feature, experience, common condition or criterion that defines women’s gender; they simply point out that some particular ways of cashing out what defines womanhood are misguided. So, although Spelman is right to reject those accounts that falsely take the feature that conditions white middle-class Western feminists’ gender to condition women’s gender in general, this leaves open the possibility that women qua women do share something that defines their gender. (See also Haslanger [2000a] for a discussion of why gender realism is not necessarily untenable, and Stoljar [2011] for a discussion of Mikkola’s critique of Spelman.)

Judith Butler critiques the sex/gender distinction on two grounds. They critique gender realism with their normativity argument (1999 [original 1990], chapter 1); they also hold that the sex/gender distinction is unintelligible (this will be discussed in section 3.3.). Butler’s normativity argument is not straightforwardly directed at the metaphysical perspective of gender realism, but rather at its political counterpart: identity politics. This is a form of political mobilization based on membership in some group (e.g. racial, ethnic, cultural, gender) and group membership is thought to be delimited by some common experiences, conditions or features that define the group (Heyes 2000, 58; see also the entry on Identity Politics ). Feminist identity politics, then, presupposes gender realism in that feminist politics is said to be mobilized around women as a group (or category) where membership in this group is fixed by some condition, experience or feature that women supposedly share and that defines their gender.

Butler’s normativity argument makes two claims. The first is akin to Spelman’s particularity argument: unitary gender notions fail to take differences amongst women into account thus failing to recognise “the multiplicity of cultural, social, and political intersections in which the concrete array of ‘women’ are constructed” (Butler 1999, 19–20). In their attempt to undercut biologically deterministic ways of defining what it means to be a woman, feminists inadvertently created new socially constructed accounts of supposedly shared femininity. Butler’s second claim is that such false gender realist accounts are normative. That is, in their attempt to fix feminism’s subject matter, feminists unwittingly defined the term ‘woman’ in a way that implies there is some correct way to be gendered a woman (Butler 1999, 5). That the definition of the term ‘woman’ is fixed supposedly “operates as a policing force which generates and legitimizes certain practices, experiences, etc., and curtails and delegitimizes others” (Nicholson 1998, 293). Following this line of thought, one could say that, for instance, Chodorow’s view of gender suggests that ‘real’ women have feminine personalities and that these are the women feminism should be concerned about. If one does not exhibit a distinctly feminine personality, the implication is that one is not ‘really’ a member of women’s category nor does one properly qualify for feminist political representation.

Butler’s second claim is based on their view that“[i]dentity categories [like that of women] are never merely descriptive, but always normative, and as such, exclusionary” (Butler 1991, 160). That is, the mistake of those feminists Butler critiques was not that they provided the incorrect definition of ‘woman’. Rather, (the argument goes) their mistake was to attempt to define the term ‘woman’ at all. Butler’s view is that ‘woman’ can never be defined in a way that does not prescribe some “unspoken normative requirements” (like having a feminine personality) that women should conform to (Butler 1999, 9). Butler takes this to be a feature of terms like ‘woman’ that purport to pick out (what they call) ‘identity categories’. They seem to assume that ‘woman’ can never be used in a non-ideological way (Moi 1999, 43) and that it will always encode conditions that are not satisfied by everyone we think of as women. Some explanation for this comes from Butler’s view that all processes of drawing categorical distinctions involve evaluative and normative commitments; these in turn involve the exercise of power and reflect the conditions of those who are socially powerful (Witt 1995).

In order to better understand Butler’s critique, consider their account of gender performativity. For them, standard feminist accounts take gendered individuals to have some essential properties qua gendered individuals or a gender core by virtue of which one is either a man or a woman. This view assumes that women and men, qua women and men, are bearers of various essential and accidental attributes where the former secure gendered persons’ persistence through time as so gendered. But according to Butler this view is false: (i) there are no such essential properties, and (ii) gender is an illusion maintained by prevalent power structures. First, feminists are said to think that genders are socially constructed in that they have the following essential attributes (Butler 1999, 24): women are females with feminine behavioural traits, being heterosexuals whose desire is directed at men; men are males with masculine behavioural traits, being heterosexuals whose desire is directed at women. These are the attributes necessary for gendered individuals and those that enable women and men to persist through time as women and men. Individuals have “intelligible genders” (Butler 1999, 23) if they exhibit this sequence of traits in a coherent manner (where sexual desire follows from sexual orientation that in turn follows from feminine/ masculine behaviours thought to follow from biological sex). Social forces in general deem individuals who exhibit in coherent gender sequences (like lesbians) to be doing their gender ‘wrong’ and they actively discourage such sequencing of traits, for instance, via name-calling and overt homophobic discrimination. Think back to what was said above: having a certain conception of what women are like that mirrors the conditions of socially powerful (white, middle-class, heterosexual, Western) women functions to marginalize and police those who do not fit this conception.

These gender cores, supposedly encoding the above traits, however, are nothing more than illusions created by ideals and practices that seek to render gender uniform through heterosexism, the view that heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality is deviant (Butler 1999, 42). Gender cores are constructed as if they somehow naturally belong to women and men thereby creating gender dimorphism or the belief that one must be either a masculine male or a feminine female. But gender dimorphism only serves a heterosexist social order by implying that since women and men are sharply opposed, it is natural to sexually desire the opposite sex or gender.

Further, being feminine and desiring men (for instance) are standardly assumed to be expressions of one’s gender as a woman. Butler denies this and holds that gender is really performative. It is not “a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts follow; rather, gender is … instituted … through a stylized repetition of [habitual] acts ” (Butler 1999, 179): through wearing certain gender-coded clothing, walking and sitting in certain gender-coded ways, styling one’s hair in gender-coded manner and so on. Gender is not something one is, it is something one does; it is a sequence of acts, a doing rather than a being. And repeatedly engaging in ‘feminising’ and ‘masculinising’ acts congeals gender thereby making people falsely think of gender as something they naturally are . Gender only comes into being through these gendering acts: a female who has sex with men does not express her gender as a woman. This activity (amongst others) makes her gendered a woman.

The constitutive acts that gender individuals create genders as “compelling illusion[s]” (Butler 1990, 271). Our gendered classification scheme is a strong pragmatic construction : social factors wholly determine our use of the scheme and the scheme fails to represent accurately any ‘facts of the matter’ (Haslanger 1995, 100). People think that there are true and real genders, and those deemed to be doing their gender ‘wrong’ are not socially sanctioned. But, genders are true and real only to the extent that they are performed (Butler 1990, 278–9). It does not make sense, then, to say of a male-to-female trans person that s/he is really a man who only appears to be a woman. Instead, males dressing up and acting in ways that are associated with femininity “show that [as Butler suggests] ‘being’ feminine is just a matter of doing certain activities” (Stone 2007, 64). As a result, the trans person’s gender is just as real or true as anyone else’s who is a ‘traditionally’ feminine female or masculine male (Butler 1990, 278). [ 5 ] Without heterosexism that compels people to engage in certain gendering acts, there would not be any genders at all. And ultimately the aim should be to abolish norms that compel people to act in these gendering ways.

For Butler, given that gender is performative, the appropriate response to feminist identity politics involves two things. First, feminists should understand ‘woman’ as open-ended and “a term in process, a becoming, a constructing that cannot rightfully be said to originate or end … it is open to intervention and resignification” (Butler 1999, 43). That is, feminists should not try to define ‘woman’ at all. Second, the category of women “ought not to be the foundation of feminist politics” (Butler 1999, 9). Rather, feminists should focus on providing an account of how power functions and shapes our understandings of womanhood not only in the society at large but also within the feminist movement.

Many people, including many feminists, have ordinarily taken sex ascriptions to be solely a matter of biology with no social or cultural dimension. It is commonplace to think that there are only two sexes and that biological sex classifications are utterly unproblematic. By contrast, some feminists have argued that sex classifications are not unproblematic and that they are not solely a matter of biology. In order to make sense of this, it is helpful to distinguish object- and idea-construction (see Haslanger 2003b for more): social forces can be said to construct certain kinds of objects (e.g. sexed bodies or gendered individuals) and certain kinds of ideas (e.g. sex or gender concepts). First, take the object-construction of sexed bodies. Secondary sex characteristics, or the physiological and biological features commonly associated with males and females, are affected by social practices. In some societies, females’ lower social status has meant that they have been fed less and so, the lack of nutrition has had the effect of making them smaller in size (Jaggar 1983, 37). Uniformity in muscular shape, size and strength within sex categories is not caused entirely by biological factors, but depends heavily on exercise opportunities: if males and females were allowed the same exercise opportunities and equal encouragement to exercise, it is thought that bodily dimorphism would diminish (Fausto-Sterling 1993a, 218). A number of medical phenomena involving bones (like osteoporosis) have social causes directly related to expectations about gender, women’s diet and their exercise opportunities (Fausto-Sterling 2005). These examples suggest that physiological features thought to be sex-specific traits not affected by social and cultural factors are, after all, to some extent products of social conditioning. Social conditioning, then, shapes our biology.

Second, take the idea-construction of sex concepts. Our concept of sex is said to be a product of social forces in the sense that what counts as sex is shaped by social meanings. Standardly, those with XX-chromosomes, ovaries that produce large egg cells, female genitalia, a relatively high proportion of ‘female’ hormones, and other secondary sex characteristics (relatively small body size, less body hair) count as biologically female. Those with XY-chromosomes, testes that produce small sperm cells, male genitalia, a relatively high proportion of ‘male’ hormones and other secondary sex traits (relatively large body size, significant amounts of body hair) count as male. This understanding is fairly recent. The prevalent scientific view from Ancient Greeks until the late 18 th century, did not consider female and male sexes to be distinct categories with specific traits; instead, a ‘one-sex model’ held that males and females were members of the same sex category. Females’ genitals were thought to be the same as males’ but simply directed inside the body; ovaries and testes (for instance) were referred to by the same term and whether the term referred to the former or the latter was made clear by the context (Laqueur 1990, 4). It was not until the late 1700s that scientists began to think of female and male anatomies as radically different moving away from the ‘one-sex model’ of a single sex spectrum to the (nowadays prevalent) ‘two-sex model’ of sexual dimorphism. (For an alternative view, see King 2013.)

Fausto-Sterling has argued that this ‘two-sex model’ isn’t straightforward either (1993b; 2000a; 2000b). Based on a meta-study of empirical medical research, she estimates that 1.7% of population fail to neatly fall within the usual sex classifications possessing various combinations of different sex characteristics (Fausto-Sterling 2000a, 20). In her earlier work, she claimed that intersex individuals make up (at least) three further sex classes: ‘herms’ who possess one testis and one ovary; ‘merms’ who possess testes, some aspects of female genitalia but no ovaries; and ‘ferms’ who have ovaries, some aspects of male genitalia but no testes (Fausto-Sterling 1993b, 21). (In her [2000a], Fausto-Sterling notes that these labels were put forward tongue–in–cheek.) Recognition of intersex people suggests that feminists (and society at large) are wrong to think that humans are either female or male.

To illustrate further the idea-construction of sex, consider the case of the athlete Maria Patiño. Patiño has female genitalia, has always considered herself to be female and was considered so by others. However, she was discovered to have XY chromosomes and was barred from competing in women’s sports (Fausto-Sterling 2000b, 1–3). Patiño’s genitalia were at odds with her chromosomes and the latter were taken to determine her sex. Patiño successfully fought to be recognised as a female athlete arguing that her chromosomes alone were not sufficient to not make her female. Intersex people, like Patiño, illustrate that our understandings of sex differ and suggest that there is no immediately obvious way to settle what sex amounts to purely biologically or scientifically. Deciding what sex is involves evaluative judgements that are influenced by social factors.

Insofar as our cultural conceptions affect our understandings of sex, feminists must be much more careful about sex classifications and rethink what sex amounts to (Stone 2007, chapter 1). More specifically, intersex people illustrate that sex traits associated with females and males need not always go together and that individuals can have some mixture of these traits. This suggests to Stone that sex is a cluster concept: it is sufficient to satisfy enough of the sex features that tend to cluster together in order to count as being of a particular sex. But, one need not satisfy all of those features or some arbitrarily chosen supposedly necessary sex feature, like chromosomes (Stone 2007, 44). This makes sex a matter of degree and sex classifications should take place on a spectrum: one can be more or less female/male but there is no sharp distinction between the two. Further, intersex people (along with trans people) are located at the centre of the sex spectrum and in many cases their sex will be indeterminate (Stone 2007).

More recently, Ayala and Vasilyeva (2015) have argued for an inclusive and extended conception of sex: just as certain tools can be seen to extend our minds beyond the limits of our brains (e.g. white canes), other tools (like dildos) can extend our sex beyond our bodily boundaries. This view aims to motivate the idea that what counts as sex should not be determined by looking inwards at genitalia or other anatomical features. In a different vein, Ásta (2018) argues that sex is a conferred social property. This follows her more general conferralist framework to analyse all social properties: properties that are conferred by others thereby generating a social status that consists in contextually specific constraints and enablements on individual behaviour. The general schema for conferred properties is as follows (Ásta 2018, 8):

Conferred property: what property is conferred. Who: who the subjects are. What: what attitude, state, or action of the subjects matter. When: under what conditions the conferral takes place. Base property: what the subjects are attempting to track (consciously or not), if anything.

With being of a certain sex (e.g. male, female) in mind, Ásta holds that it is a conferred property that merely aims to track physical features. Hence sex is a social – or in fact, an institutional – property rather than a natural one. The schema for sex goes as follows (72):

Conferred property: being female, male. Who: legal authorities, drawing on the expert opinion of doctors, other medical personnel. What: “the recording of a sex in official documents ... The judgment of the doctors (and others) as to what sex role might be the most fitting, given the biological characteristics present.” When: at birth or after surgery/ hormonal treatment. Base property: “the aim is to track as many sex-stereotypical characteristics as possible, and doctors perform surgery in cases where that might help bring the physical characteristics more in line with the stereotype of male and female.”

This (among other things) offers a debunking analysis of sex: it may appear to be a natural property, but on the conferralist analysis is better understood as a conferred legal status. Ásta holds that gender too is a conferred property, but contra the discussion in the following section, she does not think that this collapses the distinction between sex and gender: sex and gender are differently conferred albeit both satisfying the general schema noted above. Nonetheless, on the conferralist framework what underlies both sex and gender is the idea of social construction as social significance: sex-stereotypical characteristics are taken to be socially significant context specifically, whereby they become the basis for conferring sex onto individuals and this brings with it various constraints and enablements on individuals and their behaviour. This fits object- and idea-constructions introduced above, although offers a different general framework to analyse the matter at hand.

In addition to arguing against identity politics and for gender performativity, Butler holds that distinguishing biological sex from social gender is unintelligible. For them, both are socially constructed:

If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. (Butler 1999, 10–11)

(Butler is not alone in claiming that there are no tenable distinctions between nature/culture, biology/construction and sex/gender. See also: Antony 1998; Gatens 1996; Grosz 1994; Prokhovnik 1999.) Butler makes two different claims in the passage cited: that sex is a social construction, and that sex is gender. To unpack their view, consider the two claims in turn. First, the idea that sex is a social construct, for Butler, boils down to the view that our sexed bodies are also performative and, so, they have “no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute [their] reality” (1999, 173). Prima facie , this implausibly implies that female and male bodies do not have independent existence and that if gendering activities ceased, so would physical bodies. This is not Butler’s claim; rather, their position is that bodies viewed as the material foundations on which gender is constructed, are themselves constructed as if they provide such material foundations (Butler 1993). Cultural conceptions about gender figure in “the very apparatus of production whereby sexes themselves are established” (Butler 1999, 11).

For Butler, sexed bodies never exist outside social meanings and how we understand gender shapes how we understand sex (1999, 139). Sexed bodies are not empty matter on which gender is constructed and sex categories are not picked out on the basis of objective features of the world. Instead, our sexed bodies are themselves discursively constructed : they are the way they are, at least to a substantial extent, because of what is attributed to sexed bodies and how they are classified (for discursive construction, see Haslanger 1995, 99). Sex assignment (calling someone female or male) is normative (Butler 1993, 1). [ 6 ] When the doctor calls a newly born infant a girl or a boy, s/he is not making a descriptive claim, but a normative one. In fact, the doctor is performing an illocutionary speech act (see the entry on Speech Acts ). In effect, the doctor’s utterance makes infants into girls or boys. We, then, engage in activities that make it seem as if sexes naturally come in two and that being female or male is an objective feature of the world, rather than being a consequence of certain constitutive acts (that is, rather than being performative). And this is what Butler means in saying that physical bodies never exist outside cultural and social meanings, and that sex is as socially constructed as gender. They do not deny that physical bodies exist. But, they take our understanding of this existence to be a product of social conditioning: social conditioning makes the existence of physical bodies intelligible to us by discursively constructing sexed bodies through certain constitutive acts. (For a helpful introduction to Butler’s views, see Salih 2002.)

For Butler, sex assignment is always in some sense oppressive. Again, this appears to be because of Butler’s general suspicion of classification: sex classification can never be merely descriptive but always has a normative element reflecting evaluative claims of those who are powerful. Conducting a feminist genealogy of the body (or examining why sexed bodies are thought to come naturally as female and male), then, should ground feminist practice (Butler 1993, 28–9). Feminists should examine and uncover ways in which social construction and certain acts that constitute sex shape our understandings of sexed bodies, what kinds of meanings bodies acquire and which practices and illocutionary speech acts ‘make’ our bodies into sexes. Doing so enables feminists to identity how sexed bodies are socially constructed in order to resist such construction.

However, given what was said above, it is far from obvious what we should make of Butler’s claim that sex “was always already gender” (1999, 11). Stone (2007) takes this to mean that sex is gender but goes on to question it arguing that the social construction of both sex and gender does not make sex identical to gender. According to Stone, it would be more accurate for Butler to say that claims about sex imply gender norms. That is, many claims about sex traits (like ‘females are physically weaker than males’) actually carry implications about how women and men are expected to behave. To some extent the claim describes certain facts. But, it also implies that females are not expected to do much heavy lifting and that they would probably not be good at it. So, claims about sex are not identical to claims about gender; rather, they imply claims about gender norms (Stone 2007, 70).

Some feminists hold that the sex/gender distinction is not useful. For a start, it is thought to reflect politically problematic dualistic thinking that undercuts feminist aims: the distinction is taken to reflect and replicate androcentric oppositions between (for instance) mind/body, culture/nature and reason/emotion that have been used to justify women’s oppression (e.g. Grosz 1994; Prokhovnik 1999). The thought is that in oppositions like these, one term is always superior to the other and that the devalued term is usually associated with women (Lloyd 1993). For instance, human subjectivity and agency are identified with the mind but since women are usually identified with their bodies, they are devalued as human subjects and agents. The opposition between mind and body is said to further map on to other distinctions, like reason/emotion, culture/nature, rational/irrational, where one side of each distinction is devalued (one’s bodily features are usually valued less that one’s mind, rationality is usually valued more than irrationality) and women are associated with the devalued terms: they are thought to be closer to bodily features and nature than men, to be irrational, emotional and so on. This is said to be evident (for instance) in job interviews. Men are treated as gender-neutral persons and not asked whether they are planning to take time off to have a family. By contrast, that women face such queries illustrates that they are associated more closely than men with bodily features to do with procreation (Prokhovnik 1999, 126). The opposition between mind and body, then, is thought to map onto the opposition between men and women.

Now, the mind/body dualism is also said to map onto the sex/gender distinction (Grosz 1994; Prokhovnik 1999). The idea is that gender maps onto mind, sex onto body. Although not used by those endorsing this view, the basic idea can be summed by the slogan ‘Gender is between the ears, sex is between the legs’: the implication is that, while sex is immutable, gender is something individuals have control over – it is something we can alter and change through individual choices. However, since women are said to be more closely associated with biological features (and so, to map onto the body side of the mind/body distinction) and men are treated as gender-neutral persons (mapping onto the mind side), the implication is that “man equals gender, which is associated with mind and choice, freedom from body, autonomy, and with the public real; while woman equals sex, associated with the body, reproduction, ‘natural’ rhythms and the private realm” (Prokhovnik 1999, 103). This is said to render the sex/gender distinction inherently repressive and to drain it of any potential for emancipation: rather than facilitating gender role choice for women, it “actually functions to reinforce their association with body, sex, and involuntary ‘natural’ rhythms” (Prokhovnik 1999, 103). Contrary to what feminists like Rubin argued, the sex/gender distinction cannot be used as a theoretical tool that dissociates conceptions of womanhood from biological and reproductive features.

Moi has further argued that the sex/gender distinction is useless given certain theoretical goals (1999, chapter 1). This is not to say that it is utterly worthless; according to Moi, the sex/gender distinction worked well to show that the historically prevalent biological determinism was false. However, for her, the distinction does no useful work “when it comes to producing a good theory of subjectivity” (1999, 6) and “a concrete, historical understanding of what it means to be a woman (or a man) in a given society” (1999, 4–5). That is, the 1960s distinction understood sex as fixed by biology without any cultural or historical dimensions. This understanding, however, ignores lived experiences and embodiment as aspects of womanhood (and manhood) by separating sex from gender and insisting that womanhood is to do with the latter. Rather, embodiment must be included in one’s theory that tries to figure out what it is to be a woman (or a man).

Mikkola (2011) argues that the sex/gender distinction, which underlies views like Rubin’s and MacKinnon’s, has certain unintuitive and undesirable ontological commitments that render the distinction politically unhelpful. First, claiming that gender is socially constructed implies that the existence of women and men is a mind-dependent matter. This suggests that we can do away with women and men simply by altering some social practices, conventions or conditions on which gender depends (whatever those are). However, ordinary social agents find this unintuitive given that (ordinarily) sex and gender are not distinguished. Second, claiming that gender is a product of oppressive social forces suggests that doing away with women and men should be feminism’s political goal. But this harbours ontologically undesirable commitments since many ordinary social agents view their gender to be a source of positive value. So, feminism seems to want to do away with something that should not be done away with, which is unlikely to motivate social agents to act in ways that aim at gender justice. Given these problems, Mikkola argues that feminists should give up the distinction on practical political grounds.

Tomas Bogardus (2020) has argued in an even more radical sense against the sex/gender distinction: as things stand, he holds, feminist philosophers have merely assumed and asserted that the distinction exists, instead of having offered good arguments for the distinction. In other words, feminist philosophers allegedly have yet to offer good reasons to think that ‘woman’ does not simply pick out adult human females. Alex Byrne (2020) argues in a similar vein: the term ‘woman’ does not pick out a social kind as feminist philosophers have “assumed”. Instead, “women are adult human females–nothing more, and nothing less” (2020, 3801). Byrne offers six considerations to ground this AHF (adult, human, female) conception.

• It reproduces the dictionary definition of ‘woman’.
• One would expect English to have a word that picks out the category adult human female, and ‘woman’ is the only candidate.
• AHF explains how we sometimes know that an individual is a woman, despite knowing nothing else relevant about her other than the fact that she is an adult human female.
• AHF stands or falls with the analogous thesis for girls, which can be supported independently.
• AHF predicts the correct verdict in cases of gender role reversal.
• AHF is supported by the fact that ‘woman’ and ‘female’ are often appropriately used as stylistic variants of each other, even in hyperintensional contexts.

Robin Dembroff (2021) responds to Byrne and highlights various problems with Byrne’s argument. First, framing: Byrne assumes from the start that gender terms like ‘woman’ have a single invariant meaning thereby failing to discuss the possibility of terms like ‘woman’ having multiple meanings – something that is a familiar claim made by feminist theorists from various disciplines. Moreover, Byrne (according to Dembroff) assumes without argument that there is a single, universal category of woman – again, something that has been extensively discussed and critiqued by feminist philosophers and theorists. Second, Byrne’s conception of the ‘dominant’ meaning of woman is said to be cherry-picked and it ignores a wealth of contexts outside of philosophy (like the media and the law) where ‘woman’ has a meaning other than AHF . Third, Byrne’s own distinction between biological and social categories fails to establish what he intended to establish: namely, that ‘woman’ picks out a biological rather than a social kind. Hence, Dembroff holds, Byrne’s case fails by its own lights. Byrne (2021) responds to Dembroff’s critique.

Others such as ‘gender critical feminists’ also hold views about the sex/gender distinction in a spirit similar to Bogardus and Byrne. For example, Holly Lawford-Smith (2021) takes the prevalent sex/gender distinction, where ‘female’/‘male’ are used as sex terms and ‘woman’/’man’ as gender terms, not to be helpful. Instead, she takes all of these to be sex terms and holds that (the norms of) femininity/masculinity refer to gender normativity. Because much of the gender critical feminists’ discussion that philosophers have engaged in has taken place in social media, public fora, and other sources outside academic philosophy, this entry will not focus on these discussions.

4. Women as a group

The various critiques of the sex/gender distinction have called into question the viability of the category women . Feminism is the movement to end the oppression women as a group face. But, how should the category of women be understood if feminists accept the above arguments that gender construction is not uniform, that a sharp distinction between biological sex and social gender is false or (at least) not useful, and that various features associated with women play a role in what it is to be a woman, none of which are individually necessary and jointly sufficient (like a variety of social roles, positions, behaviours, traits, bodily features and experiences)? Feminists must be able to address cultural and social differences in gender construction if feminism is to be a genuinely inclusive movement and be careful not to posit commonalities that mask important ways in which women qua women differ. These concerns (among others) have generated a situation where (as Linda Alcoff puts it) feminists aim to speak and make political demands in the name of women, at the same time rejecting the idea that there is a unified category of women (2006, 152). If feminist critiques of the category women are successful, then what (if anything) binds women together, what is it to be a woman, and what kinds of demands can feminists make on behalf of women?

Many have found the fragmentation of the category of women problematic for political reasons (e.g. Alcoff 2006; Bach 2012; Benhabib 1992; Frye 1996; Haslanger 2000b; Heyes 2000; Martin 1994; Mikkola 2007; Stoljar 1995; Stone 2004; Tanesini 1996; Young 1997; Zack 2005). For instance, Young holds that accounts like Spelman’s reduce the category of women to a gerrymandered collection of individuals with nothing to bind them together (1997, 20). Black women differ from white women but members of both groups also differ from one another with respect to nationality, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation and economic position; that is, wealthy white women differ from working-class white women due to their economic and class positions. These sub-groups are themselves diverse: for instance, some working-class white women in Northern Ireland are starkly divided along religious lines. So if we accept Spelman’s position, we risk ending up with individual women and nothing to bind them together. And this is problematic: in order to respond to oppression of women in general, feminists must understand them as a category in some sense. Young writes that without doing so “it is not possible to conceptualize oppression as a systematic, structured, institutional process” (1997, 17). Some, then, take the articulation of an inclusive category of women to be the prerequisite for effective feminist politics and a rich literature has emerged that aims to conceptualise women as a group or a collective (e.g. Alcoff 2006; Ásta 2011; Frye 1996; 2011; Haslanger 2000b; Heyes 2000; Stoljar 1995, 2011; Young 1997; Zack 2005). Articulations of this category can be divided into those that are: (a) gender nominalist — positions that deny there is something women qua women share and that seek to unify women’s social kind by appealing to something external to women; and (b) gender realist — positions that take there to be something women qua women share (although these realist positions differ significantly from those outlined in Section 2). Below we will review some influential gender nominalist and gender realist positions. Before doing so, it is worth noting that not everyone is convinced that attempts to articulate an inclusive category of women can succeed or that worries about what it is to be a woman are in need of being resolved. Mikkola (2016) argues that feminist politics need not rely on overcoming (what she calls) the ‘gender controversy’: that feminists must settle the meaning of gender concepts and articulate a way to ground women’s social kind membership. As she sees it, disputes about ‘what it is to be a woman’ have become theoretically bankrupt and intractable, which has generated an analytical impasse that looks unsurpassable. Instead, Mikkola argues for giving up the quest, which in any case in her view poses no serious political obstacles.

Elizabeth Barnes (2020) responds to the need to offer an inclusive conception of gender somewhat differently, although she endorses the need for feminism to be inclusive particularly of trans people. Barnes holds that typically philosophical theories of gender aim to offer an account of what it is to be a woman (or man, genderqueer, etc.), where such an account is presumed to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for being a woman or an account of our gender terms’ extensions. But, she holds, it is a mistake to expect our theories of gender to do so. For Barnes, a project that offers a metaphysics of gender “should be understood as the project of theorizing what it is —if anything— about the social world that ultimately explains gender” (2020, 706). This project is not equivalent to one that aims to define gender terms or elucidate the application conditions for natural language gender terms though.

4.1 Gender nominalism

Iris Young argues that unless there is “some sense in which ‘woman’ is the name of a social collective [that feminism represents], there is nothing specific to feminist politics” (1997, 13). In order to make the category women intelligible, she argues that women make up a series: a particular kind of social collective “whose members are unified passively by the objects their actions are oriented around and/or by the objectified results of the material effects of the actions of the other” (Young 1997, 23). A series is distinct from a group in that, whereas members of groups are thought to self-consciously share certain goals, projects, traits and/ or self-conceptions, members of series pursue their own individual ends without necessarily having anything at all in common. Young holds that women are not bound together by a shared feature or experience (or set of features and experiences) since she takes Spelman’s particularity argument to have established definitely that no such feature exists (1997, 13; see also: Frye 1996; Heyes 2000). Instead, women’s category is unified by certain practico-inert realities or the ways in which women’s lives and their actions are oriented around certain objects and everyday realities (Young 1997, 23–4). For example, bus commuters make up a series unified through their individual actions being organised around the same practico-inert objects of the bus and the practice of public transport. Women make up a series unified through women’s lives and actions being organised around certain practico-inert objects and realities that position them as women .

Young identifies two broad groups of such practico-inert objects and realities. First, phenomena associated with female bodies (physical facts), biological processes that take place in female bodies (menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth) and social rules associated with these biological processes (social rules of menstruation, for instance). Second, gender-coded objects and practices: pronouns, verbal and visual representations of gender, gender-coded artefacts and social spaces, clothes, cosmetics, tools and furniture. So, women make up a series since their lives and actions are organised around female bodies and certain gender-coded objects. Their series is bound together passively and the unity is “not one that arises from the individuals called women” (Young 1997, 32).

Although Young’s proposal purports to be a response to Spelman’s worries, Stone has questioned whether it is, after all, susceptible to the particularity argument: ultimately, on Young’s view, something women as women share (their practico-inert realities) binds them together (Stone 2004).

Natalie Stoljar holds that unless the category of women is unified, feminist action on behalf of women cannot be justified (1995, 282). Stoljar too is persuaded by the thought that women qua women do not share anything unitary. This prompts her to argue for resemblance nominalism. This is the view that a certain kind of resemblance relation holds between entities of a particular type (for more on resemblance nominalism, see Armstrong 1989, 39–58). Stoljar is not alone in arguing for resemblance relations to make sense of women as a category; others have also done so, usually appealing to Wittgenstein’s ‘family resemblance’ relations (Alcoff 1988; Green & Radford Curry 1991; Heyes 2000; Munro 2006). Stoljar relies more on Price’s resemblance nominalism whereby x is a member of some type F only if x resembles some paradigm or exemplar of F sufficiently closely (Price 1953, 20). For instance, the type of red entities is unified by some chosen red paradigms so that only those entities that sufficiently resemble the paradigms count as red. The type (or category) of women, then, is unified by some chosen woman paradigms so that those who sufficiently resemble the woman paradigms count as women (Stoljar 1995, 284).

Semantic considerations about the concept woman suggest to Stoljar that resemblance nominalism should be endorsed (Stoljar 2000, 28). It seems unlikely that the concept is applied on the basis of some single social feature all and only women possess. By contrast, woman is a cluster concept and our attributions of womanhood pick out “different arrangements of features in different individuals” (Stoljar 2000, 27). More specifically, they pick out the following clusters of features: (a) Female sex; (b) Phenomenological features: menstruation, female sexual experience, child-birth, breast-feeding, fear of walking on the streets at night or fear of rape; (c) Certain roles: wearing typically female clothing, being oppressed on the basis of one’s sex or undertaking care-work; (d) Gender attribution: “calling oneself a woman, being called a woman” (Stoljar 1995, 283–4). For Stoljar, attributions of womanhood are to do with a variety of traits and experiences: those that feminists have historically termed ‘gender traits’ (like social, behavioural, psychological traits) and those termed ‘sex traits’. Nonetheless, she holds that since the concept woman applies to (at least some) trans persons, one can be a woman without being female (Stoljar 1995, 282).

The cluster concept woman does not, however, straightforwardly provide the criterion for picking out the category of women. Rather, the four clusters of features that the concept picks out help single out woman paradigms that in turn help single out the category of women. First, any individual who possesses a feature from at least three of the four clusters mentioned will count as an exemplar of the category. For instance, an African-American with primary and secondary female sex characteristics, who describes herself as a woman and is oppressed on the basis of her sex, along with a white European hermaphrodite brought up ‘as a girl’, who engages in female roles and has female phenomenological features despite lacking female sex characteristics, will count as woman paradigms (Stoljar 1995, 284). [ 7 ] Second, any individual who resembles “any of the paradigms sufficiently closely (on Price’s account, as closely as [the paradigms] resemble each other) will be a member of the resemblance class ‘woman’” (Stoljar 1995, 284). That is, what delimits membership in the category of women is that one resembles sufficiently a woman paradigm.

4.2 Neo-gender realism

In a series of articles collected in her 2012 book, Sally Haslanger argues for a way to define the concept woman that is politically useful, serving as a tool in feminist fights against sexism, and that shows woman to be a social (not a biological) notion. More specifically, Haslanger argues that gender is a matter of occupying either a subordinate or a privileged social position. In some articles, Haslanger is arguing for a revisionary analysis of the concept woman (2000b; 2003a; 2003b). Elsewhere she suggests that her analysis may not be that revisionary after all (2005; 2006). Consider the former argument first. Haslanger’s analysis is, in her terms, ameliorative: it aims to elucidate which gender concepts best help feminists achieve their legitimate purposes thereby elucidating those concepts feminists should be using (Haslanger 2000b, 33). [ 8 ] Now, feminists need gender terminology in order to fight sexist injustices (Haslanger 2000b, 36). In particular, they need gender terms to identify, explain and talk about persistent social inequalities between males and females. Haslanger’s analysis of gender begins with the recognition that females and males differ in two respects: physically and in their social positions. Societies in general tend to “privilege individuals with male bodies” (Haslanger 2000b, 38) so that the social positions they subsequently occupy are better than the social positions of those with female bodies. And this generates persistent sexist injustices. With this in mind, Haslanger specifies how she understands genders:

S is a woman iff [by definition] S is systematically subordinated along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.), and S is ‘marked’ as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of a female’s biological role in reproduction.

S is a man iff [by definition] S is systematically privileged along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.), and S is ‘marked’ as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of a male’s biological role in reproduction. (2003a, 6–7)

These are constitutive of being a woman and a man: what makes calling S a woman apt, is that S is oppressed on sex-marked grounds; what makes calling S a man apt, is that S is privileged on sex-marked grounds.

Haslanger’s ameliorative analysis is counterintuitive in that females who are not sex-marked for oppression, do not count as women. At least arguably, the Queen of England is not oppressed on sex-marked grounds and so, would not count as a woman on Haslanger’s definition. And, similarly, all males who are not privileged would not count as men. This might suggest that Haslanger’s analysis should be rejected in that it does not capture what language users have in mind when applying gender terms. However, Haslanger argues that this is not a reason to reject the definitions, which she takes to be revisionary: they are not meant to capture our intuitive gender terms. In response, Mikkola (2009) has argued that revisionary analyses of gender concepts, like Haslanger’s, are both politically unhelpful and philosophically unnecessary.

Note also that Haslanger’s proposal is eliminativist: gender justice would eradicate gender, since it would abolish those sexist social structures responsible for sex-marked oppression and privilege. If sexist oppression were to cease, women and men would no longer exist (although there would still be males and females). Not all feminists endorse such an eliminativist view though. Stone holds that Haslanger does not leave any room for positively revaluing what it is to be a woman: since Haslanger defines woman in terms of subordination,

any woman who challenges her subordinate status must by definition be challenging her status as a woman, even if she does not intend to … positive change to our gender norms would involve getting rid of the (necessarily subordinate) feminine gender. (Stone 2007, 160)

But according to Stone this is not only undesirable – one should be able to challenge subordination without having to challenge one’s status as a woman. It is also false: “because norms of femininity can be and constantly are being revised, women can be women without thereby being subordinate” (Stone 2007, 162; Mikkola [2016] too argues that Haslanger’s eliminativism is troublesome).

Theodore Bach holds that Haslanger’s eliminativism is undesirable on other grounds, and that Haslanger’s position faces another more serious problem. Feminism faces the following worries (among others):

Representation problem : “if there is no real group of ‘women’, then it is incoherent to make moral claims and advance political policies on behalf of women” (Bach 2012, 234). Commonality problems : (1) There is no feature that all women cross-culturally and transhistorically share. (2) Delimiting women’s social kind with the help of some essential property privileges those who possess it, and marginalizes those who do not (Bach 2012, 235).

According to Bach, Haslanger’s strategy to resolve these problems appeals to ‘social objectivism’. First, we define women “according to a suitably abstract relational property” (Bach 2012, 236), which avoids the commonality problems. Second, Haslanger employs “an ontologically thin notion of ‘objectivity’” (Bach 2012, 236) that answers the representation problem. Haslanger’s solution (Bach holds) is specifically to argue that women make up an objective type because women are objectively similar to one another, and not simply classified together given our background conceptual schemes. Bach claims though that Haslanger’s account is not objective enough, and we should on political grounds “provide a stronger ontological characterization of the genders men and women according to which they are natural kinds with explanatory essences” (Bach 2012, 238). He thus proposes that women make up a natural kind with a historical essence:

The essential property of women, in virtue of which an individual is a member of the kind ‘women,’ is participation in a lineage of women. In order to exemplify this relational property, an individual must be a reproduction of ancestral women, in which case she must have undergone the ontogenetic processes through which a historical gender system replicates women. (Bach 2012, 271)

In short, one is not a woman due to shared surface properties with other women (like occupying a subordinate social position). Rather, one is a woman because one has the right history: one has undergone the ubiquitous ontogenetic process of gender socialization. Thinking about gender in this way supposedly provides a stronger kind unity than Haslanger’s that simply appeals to shared surface properties.

Not everyone agrees; Mikkola (2020) argues that Bach’s metaphysical picture has internal tensions that render it puzzling and that Bach’s metaphysics does not provide good responses to the commonality and presentation problems. The historically essentialist view also has anti-trans implications. After all, trans women who have not undergone female gender socialization won’t count as women on his view (Mikkola [2016, 2020] develops this line of critique in more detail). More worryingly, trans women will count as men contrary to their self-identification. Both Bettcher (2013) and Jenkins (2016) consider the importance of gender self-identification. Bettcher argues that there is more than one ‘correct’ way to understand womanhood: at the very least, the dominant (mainstream), and the resistant (trans) conceptions. Dominant views like that of Bach’s tend to erase trans people’s experiences and to marginalize trans women within feminist movements. Rather than trans women having to defend their self-identifying claims, these claims should be taken at face value right from the start. And so, Bettcher holds, “in analyzing the meaning of terms such as ‘woman,’ it is inappropriate to dismiss alternative ways in which those terms are actually used in trans subcultures; such usage needs to be taken into consideration as part of the analysis” (2013, 235).

Specifically with Haslanger in mind and in a similar vein, Jenkins (2016) discusses how Haslanger’s revisionary approach unduly excludes some trans women from women’s social kind. On Jenkins’s view, Haslanger’s ameliorative methodology in fact yields more than one satisfying target concept: one that “corresponds to Haslanger’s proposed concept and captures the sense of gender as an imposed social class”; another that “captures the sense of gender as a lived identity” (Jenkins 2016, 397). The latter of these allows us to include trans women into women’s social kind, who on Haslanger’s social class approach to gender would inappropriately have been excluded. (See Andler 2017 for the view that Jenkins’s purportedly inclusive conception of gender is still not fully inclusive. Jenkins 2018 responds to this charge and develops the notion of gender identity still further.)

In addition to her revisionary argument, Haslanger has suggested that her ameliorative analysis of woman may not be as revisionary as it first seems (2005, 2006). Although successful in their reference fixing, ordinary language users do not always know precisely what they are talking about. Our language use may be skewed by oppressive ideologies that can “mislead us about the content of our own thoughts” (Haslanger 2005, 12). Although her gender terminology is not intuitive, this could simply be because oppressive ideologies mislead us about the meanings of our gender terms. Our everyday gender terminology might mean something utterly different from what we think it means; and we could be entirely ignorant of this. Perhaps Haslanger’s analysis, then, has captured our everyday gender vocabulary revealing to us the terms that we actually employ: we may be applying ‘woman’ in our everyday language on the basis of sex-marked subordination whether we take ourselves to be doing so or not. If this is so, Haslanger’s gender terminology is not radically revisionist.

Saul (2006) argues that, despite it being possible that we unknowingly apply ‘woman’ on the basis of social subordination, it is extremely difficult to show that this is the case. This would require showing that the gender terminology we in fact employ is Haslanger’s proposed gender terminology. But discovering the grounds on which we apply everyday gender terms is extremely difficult precisely because they are applied in various and idiosyncratic ways (Saul 2006, 129). Haslanger, then, needs to do more in order to show that her analysis is non-revisionary.

Charlotte Witt (2011a; 2011b) argues for a particular sort of gender essentialism, which Witt terms ‘uniessentialism’. Her motivation and starting point is the following: many ordinary social agents report gender being essential to them and claim that they would be a different person were they of a different sex/gender. Uniessentialism attempts to understand and articulate this. However, Witt’s work departs in important respects from the earlier (so-called) essentialist or gender realist positions discussed in Section 2: Witt does not posit some essential property of womanhood of the kind discussed above, which failed to take women’s differences into account. Further, uniessentialism differs significantly from those position developed in response to the problem of how we should conceive of women’s social kind. It is not about solving the standard dispute between gender nominalists and gender realists, or about articulating some supposedly shared property that binds women together and provides a theoretical ground for feminist political solidarity. Rather, uniessentialism aims to make good the widely held belief that gender is constitutive of who we are. [ 9 ]

Uniessentialism is a sort of individual essentialism. Traditionally philosophers distinguish between kind and individual essentialisms: the former examines what binds members of a kind together and what do all members of some kind have in common qua members of that kind. The latter asks: what makes an individual the individual it is. We can further distinguish two sorts of individual essentialisms: Kripkean identity essentialism and Aristotelian uniessentialism. The former asks: what makes an individual that individual? The latter, however, asks a slightly different question: what explains the unity of individuals? What explains that an individual entity exists over and above the sum total of its constituent parts? (The standard feminist debate over gender nominalism and gender realism has largely been about kind essentialism. Being about individual essentialism, Witt’s uniessentialism departs in an important way from the standard debate.) From the two individual essentialisms, Witt endorses the Aristotelian one. On this view, certain functional essences have a unifying role: these essences are responsible for the fact that material parts constitute a new individual, rather than just a lump of stuff or a collection of particles. Witt’s example is of a house: the essential house-functional property (what the entity is for, what its purpose is) unifies the different material parts of a house so that there is a house, and not just a collection of house-constituting particles (2011a, 6). Gender (being a woman/a man) functions in a similar fashion and provides “the principle of normative unity” that organizes, unifies and determines the roles of social individuals (Witt 2011a, 73). Due to this, gender is a uniessential property of social individuals.

It is important to clarify the notions of gender and social individuality that Witt employs. First, gender is a social position that “cluster[s] around the engendering function … women conceive and bear … men beget” (Witt 2011a, 40). These are women and men’s socially mediated reproductive functions (Witt 2011a, 29) and they differ from the biological function of reproduction, which roughly corresponds to sex on the standard sex/gender distinction. Witt writes: “to be a woman is to be recognized to have a particular function in engendering, to be a man is to be recognized to have a different function in engendering” (2011a, 39). Second, Witt distinguishes persons (those who possess self-consciousness), human beings (those who are biologically human) and social individuals (those who occupy social positions synchronically and diachronically). These ontological categories are not equivalent in that they possess different persistence and identity conditions. Social individuals are bound by social normativity, human beings by biological normativity. These normativities differ in two respects: first, social norms differ from one culture to the next whereas biological norms do not; second, unlike biological normativity, social normativity requires “the recognition by others that an agent is both responsive to and evaluable under a social norm” (Witt 2011a, 19). Thus, being a social individual is not equivalent to being a human being. Further, Witt takes personhood to be defined in terms of intrinsic psychological states of self-awareness and self-consciousness. However, social individuality is defined in terms of the extrinsic feature of occupying a social position, which depends for its existence on a social world. So, the two are not equivalent: personhood is essentially about intrinsic features and could exist without a social world, whereas social individuality is essentially about extrinsic features that could not exist without a social world.

Witt’s gender essentialist argument crucially pertains to social individuals , not to persons or human beings: saying that persons or human beings are gendered would be a category mistake. But why is gender essential to social individuals? For Witt, social individuals are those who occupy positions in social reality. Further, “social positions have norms or social roles associated with them; a social role is what an individual who occupies a given social position is responsive to and evaluable under” (Witt 2011a, 59). However, qua social individuals, we occupy multiple social positions at once and over time: we can be women, mothers, immigrants, sisters, academics, wives, community organisers and team-sport coaches synchronically and diachronically. Now, the issue for Witt is what unifies these positions so that a social individual is constituted. After all, a bundle of social position occupancies does not make for an individual (just as a bundle of properties like being white , cube-shaped and sweet do not make for a sugar cube). For Witt, this unifying role is undertaken by gender (being a woman or a man): it is

a pervasive and fundamental social position that unifies and determines all other social positions both synchronically and diachronically. It unifies them not physically, but by providing a principle of normative unity. (2011a, 19–20)

By ‘normative unity’, Witt means the following: given our social roles and social position occupancies, we are responsive to various sets of social norms. These norms are “complex patterns of behaviour and practices that constitute what one ought to do in a situation given one’s social position(s) and one’s social context” (Witt 2011a, 82). The sets of norms can conflict: the norms of motherhood can (and do) conflict with the norms of being an academic philosopher. However, in order for this conflict to exist, the norms must be binding on a single social individual. Witt, then, asks: what explains the existence and unity of the social individual who is subject to conflicting social norms? The answer is gender.

Gender is not just a social role that unifies social individuals. Witt takes it to be the social role — as she puts it, it is the mega social role that unifies social agents. First, gender is a mega social role if it satisfies two conditions (and Witt claims that it does): (1) if it provides the principle of synchronic and diachronic unity of social individuals, and (2) if it inflects and defines a broad range of other social roles. Gender satisfies the first in usually being a life-long social position: a social individual persists just as long as their gendered social position persists. Further, Witt maintains, trans people are not counterexamples to this claim: transitioning entails that the old social individual has ceased to exist and a new one has come into being. And this is consistent with the same person persisting and undergoing social individual change via transitioning. Gender satisfies the second condition too. It inflects other social roles, like being a parent or a professional. The expectations attached to these social roles differ depending on the agent’s gender, since gender imposes different social norms to govern the execution of the further social roles. Now, gender — as opposed to some other social category, like race — is not just a mega social role; it is the unifying mega social role. Cross-cultural and trans-historical considerations support this view. Witt claims that patriarchy is a social universal (2011a, 98). By contrast, racial categorisation varies historically and cross-culturally, and racial oppression is not a universal feature of human cultures. Thus, gender has a better claim to being the social role that is uniessential to social individuals. This account of gender essentialism not only explains social agents’ connectedness to their gender, but it also provides a helpful way to conceive of women’s agency — something that is central to feminist politics.

Linda Alcoff holds that feminism faces an identity crisis: the category of women is feminism’s starting point, but various critiques about gender have fragmented the category and it is not clear how feminists should understand what it is to be a woman (2006, chapter 5). In response, Alcoff develops an account of gender as positionality whereby “gender is, among other things, a position one occupies and from which one can act politically” (2006, 148). In particular, she takes one’s social position to foster the development of specifically gendered identities (or self-conceptions): “The very subjectivity (or subjective experience of being a woman) and the very identity of women are constituted by women’s position” (Alcoff 2006, 148). Alcoff holds that there is an objective basis for distinguishing individuals on the grounds of (actual or expected) reproductive roles:

Women and men are differentiated by virtue of their different relationship of possibility to biological reproduction, with biological reproduction referring to conceiving, giving birth, and breast-feeding, involving one’s body . (Alcoff 2006, 172, italics in original)

The thought is that those standardly classified as biologically female, although they may not actually be able to reproduce, will encounter “a different set of practices, expectations, and feelings in regard to reproduction” than those standardly classified as male (Alcoff 2006, 172). Further, this differential relation to the possibility of reproduction is used as the basis for many cultural and social phenomena that position women and men: it can be

the basis of a variety of social segregations, it can engender the development of differential forms of embodiment experienced throughout life, and it can generate a wide variety of affective responses, from pride, delight, shame, guilt, regret, or great relief from having successfully avoided reproduction. (Alcoff 2006, 172)

Reproduction, then, is an objective basis for distinguishing individuals that takes on a cultural dimension in that it positions women and men differently: depending on the kind of body one has, one’s lived experience will differ. And this fosters the construction of gendered social identities: one’s role in reproduction helps configure how one is socially positioned and this conditions the development of specifically gendered social identities.

Since women are socially positioned in various different contexts, “there is no gender essence all women share” (Alcoff 2006, 147–8). Nonetheless, Alcoff acknowledges that her account is akin to the original 1960s sex/gender distinction insofar as sex difference (understood in terms of the objective division of reproductive labour) provides the foundation for certain cultural arrangements (the development of a gendered social identity). But, with the benefit of hindsight

we can see that maintaining a distinction between the objective category of sexed identity and the varied and culturally contingent practices of gender does not presume an absolute distinction of the old-fashioned sort between culture and a reified nature. (Alcoff 2006, 175)

That is, her view avoids the implausible claim that sex is exclusively to do with nature and gender with culture. Rather, the distinction on the basis of reproductive possibilities shapes and is shaped by the sorts of cultural and social phenomena (like varieties of social segregation) these possibilities gives rise to. For instance, technological interventions can alter sex differences illustrating that this is the case (Alcoff 2006, 175). Women’s specifically gendered social identities that are constituted by their context dependent positions, then, provide the starting point for feminist politics.

Recently Robin Dembroff (2020) has argued that existing metaphysical accounts of gender fail to address non-binary gender identities. This generates two concerns. First, metaphysical accounts of gender (like the ones outlined in previous sections) are insufficient for capturing those who reject binary gender categorisation where people are either men or women. In so doing, these accounts are not satisfying as explanations of gender understood in a more expansive sense that goes beyond the binary. Second, the failure to understand non-binary gender identities contributes to a form of epistemic injustice called ‘hermeneutical injustice’: it feeds into a collective failure to comprehend and analyse concepts and practices that undergird non-binary classification schemes, thereby impeding on one’s ability to fully understand themselves. To overcome these problems, Dembroff suggests an account of genderqueer that they call ‘critical gender kind’:

a kind whose members collectively destabilize one or more elements of dominant gender ideology. Genderqueer, on my proposed model, is a category whose members collectively destabilize the binary axis, or the idea that the only possible genders are the exclusive and exhaustive kinds men and women. (2020, 2)

Note that Dembroff’s position is not to be confused with ‘gender critical feminist’ positions like those noted above, which are critical of the prevalent feminist focus on gender, as opposed to sex, kinds. Dembroff understands genderqueer as a gender kind, but one that is critical of dominant binary understandings of gender.

Dembroff identifies two modes of destabilising the gender binary: principled and existential. Principled destabilising “stems from or otherwise expresses individuals’ social or political commitments regarding gender norms, practices, and structures”, while existential destabilising “stems from or otherwise expresses individuals’ felt or desired gender roles, embodiment, and/or categorization” (2020, 13). These modes are not mutually exclusive, and they can help us understand the difference between allies and members of genderqueer kinds: “While both resist dominant gender ideology, members of [genderqueer] kinds resist (at least in part) due to felt or desired gender categorization that deviates from dominant expectations, norms, and assumptions” (2020, 14). These modes of destabilisation also enable us to formulate an understanding of non-critical gender kinds that binary understandings of women and men’s kinds exemplify. Dembroff defines these kinds as follows:

For a given kind X , X is a non-critical gender kind relative to a given society iff X ’s members collectively restabilize one or more elements of the dominant gender ideology in that society. (2020, 14)

Dembroff’s understanding of critical and non-critical gender kinds importantly makes gender kind membership something more and other than a mere psychological phenomenon. To engage in collectively destabilising or restabilising dominant gender normativity and ideology, we need more than mere attitudes or mental states – resisting or maintaining such normativity requires action as well. In so doing, Dembroff puts their position forward as an alternative to two existing internalist positions about gender. First, to Jennifer McKitrick’s (2015) view whereby gender is dispositional: in a context where someone is disposed to behave in ways that would be taken by others to be indicative of (e.g.) womanhood, the person has a woman’s gender identity. Second, to Jenkin’s (2016, 2018) position that takes an individual’s gender identity to be dependent on which gender-specific norms the person experiences as being relevant to them. On this view, someone is a woman if the person experiences norms associated with women to be relevant to the person in the particular social context that they are in. Neither of these positions well-captures non-binary identities, Dembroff argues, which motivates the account of genderqueer identities as critical gender kinds.

As Dembroff acknowledges, substantive philosophical work on non-binary gender identities is still developing. However, it is important to note that analytic philosophers are beginning to engage in gender metaphysics that goes beyond the binary.

This entry first looked at feminist objections to biological determinism and the claim that gender is socially constructed. Next, it examined feminist critiques of prevalent understandings of gender and sex, and the distinction itself. In response to these concerns, the entry looked at how a unified women’s category could be articulated for feminist political purposes. This illustrated that gender metaphysics — or what it is to be a woman or a man or a genderqueer person — is still very much a live issue. And although contemporary feminist philosophical debates have questioned some of the tenets and details of the original 1960s sex/gender distinction, most still hold onto the view that gender is about social factors and that it is (in some sense) distinct from biological sex. The jury is still out on what the best, the most useful, or (even) the correct definition of gender is.

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I am very grateful to Tuukka Asplund, Jenny Saul, Alison Stone and Nancy Tuana for their extremely helpful and detailed comments when writing this entry.

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Article contents

Gender in a social psychology context.

• Thekla Morgenroth Thekla Morgenroth Department of Psychology, University of Exeter
•  and  Michelle K. Ryan Michelle K. Ryan Dean of Postgraduate Research and Director of the Doctoral College, University of Exeter
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.309
• Published online: 28 March 2018

Understanding gender and gender differences is a prevalent aim in many psychological subdisciplines. Social psychology has tended to employ a binary understanding of gender and has focused on understanding key gender stereotypes and their impact. While women are seen as warm and communal, men are seen as agentic and competent. These stereotypes are shaped by, and respond to, social contexts, and are both descriptive and prescriptive in nature. The most influential theories argue that these stereotypes develop in response to societal structures, including the roles women and men occupy in society, and status differences between the sexes. Importantly, research clearly demonstrates that these stereotypes have a myriad of effects on individuals’ cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors and contribute to sexism and gender inequality in a range of domains, from the workplace to romantic relationships.

• gender stereotypes
• gender norms
• social psychology
• social role theory
• stereotype content model
• ambivalent sexism
• stereotype threat

Introduction

Gender is omnipresent—it is one of the first categories children learn, and the categorization of people into men and women 1 affects almost every aspect of our lives. Gender is a key determinant of our self-concept and our perceptions of others. It shapes our mental health, our career paths, and our most intimate relationships. It is therefore unsurprising that psychologists invest a great deal of time in understanding gender as a concept, with social psychologists being no exception. However, this has not always been the case. This article begins with “A Brief History of Gender in Psychology,” which gives an overview about gender within psychology more broadly. The remaining sections discuss how gender is examined within social psychology more specifically, with particular attention to how gender stereotypes form and how they affect our sense of self and our evaluations of others.

A Brief History of Gender in Psychology

During the early years of psychology in general, and social psychology in particular, the topic gender was largely absent from psychology, as indeed were women. Male researchers made claims about human nature based on findings that were restricted to a small portion of the population, namely, white, young, able-bodied, middle-class, heterosexual men [see Etaugh, 2016 ; a phenomenon that has been termed androcentrism (Hegarty, & Buechel, 2006 )]. If women and girls were mentioned at all, they were usually seen as inferior to men and boys (e.g., Hall, 1904 ).

This invisibility of women within psychology changed with a rise of the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. Here, more women entered psychology, demanded to be seen, and pushed back against the narrative of women as inferior. They argued that psychology’s androcentrism, and the sexist views of psychologists, had not only biased psychological theory and research, but also contributed to and reinforced gender inequality in society. For example, Weisstein ( 1968 ) argued that most claims about women made by prominent psychologists, such as Freud and Erikson, lacked an evidential grounding and were instead based on these men’s fantasies of what women were like rather than empirical data. A few years later, Maccoby and Jacklin ( 1974 ) published their seminal work, The Psychology of Sex Differences , which synthesized the literature on sex differences and concluded that there were few (but some) sex differences. This led to a growth of interest in the social origins of sex differences, with a shift away from a psychology of sex (i.e., biologically determined male vs. female) and toward a psychology of gender (i.e., socially constructed masculine vs. feminine).

Since then, the psychology of gender has become a respected and widely represented subdiscipline within psychology. In a fascinating analysis of the history of feminism and psychology, Eagly, Eaton, Rose, Riger, and McHugh ( 2012 ) examined publications on sex differences, gender, and women from 1960 to 2009 . In those 50 years, the number of annual publications rose from close to zero to over 6,500. As a proportion of all psychology articles, one can also see a marked rise in popularity in gender articles from 1960 to 2009 , with peak years of interest in the late 1970s and 1990s. In line with the aforementioned shift from sex differences to gender differences, the largest proportion of these articles fall into the topic of “social processes and social issues,” which includes research on gender roles, masculinity, and femininity.

However, as interest in the area has grown, the ways in which gender is studied, and the political views of those studying it, have become more diverse. Eagly and colleagues note:

we believe that this research gained from feminist ideology but has escaped its boundaries. In this garden, many flowers have bloomed, including some flowers not widely admired by some feminist psychologists. (p. 225)

Here, they allude to the fact that some research has shifted away from societal explanations, which feminist psychologists have generally favored, to more complex views of gender difference. Some of these acknowledge the fact that nature and nurture are deeply intertwined, with both biological and social variables being used to understand gender and gender differences (e.g., Wood & Eagly, 2002 ). Others, such as evolutionary approaches (e.g., Baumeister, 2013 ; Buss, 2016 ) and neuroscientific approaches (see Fine, 2010 ), focus more heavily on the biological bases of gender differences, often causing chagrin among feminists. Nevertheless, much of the research in social psychology has, unsurprisingly, focused on social factors and, in particular, on gender stereotypes. Where do they come from and what are their effects?

Origins and Effects of Gender Stereotypes

A stereotype can be defined as a “widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its members” (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011 , p. 51) and has both descriptive and prescriptive aspects. In other words, gender stereotypes tell us what women and men are like, but also what they should be like (Heilman, 2001 ). Gender stereotypes are not only widely shared, but they are also stubbornly resistant to change (Haines, Deaux, & Lofaro, 2016 ). Both the origin and the consequences of these stereotypes have received much attention in social psychology. So how do stereotypes form? The most widely cited theories on stereotype formation—social role theory (SRT; Eagly, 1987 ; Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000 ) and the stereotype content model (SCM; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, J., 2002 )—answer this question. Both of these models focus on gender as a binary concept (i.e., men and women), as does most psychological research on gender, although they could potentially also be applied to other gender groups. Both theories are considered in turn.

Social Role Theory: Gender Stereotypes Are Determined by Roles

SRT argues that gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of men and women into distinct roles within a given society (Eagly, 1987 ; Eagly et al., 2000 ). The authors note the stability of gender stereotypes across cultures and describe two core dimensions: agency , including traits such as independence, aggression, and assertiveness, and communion , including traits such as caring, altruism, and politeness. While men are generally seen to be high in agency and low in communion, women are generally perceived to be high in communion but low in agency.

According to SRT, these gender stereotypes stem from the fact that women and men are over- and underrepresented in different roles in society. In most societies, even those with higher levels of gender equality, men perform less domestic work compared to women, including childcare, and spend more time in paid employment. Additionally, men disproportionately occupy leadership roles in the workforce (e.g., in politics and management) and are underrepresented in caretaking roles within the workforce (e.g., in elementary education and nursing; see Eagly et al., 2000 ). Eagly and colleagues argue that this gendered division of labor leads to the formation of gender roles and associated stereotypes. More specifically, they propose that different behaviors are seen as necessary to fulfil these social roles, and different skills, abilities, and traits are seen as necessary to execute these behaviors. For example, elementary school teachers are seen to need to care for and interact with children, which is seen to require social skills, empathy, and a caring nature. In contrast, such communal attributes might be seen to be less important—or even detrimental—for a military leader.

To the extent that women and men are differentially represented and visible in certain roles—such as elementary school teachers or military leaders—the behaviors and traits necessary for these roles become part of each respective gender role. In other words, the behaviors and attributes associated with people in caretaking roles, communion, become part of the female gender role, while the behaviors and attributes associated with people in leadership roles, agency, become part of the male gender role.

Building on SRT, Wood and Eagly ( 2002 ) developed a biosocial model of the origins of sex differences which explains the stability of gendered social roles across cultures. The authors argue that, in the past, physical differences between men and women meant that they were better able to perform certain tasks, contributing to the formation of gender roles. More specifically, women had to bear children and nurse them, while men were generally taller and had more upper body strength. In turn, tasks that required upper body strength and long stretches of uninterrupted time (e.g., hunting) were more often carried out by men, while tasks that could be interrupted more easily and be carried out while pregnant or looking after children (e.g., foraging) were more often carried out by women.

Eagly and colleagues further propose that the exact tasks more easily carried out by each sex depended on social and ecological conditions as well as technological and cultural advances. For example, it was only in more advanced, complex societies that the greater size and strength of men led to a division of labor in which men were preferred for activities such as warfare, which also came with higher status and access to resources. Similarly, the development of plough technology led to shifts from hunter–gatherer societies to agricultural societies. This change was often accompanied by a new division of labor in which men owned, farmed, and inherited land while women carried out more domestic tasks. The social structures that arose from these processes in specific contexts in turn affected more proximal causes of gender differences, including gender stereotypes.

It is important to note that this theory focuses on physical differences between the genders, not psychological ones. In other words, the authors do not argue that women and men are inherently different when it comes to their minds, nor that men evolved to be more agentic while women evolved to be more communal.

Stereotype Content Model: Gender Stereotypes Are Determined by Group Relations

The SCM, formulated by Fiske and colleagues ( 2002 ), was not developed specifically for gender, but as an explanation of how stereotypes form more generally. Similar to SRT, the SCM argues that gender stereotypes arise from societal structures. More specifically, the authors suggest that status differences and cooperation versus competition determine group stereotypes—among them, gender stereotypes. This model also suggests two main dimensions to stereotypes, namely, warmth and competence. The concept of warmth is similar to that of communion, previously described, in that it refers to being kind, nice, and caring. Competence refers to attributes such as being intelligent, efficient, and skillful and is thus different from the agency dimension of SRT.

The SCM argues that the dimensions of warmth and competence originate from two fundamental dimensions—status and competition—which characterize the relationships between groups in every culture and society. The degree to which another group is perceived to be warm is determined by whether the group is in cooperation or in competition with one’s own group, which is in turn associated with perceived intentions to help or to harm one’s own group, respectively. While members of cooperating groups are stereotyped as warm, members of competing groups are stereotyped as cold. Evidence suggests that these two dimensions are indeed universal and can be found in many cultures, including collectivist cultures (Cuddy et al., 2009 ). Perceptions of competence, however, are affected by the status and power of the group, which go hand-in-hand with the group’s ability to harm one’s own group. Those groups with high status and power are stereotyped as competent, while those that lack status and power are stereotyped as incompetent.

Groups can thus fall into one of four quadrants of this model. Members of high status groups who cooperate with one’s own group are seen as unequivocally positive—as warm and competent—while those of low status who compete with one’s own group are seen as unequivocally negative—cold and incompetent. More interesting are the two groups that fall into the more ambivalent quadrants—those who are perceived as either warm but incompetent or competent but cold. Applied to gender, this model suggests—and research shows—that typical men are stereotyped as competent but cold, the envious stereotype, while typical women are stereotyped as warm but incompetent, the paternalistic stereotype.

However, these stereotypes do not apply equally to all women and men. Rather, subgroups of men and women come with their own stereotypes. Research demonstrates, for example, that the paternalistic stereotype most strongly applies to traditional women such as housewives, while less traditional women such as feminists and career women are stereotyped as high in competence and low in warmth. For men, there are similar levels of variation—the envious stereotype applies most strongly to men in traditional roles such as managers and career men, while other men are perceived as warm but incompetent (e.g., senior citizens), as cold and incompetent (e.g., punks), or as warm and competent (e.g., professors; Eckes, 2002 ). The section “Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism” discusses the consequences of these stereotypes in more detail.

The Effects of Gender Stereotypes

SRT and the SCM explain how gender stereotypes form. A large body of work in social psychology has focused on the consequences of these stereotypes. These include effects on the gendered perceptions and evaluations of others, as well as effects on the self and one’s own self-image, behavior, and goals.

Gendered Perceptions and Evaluations of Others

Our group-based stereotypes affect how we see members of these groups and how we judge those who do or do not conform to these stereotypes. Gender differs from many other group memberships in several ways (see Fiske & Stevens, 1993 ), which in turn affects consequences of these stereotypes. First, argue Fiske and Stevens, gender stereotypes tend to be more prescriptive than other stereotypes. For example, men may often be told to “man up,” to be tough and dominant, while women may be told to smile, to be nice, and to be sexy (but not too sexy). While stereotypes of other groups also have prescriptive elements, it is probably less common to hear Asians be told to be better at math or African Americans to be told to be more musical. The consequences of these gendered prescriptions are discussed in the section “Gender Stereotypes Affect the Evaluation of Women and Men.” Second, relationships between women and men are characterized by an unusual combination of power differences and close and frequent contact as well as mutual dependence for reproduction and close relationships. The section “Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism” discusses the effects of these factors.

Gender Stereotypes Affect the Evaluation of Women and Men

The evaluation of women and men is affected by both descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotypes. Research on these effects has predominantly focused on those who occupy counterstereotypical roles such as women in leadership or stay-at-home fathers.

Descriptive stereotypes affect the perception and evaluation of women and men in several ways. First, descriptive stereotypes create biased perceptions through expectancy confirming processes (see Fiske, 2000 ) such that individuals, particularly those holding strong stereotypes, seek out information that confirms their stereotypes. This is evident in their tendency to neglect or dismiss ambiguous information and to ask stereotype-confirming questions (Leyens, Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1994 ; Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994 ). Moreover, people are more likely to recall stereotypical information compared to counterstereotypical information (Rojahn & Pettigrew, 1992 ) Second, descriptive gender stereotypes also bias the extent to which men and women are seen as suitable for different roles, as described in Heilman’s lack of fit model ( 1983 , 1995 ) and Eagly and Karau’s role congruity theory ( 2002 ). These approaches both suggest that the degree of fit between a person’s attributes and the attributes associated with a specific role is positively related to expectations about how successful a person will be in said role. For example, the traits associated with successful managers are generally more similar to those associated with men than those associated with women (Schein, 1973 ; see also Ryan, Haslam, Hersby, & Bongiorno, 2011 ). Thus, all else being equal, a man will be seen as a better fit for a managerial position and in turn as more likely to be a successful manager. These biased evaluations in turn lead to biased decisions, such as in hiring and promotion (see Heilman, 2001 ).

Prescriptive gender stereotypes also affect evaluations, albeit in different ways. They prescribe how women and men should behave, and also how they should not behave. The “shoulds” generally mirror descriptive stereotypes, while the “should nots” often include behaviors associated with the opposite gender. Thus, what is seen as positive and desirable for one gender is often seen as undesirable for the other and can lead to backlash in the form of social and economic penalties (Rudman, 1998 ). For example, women who are seen as agentic are punished with social sanctions because they violate the prescriptive stereotype that women should be nice, even in the absence of information indicating that they are not nice (Rudman & Glick, 2001 ). These processes are particularly problematic in combination with the effects of descriptive stereotypes, as individuals may face a double bind—if women behave in line with gender stereotypes, they lack fit with leadership positions that require agency, but if they behave agentically, they violate gender norms and face backlash in the form of dislike and discrimination (Rudman & Glick, 2001 ). Similar effects have been found for men who violate prescriptive masculine stereotypes, for example, by being modest (Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Rudman, 2010 ) or by requesting family leave (Rudman & Mescher, 2013 ). Interestingly, however, being communal by itself does not lead to backlash for men (Moss-Racusin et al., 2010 ). In other words, while men can be perceived as highly agentic and highly communal, this is not true for women, who are perceived as lacking communion when being perceived as agentic and as lacking agency when being perceived as communal.

Gender Stereotypes Affect Emotions, Behavior, and Sexism

Stereotypes not only affect how individuals evaluate others, but also their feelings and behaviors toward them. The Behavior from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes (BIAS) map (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007 ), which extends the SCM, describes the relationship between perceptions of warmth and competence of certain groups, emotions directed toward these groups, and behaviors toward them. Cuddy and colleagues argue that bias is comprised of three elements: cognitions (i.e., stereotypes), affect (i.e., emotional prejudice), and behavior (i.e., discrimination), and these are closely linked. Groups perceived as warm and competent elicit admiration while groups perceived as cold and incompetent elicit contempt. Of particular interest to understanding gender are the two ambivalent combinations of warmth and competence: Those perceived as warm, but incompetent—such as typical women—elicit pity, while those perceived as competent, but cold—such as typical men—elicit envy.

Similarly, perceptions of warmth and competence are associated with behavior. Cuddy and colleagues ( 2007 ) argue that the warmth dimension affects behavioral reactions more strongly than competence because it stems from perceptions that a group will help or harm the ingroup. This leads to active facilitation (e.g., helping) when a group is perceived as warm, or active harm (e.g., harassing) when a group is perceived as cold. Competence, however, leads to passive facilitation (e.g., cooperation when it benefits oneself or one’s own group) when the group is perceived as competent, and passive harm (e.g., neglecting to help) when the group is perceived as incompetent.

How these emotional and behavioral reactions affect women and men has received much attention in the literature on ambivalent sexism and ambivalent attitudes toward men (Glick & Fiske, 1996 , 1999 , 2001 ). According to ambivalent sexism theory (AST), sexism is not a uniform, negative attitude toward women or men. Rather, it is comprised of hostile and benevolent elements, which arises from status differences between, and intimate interdependence of, the two genders. While men possess more economic, political, and social power, they depend on women as their mothers and (for heterosexual men) as romantic partners. Thus, while they are likely to be motivated to keep their power, they also need to find ways to foster positive relations with women.

Hostile sexism combines the beliefs that (a) women are inferior to men, (b) men should have more power in society, and (c) women’s sexuality poses a threat to men’s status and power. This form of sexism is mostly directed toward nontraditional women who directly threaten men’s status (e.g., feminists or career women), and women who threaten the heterosexual interdependence of men and women (e.g., lesbians)—in other words, toward women perceived to be competent but cold.

Benevolent sexism is a subtler form of sexism and refers to (a) complementary gender differentiation , the belief that (traditional) women are ultimately the better gender, (b) protective paternalism , where men need to cherish, protect, and provide for women, and (c) heterosexual intimacy , the belief that men and women complement each other such that no man is truly complete without a woman. This form of sexism is directed mainly toward traditional women.

While benevolent sexism may seem less harmful than its hostile counterpart, it ultimately provides an alternative mechanism for the persistence of gender inequality by “keeping women in their place” and discouraging them from seeking out nontraditional roles (see Glick & Fiske, 2001 ). Exposure to benevolent sexism is associated with women’s increased self-stereotyping (Barreto, Ellemers, Piebinga, & Moya, 2010 ), decreased cognitive performance (Dardenne, Dumont, & Bollier, 2007 ), and reduced willingness to take collective action (Becker & Wright, 2011 ), thus reinforcing the status quo.

With perceptions of men, Glick and Fiske ( 1999 ) argue that attitudes are equally ambivalent. Hostile attitudes toward men include (a) resentment of paternalism , stemming from perceptions of unfairness of the disproportionate amounts of power men hold, (b) compensatory gender differentiation , which refers to the application of negative stereotypes to men (e.g., arrogant, unrefined) so that women can positively distinguish themselves from them, and (c) heterosexual hostility , stemming from male sexual aggressiveness and interpersonal dominance. Benevolent attitudes toward men include maternalism , that is, the belief that men are helpless and need to be taken care of at home. Interestingly, while such attitudes portray women as competent in some ways, it still reinforces gender inequality by legitimizing women’s disproportionate amount of domestic work. Benevolent attitudes toward men also include complementary gender differentiation , the belief that men are indeed more competent, and heterosexual attraction , the belief that a woman can only be truly happy when in a romantic relationship with a man.

Cross-cultural research (Glick et al., 2000 , 2004 ) suggests that ambivalent sexism and ambivalent attitudes toward men are similar in many ways and can be found in most cultures. For both constructs, the benevolent and hostile aspects are distinct but positively related, illustrating that attitudes toward women and men are indeed ambivalent, as the mixed nature of stereotypes would suggest. Moreover, ambivalence toward women and men are correlated and national averages of both aspects of sexism and ambivalence toward men are associated with lower gender equality across nations, lending support to the idea that they reinforce the status quo.

Gender Stereotypes Affect the Self

Gender stereotypes not only affect individuals’ reactions toward others, they also play an important part in self-construal, motivation, achievement, and behavior, often without explicit endorsement of the stereotype. This section discusses how gender stereotypes affect observable gender differences and then describes the subtle and insidious effects gender stereotypes can have on performance and achievement through the inducement of stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995 ).

Gender Stereotypes Affect Gender Differences

Gender stereotypes are a powerful influence on the self-concept, goals, and behaviors. Eagly and colleagues ( 2000 ) argue that girls and boys observe the roles that women and men occupy in society and accommodate accordingly, seeking out different activities and acquiring different skills. They propose two main mechanisms by which gender differences form. First, women and men adjust their behavior to confirm others’ gender-stereotypical expectations. Others communicate their gendered expectations in many, often nonverbal and subtle ways and react positively when expectations are confirmed and negatively when they are not. This subtle communication of expectations reinforces gender-stereotypical behavior as people generally try to elicit positive, and avoid negative, reactions from others. Importantly, the interacting partners need not be aware of these expectations for them to take effect.

The second process by which gender stereotypes translate into gender differences is the self-regulation of behavior based on identity processes and the internalization of stereotypes (e.g., Bem, 1981 ; Markus, 1977 ). Most people form their gender identity based on self-categorization as male or female and subsequently incorporate attributes associated with the respective category into their self-concept (Guimond, Chatard, Martinot, Crisp, & Redersdorff, 2006 ). These gendered differences in the self-concepts of women and men then translate into gender-stereotypical behaviors. The extent to which the self-concept is affected by gender stereotypes—and in turn the extent to which gendered patterns of behavior are displayed—depends on the strength and the salience of this social identity (Hogg & Turner, 1987 ; Onorato & Turner, 2004 ). For example, individuals may be more likely to display gender-stereotypical behavior when they identify more strongly with their gender (e.g., Lorenzi‐Cioldi, 1991 ) or when their gender is more likely to be salient, which is more likely to be the case for women (Cadinu & Galdi, 2012 ).

However, many different subcategories of women exist—housewives, feminists, lesbians—and thus what it means to identify as a woman, and behave like a woman, is likely to be complex and multifaceted (e.g., Fiske et al., 2002 ; van Breen, Spears, Kuppens, & de Lemus, 2017 ). Moreover, research demonstrates that the salience of gender in any given context also determined the degree to which an individual displays gender-stereotypical behavior (e.g., Ryan & David, 2003 ; Ryan, David, & Reynolds, 2004 ). For example, Ryan and colleagues demonstrate that while women and men act in line with gender stereotypes when gender and gender difference are salient, these differences in attitudes and behavior disappear when alternative identities, such as those based on being a student or being an individual, are made salient.

Gender Stereotypes Affect Performance and Achievement

The consequences of stereotypes go beyond the self-concept and behavior. Research in stereotype threat describes the detrimental effects that negative stereotypes can have on performance and achievement. Stereotype threat refers to the phenomenon whereby the awareness of the negative stereotyping of one’s group in a certain domain, and the fear of confirming such stereotypes, can have negative effects on performance, even when the stereotype is not endorsed. The phenomenon was first described by Steele and Aronson ( 1995 ) in the context of African Americans’ intellectual test performance, but has since been found to affect women’s performance and motivation in counterstereotypical domains such as math (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008 ) and leadership (Davies, Spencer, & Steele, 2005 ). This affect holds true even when minority group members’ prior performance and interest in the domain are the same as those of majority group members (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999 ). Moreover, the effect is particularly pronounced when the minority member’s desire to belong is strong and identity-based devaluation is likely (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002 ).

Different mechanisms for the effect of stereotype threat have been proposed. Schmader, Johns, and Forbes ( 2008 ) suggest that the inconsistency between one’s self-image as competent and the cultural stereotype about one’s group’s lack of competence leads to a physiological stress response that directly impairs working memory. For example, when made aware of the widely held stereotype that women are bad at math, a female math student is likely to experience an inconsistency. This inconsistency, the authors argue, is not only distressing in itself, but induces uncertainty: Am I actually good at math or am I bad at math as the stereotype would lead me to believe? In an effort to resolve this uncertainty, she is likely to monitor her performance more than others—and more than in a situation in which stereotype threat is absent. This monitoring leads to more conscious, less efficient processing of information—for example, when performing calculations that she would otherwise do more or less automatically—and a stronger focus on detecting potential failure, taking cognitive resources away from the actual task. Moreover, individuals under stereotype threat are more likely to experience negative thoughts and emotions such as fear of failure. In order to avoid the interference of these thoughts, they actively try to suppress them. This suppression, however, takes effort. All of these mechanisms, the authors argue, take working memory space away from the task in question, thereby impairing performance.

The aim of this article is to give an overview of gender research in social psychology, which has focused predominantly on gender stereotypes, their origins, and their consequences, and these are all connected and reinforce each other. Social psychology has produced many fascinating findings regarding gender, and this article has only just touched on these findings. While research into gender has seen a great growth in the past 50 years and has provided us with an unprecedented understanding of women and men and the differences (and similarities) between them, there is still much work to be done.

There are a number of issues that remain largely absent from mainstream social psychological research on gender. First, an interest and acknowledgment of intersectional identities has emerged, such as how gender intersects with race or sexuality. It is thus important to note that many of the theories discussed in this article cannot necessarily be applied directly across intersecting identities (e.g., to women of color or to lesbian women), and indeed the attitudes and behaviors of such women continue to be largely ignored within the field.

Second, almost all social psychological research into gender is conducted using an overly simplistic binary definition of gender in terms of women and men. Social psychological theories and explanations are, for the most part, not taking more complex or more fluid definitions of gender into account and thus are unable to explain gendered attitudes and behavior outside of the gender binary.

Finally, individual perceptions and cognitions are influenced by gendered stereotypes and expectations, and social psychologists are not immune to this influence. How we, as psychologists, ask research questions and how we interpret empirical findings are influenced by gender stereotypes (e.g., Hegarty & Buechel, 2006 ), and we must remain vigilant that we do not inadvertently seek to reinforce our own gendered expectations and reify the gender status quo.

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1. Psychology largely conceptualizes gender as binary. While this is problematic in a number of ways, which we touch upon in the Conclusion section, we largely follow these binary conventions throughout this article, as it is representative of the social psychological literature as a whole.

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Welcoming Schools teacher-friendly lesson plans were designed to help educators create classrooms and schools that are free of gender stereotypes and gender norms that limit all children.

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This lesson highlights four transgender and gender non-conforming women of color – Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major and Stormé DeLarverie and their role in transgender and LGBTQ history. [5 - 8]

They, She, He, Me, Free to Be! Understanding Pronouns

They, She, He, Me Free To Be! is a short diverse book about pronouns and gender expression. Student can also create an artistic pronoun to display in your classroom. [2 - 5]

Call Me Tree/Llámame árbol: Exploring a Gender Free Book

Call Me Tree / Llámame árbol is a short book written in verse. It offers an opportunity to build classroom community by giving students a chance to learn about gender via a character in a book who does not use pronouns. There is also a movement break incorporated into this lesson so that children can learn and practice the tree pose in yoga. [K - 2]

Modern Fairy Tales: Writing and Expanding Gender

Compare traditional fairy tales with modern fairy tales to examine ways fairy tales reinforce or disrupt gender stereotypes. Students can then do a quick write or develop a longer story of their own that explores gender. [3 - 5]

Backwards Day: Reading a Children's Book to Understand Transgender Topics in Elementary School

Backwards Day is an engaging children’s book that features a transgender character named Andy. It is fun to notice interesting details in the book with your students such as how the pages are numbered backwards while learning about what it can mean to be transgender, non-binary or gender expansive. [2 - 5]

Related Resources

LGBTQ+, Gender

Defining LGBTQ+ Words for Elementary School Students

Laws and Policies, Gender

FAQ on Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Students in K-12 Schools

Lessons, LGBTQ+

Lesson Plans to Create LGBTQ+ Inclusive Classrooms and Schools

15 Examples of Gender Norms (And Definition)

Gender norms are socially and culturally mediated principles that govern the expected behavior of women, men, girls, and boys in a society.

Examples of gender norms include the idea that women should be passive, men should be leaders, girls should be good at sewing, and men should be good at physical tasks.

Gender norms work to construct ideas of what is “normal” for a man or woman, and in turn, what is considered “abnormal” and even worrying. Thus, gender norms are often considered to be damaging to individual liberty.

The defining norms of gender are neither static nor culturally universal and change over time.

Definition of Gender Norms

According to social constructionism, gender, like all social identities , is a social construct .

Social constructionism is a sociological theory of knowledge that holds that characteristics often thought to be unchallengeable and solely biological—such as gender, race, ability, and sexuality—are instead products of human interaction and constructed by cultural and historical contexts (McKinley, 2015).

For a formal definition, here’s how the European Institute for Gender Equality defines gender norms:

“Gender norms are ideas about how women and men should be and act. Internalised early in life, gender norms can establish a life cycle of gender socialisation and stereotyping.”

Examples of Gender Norms

The following are gender norms – or in other words, things that may have in recent history been considered “normal” – in the context of historically patriarchal cultures such as those in the West.

• Stoicism vs Empathy – Men are stereotyped as being stoic and not letting their emotions rule them, while women are stereotyped as being highly empathetic and compassionate.
• Hero vs Supporter – Men are envisioned in many films and cultural narratives as the individual heroes, while women are often envisaged as the background characters, supporting the man.
• Strength vs Kindness – Men are expected to be strong and firm, while women are expected to be gentle and kind.
• Active vs Passive – Men are expected to take action while women are normally seen as passive in order to “act like a lady”.
• Preoccupied with Power vs Looks – Men are stereotyped as being preoccupied with money and power, while women are stereotyped as being obsessed with their looks.
• Independent vs Dependent – Men are seen as strong and independent, while it’s traditionally considered normal for women to be dependent upon the men in their lives.
• Quiet vs Talkative – It’s considered normal and ideal for men to be quiet and thoughtful, while women are expected to be talkative and even gossips.
• Analytical vs Creative – Outdated norms hold that men are analytical (meaning they should be in charge of making decisions) while women are creative.
• Bold vs Shy – Gender norms hold that men are bold and brash, while women are ideally shy and quiet. In fact, a bold woman may be accused of being ‘bossy’.
• Blunt vs Tactful – Similar to the above point, a man is often expected to be a little blunt and assertive, while a woman – conforming to the ideal of being more quiet and reserved – is expected to be tactful, or in layman’s terms, “act like a lady”.
• Leader vs Follower – Traditional normative ideals hold that men are supposed to be leaders and women are supposed to be followers. Today, we still have the concept of the ‘ glass ceiling ’ where women continue to face subtle stereotypical assumptions that lock them out of leadership roles.
• Rugged vs Refined – Gender norms hold that attractive men are rugged – perhaps with scars and a little facial hair to accentuate the rugged look, while attractive women are refined and soft. The ‘refined woman’ ideal comes from the idea that these women were of elite status who didn’t have to do chores for the family.
• Provider vs Nurturer – The man is seen as the provider or breadwinner, while the woman is seen as the nurturer of the family.
• Domineering vs Submissive – A masculine man continues to be idealized as domineering (especially in Hollywood films) while attractive women are traditionally idealized as being submissive to the man.
• Public sphere vs Domestic sphere – Traditionally, men would come together to make decisions about society while women would be confined to their homes.
• Construction vs Caring Industries – When women moved into the workforce, they moved into ‘domestic’ or ‘caring’ industries such as healthcare and education, which modernized but nonetheless continued the idea that the domestic sphere is the women’s sphere.

Case Studies

1. occupation.

Women are often assumed to be better as teachers and nurses, while men are presumed to be naturally better as engineers and pilots.  Moreover, men are generally better paid than women which in sociology is called the “gender pay gap”.

According to sociologists, pay practices are ‘socially constructed’ and under-evaluate women’s labor in a range of ways. For instance, wages are heavily influenced by social pressures, actions of employers, governments, and trade unions.

A key historical reason for male-dominated professions having higher wages was because it was expected that men would be required to be the breadwinners of the family.

Moreover, women are still seen by most societies as secondary earners, and they work in industries that are unfairly seen as less difficult by society, hence justifying lower salaries (Grimshaw &  Rubery, 2007)

2. Domestic behavior

Some individuals and societies expect that women will take care of the children, cook, and clean, while men take care of finances and do household repairs. These norms affect women’s and men’s opportunities all over the world.

According to Save the Children US, household chores are much more likely to be performed by girls than boys. Girls account for two-thirds of all children who perform household chores for at least 21 hours per week, this amount of time can negatively impact a child’s schooling.

Likewise, women spend two to 10 times more time on unpaid childcare and domestic work than men. On the other hand, men and boys are more often targeted for active combat roles by armed groups because of the association of masculinity with defending homes and communities. (Save the Children US, 2022)

This differentiation is likely due to cultural stereotypes about who should do what jobs around the house.

3. Education

The education system is affected by gender norms, such as women and men being expected to pursue certain gendered careers. Moreover, the educational system generally is unequal, and many subjects focus on men, for instance in history books.

Schools often reflect and replicate the discriminatory gender norms found in society. According to Levtov (2013) discriminatory gender norms and stereotypes is seen in teaching practices, such as responding more directly to boys or asking boys more questions, and through classroom organization, such as gendered assignment of chores – asking girls to clean and boys to chop wood.

Norms and stereotypes that affect learning and education outcomes are common, and often reflect perceptions of girls’ competence. Often, boys are steered towards the subjects that may lead to more lucrative careers in later life (Marcus, 2018).

While gender norms affect all children, they are proven to disproportionately affect girls. More than 575 million girls live in countries where inequitable gender norms contribute to violations of their rights, like health, education, marriage and gender-based violence. (Save the Children US, 2022)

4. Decision-making

Gender norms describe how men and women are expected to behave in a given social context. Regarding decision-making, the man historically often had the last say. This means for example in choosing the place to live, choice of school for children, and financial decisions.

According to sociological studies, men are more likely to hold leadership positions at their working place. Some of the reasons why men are appointed to leadership positions are that the expected ‘normal’ image of a leader is that of a man (e.g. it’s hard to picture a female president – because there hasn’t been one yet!)

The main negative stereotypes that hinder women’s career advancement are:

• a woman must be obedient
• a woman is for staying at home and cooking
• a woman is for having a baby
• without a man, a woman cannot succeed

See More: Examples of Decision-Making

5. Politics

Gender norms influence society and its politics. Women are still behind in political engagement worldwide, such as contributing to campaigns and joining political organizations.

Women’s opportunities in politics have long been affected by gender norms, alongside with other sociological factors such as wealth and ethnicity. There are several factors to why women lack opportunities in politics, for instance, less time due to household chores, differences in income and education, and ties with other groups such as trade unions.

Thus, we have concepts such as the glass ceiling , where it’s perceived that women find it very hard to rise to the upper echelons of politics and leadership.

Origins of the Gender Norms Concept

The term ‘gender norms; was first popularised in the 1970s by feminists in order to distinguish between culturally constructed male and female roles, behaviors, and preferences.

According to feminist theory, gender is socially constructed rather than determined by biology.

Feminist sociologists developed this idea further, arguing that gender is best conceptualized as a social system that assigns resources, roles, power, and privileges according to whether a person is perceived as male or female.

According to feminist theory, most societies are deeply hierarchical, favoring the male or masculine over the female or feminine (Cislaghi & Heise, 2019).

Furthermore, norms are only one element of the gender system, along with gender roles, gender socialization , and gendered power relations. Gender norms are the social rules and expectations that keep the gender system intact.

Table: Gender Norms Compared

Gender norms describe how people of a certain gender are expected to behave in a given social context, leading to double standards in society. We learn what is expected of our gender from what our parents and teachers teach us, as well as through religious, cultural, political, media and other social institutions. We call this gender socialization .

Examples of gender norms are that women takes care of the children and cook, while men chop wood and go to combat. These norms then influence society as a whole.

For instance, at workplaces men have leadership positions and earn more, while women are expected to be nurses or cleaners.

In school, gender norms influence education for boys and girls. Boys are more likely to have their voice heard and are steered towards more lucrative careers.

Gender norms affect all children but are proven to disproportionately affect girls. Worldwide, inequitable gender norms contribute to violations of women’s rights, like health, education, and gender-based violence.

Cislaghi, B. and Heise, L. (2019). Using social norms theory for health promotion in low-income countries , Health Promotion International, 34, 616–23.

European Institute for Gender Equality (2016), Gender Norms , Retrieved from https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus/terms/1194

George, R. (2019), Gender norms and women’s political participation: Global trends and findings on norm change , Retrieved from https://www.alignplatform.org/resources/gender-norms-and-womens-political-participation-global-trends-and-findings-norm-change

Grimshaw, D. and Rubery, J. (2007), Undervaluing Women’s Work . Equal Opportunities Commission Working Paper Series no. 53.

Levtov, R. (2013), Promoting Gender Equity Through Schools: Three Papers on Schooling, Gender Attitudes, and Interventions to Promote Gender Equity in Egypt and India .

Marcus. R. (2018), Education and gender norm change , Advancing Learning and Innovation on Gender Norms, ALiGN

McKinley, J. (2015), Critical Argument and Writer Identity: Social Constructivism as a Theoretical Framework for EFL Academic Writing , Critical Inquiry in Language Studies. 12 (3): 184–207.

Minasyan, D. (2020), Gender Differences in Decision-making and Leadership: Evidence from Armenia, Business Ethics and Leadership, Volume 4, Issue 1.

Ridgeway, C.L. and Correll, S.J. (2004) Unpacking the gender system: a theoretical perspective on gender beliefs and social relations , Gender & Society, 18, 510–31

Save the Children US (2022), Gender Roles Can Create Lifelong Cycle of Inequality , Retrieved from https://www.savethechildren.org/us/charity-stories/how-gender-norms-impact-boys-and-girls

Pernilla Stammler Jaliff (MSSc)

Pernilla Stammler Jaliff has a master’s degree in Political Science and in Investigative Journalism. She has published several academic articles, and reports on human rights and sustainability for different NGOs. She also works independently as an investigative journalist writing articles on environmental issues such as the lithium and oil industry.

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Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

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Hello Pernilla and Chris, I typed “gender roles” on goggle search and came across your article on Gender Norms. I read it all and learnt a lot from this. A well-researched document. Keep up the good work. Cheers!

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Module 1: Foundations of A Psychology of Gender

3rd edition as of August 2023

Module Overview                                              

In our first module, gender is differentiated from concepts of sex and sexual orientation, and health is differentiated from wellness, laying the foundation for the subsequent modules. The dimensions of gender and the importance of gender congruence are outlined, and terms related to gender are defined. Finally, movements specific to women (i.e., feminism) and men are discussed, as well as some of the professional societies and journals committed to studying gender issues.

Module Outline

1.1. Defining Terms

1.2. movements linked to gender, 1.3. connecting with other psychologists of gender.

Module Learning Outcomes

• Contrast gender with sex and sexual orientation and describe the key components of gender.
• Describe movements geared to women and men.
• Identify professional societies and journals committed to the study of gender issues.

Section Learning Objectives

• Define psychology.
• Contrast health and wellness.
• Differentiate sex and gender.
• List the dimensions of gender.
• Clarify the importance of gender congruence.
• Differentiate gender and sexual orientation.
• Define key terms in relation to the language of gender.

1.1.1. What is Psychology?

Welcome to your course on the psychology of gender which this book supports. Of course, you may be expecting a definition of gender in this module, and one will certainly be provided. However, since some students taking this class are not psychology majors or minors, and most of you had your introductory class some time ago, we want to ensure you have a solid foundation to build on. To begin, we need to understand what psychology is.

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. While this may be surprising to some, psychology utilizes the same scientific process and methods practiced by other scientific disciplines, such as biology and chemistry. We will discuss this in more detail in Module 2 so please just keep this in the back of your mind for now. Second, psychology is the study of behavior and mental processes. Psychology seeks not only to understand the reasons people engage in the behavior they do, but also how. What is the mechanism by which our movements are controlled when we extend a hand to reach for a cup of tea and lift it? What affects the words we choose while madly in love? How do we distinguish between benign or threatening events when a loud sound is heard? What makes an individual view another group as less favorable than their own? Such prejudicial or discriminatory behavior could be directed at a person due to their gender or sexual orientation. These are just a few of the questions that we ask as psychologists and our focus in this book is on the psychology of gender.

1.1.2. What is Health and Wellness?

As we discuss the psychology of gender, we will cover numerous topics related to the health and wellness of individuals. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) defines wellness as “being in good physical and mental health.” They add, “Remember that wellness is not the absence of illness or stress. You can still strive for wellness even if you are experiencing these challenges in your life.” Most people see wellness as just focused on the physical or mental. These are only part of the picture.

SAMHSA proposes eight dimensions of wellness as follows (this information is directly from their website):

• Physical – Recognizing the need for physical activity, healthy foods, and sleep
• Emotional – Coping effectively with life and creating satisfying relationships
• Environmental —Good health by occupying pleasant, stimulating environments that support well-being
• Financial —Satisfaction with current and future financial situations
• Intellectual —Recognizing creative abilities and finding ways to expand knowledge and skills
• Occupational —Personal satisfaction and enrichment from one’s work
• Social — Developing a sense of connection, belonging, and a well-developed support system
• Spiritual — Expanding a sense of purpose and meaning in life

As we tackle the content of the remaining modules, consider the various dimensions of wellness that are affected by topics related to gender, such as stereotypes, identity formation, aggression, relationships, health, sexuality, development, mental disorders, and physiology. As you will see, all eight are involved at different times.

Source: https://www.samhsa.gov/wellness-initiative/eight-dimensions-wellness

1.1.3. What is a Psychology of Gender?

Before we can define gender, we must understand the meaning of sex. Though sex and gender are sometimes used interchangeably in everyday language, they have distinct meanings in the scientific contexts of collecting data and conducting research. Sex refers to the biological, anatomical aspects of an individual. This includes the individual’s hormones, chromosomes, body parts, such as the sexual organs, and how they all interact. When we use the term sex, we are describing the assignment of an individual as male or female at birth, based on these aspects.

In contrast, gender is socially constructed and enforced, presumed after a sex is assigned, and leads to labels such as masculinity or femininity and their related behaviors. Gender constructions change over time and differ across cultures. For instance, in the past, the accepted norm was to give pink to boys and blue to girls (Cohen, 2013). Because there is such variety and overlap in evolving gender contructions, people might declare themselves to be a man or woman, as having no gender, or falling on a continuum. How so? According to genderspectrum.org, gender results from the complex interrelationship of three dimensions – body, identity, and social.

First, body , concerns our physical body, how we experience it, how society genders bodies, and the way in which others interact with us based on our body. The website states, “Bodies themselves are also gendered in the context of cultural expectations. Masculinity and femininity are equated with certain physical attributes, labeling us as more or less a man/woman based on the degree to which those attributes are present. This gendering of our bodies affects how we feel about ourselves and how others perceive and interact with us.”

Gender identity is our internal perception and expression of who we are. This includes naming our gender, though this gender category may not match the sex we are assigned at birth. Gender identities can take on several forms from the traditional binary man-woman, to non-binary such as genderqueer or genderfluid, and ungendered or agender (i.e. genderless). Though an understanding of our gender occurs by age four, naming it is complex and can evolve over time. As genderspectrum.org says, “Because we are provided with limited language for gender, it may take a person quite some time to discover, or create, the language that best communicates their internal experience. Likewise, as language evolves, a person’s name for their gender may also evolve. This does not mean their gender has changed, but rather that the words for it are shifting.”

Finally, we have a social gender or the manner in which we present our gender in the world, but also how other people, society, and culture affect our concept of gender. In terms of presentation, we communicate our gender through our clothes, hairstyles, and behavior called gender expression . In terms of the way culture affects gender concepts, children are socialized into gender roles though a process beginning before they are born and through toys, colors, and clothes. This socialization can come from parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, media, religious figures, friends, and the community. Generally, the binary male-female view of gender is communicated, for which there are specific gender expectations and roles. According to genderspectrum.org, “Kids who don’t express themselves along binary gender lines are often rendered invisible or steered into a more binary gender presentation. Pressures to conform at home, mistreatment by peers in school, and condemnation by the broader society are just some of the struggles facing a child whose expression does not fall in line with the binary gender system.” The good news is that acceptance for more complex expressions of gender is increasing (Parker et al., 2022).

1.1.4. Gender Congruence

When we feel a sense of harmony in our gender, we are said to have gender congruence . In gender congruence, the gender of the individual is named such that it matches the internal sense of who they are. This congruence is expressed through their clothing and activities, and being seen consistently by others as they see themselves. Congruence does not happen overnight, but occurs throughout life as we explore, grow, and gain insight into ourselves. It is a simple process for some, and complex for others, though all of us have a fundamental need to obtain gender congruence.

When a person moves from the traditional binary view of gender to transgender, agender, or non-binary, they are said to “ transition ” and find congruence in their gender.  Genderspectrum.org adds, “What people see as a “transition” is actually an alignment in one or more dimensions of the individual’s gender as they seek congruence across those dimensions. A transition is taking place, but it is often other people (parents and other family members, support professionals, employers, etc.) who are transitioning in how they see the individual’s gender, and not the person themselves. For the individual, these changes are often less of a transition and more of an evolution.” Harmony is sought in various ways to include:

• Social – Changing one’s clothes, hairstyle, and name and/or pronouns
• Hormonal – Using hormone blockers or hormone therapy to bring about physical, mental, and/or emotional alignment
• Surgical – When gender-related physical traits are added, removed, or modified
• Legal – Changing one’s birth certificate or driver’s license

The website states that the transition experience is often a significant event in the person’s life. “A public declaration of some kind where an individual communicates to others that aspects of themselves are different than others have assumed, and that they are now living consistently with who they know themselves to be, can be an empowering and liberating experience (and moving to those who get to share that moment with them).”

1.1.5. Gender and Sexual Orientation

Gender must also be distinguished from sexual orientation, which refers to who we are physically, emotionally, and/or romantically attracted to. Hence, sexual orientation is interpersonal while gender is personal. We would be mistaken to assume that a boy who plays princess is gay, or that a girl who has short hair is lesbian.  The root of such errors comes from confusing gender with sexual orientation. The way someone dresses or acts concerns gender expression, and it is not possible to determine their sexual orientation based on these behaviors.

1.1.6. The Language of Gender

Before we move on in this module and into the rest of the book, it is critical to have a working knowledge of terms related to the study of gender. Consider the following:

• Agender – When someone does not identify with a gender
• Cisgender – When a person’s gender identity matches their assigned sex at birth
• FtM – When a person is assigned a female sex at birth but whose gender identity is boy/man
• Gender dysphoria – When a person is unhappy or dissatisfied with their gender and can occur in relation to any dimension of gender. The person may experience mild discomfort to unbearable distress
• Genderfluid – When a person’s gender changes over time; they view gender as dynamic and changing
• Gender role – All the activities, functions, and behaviors that are expected of males and females by society
• Genderqueer – Anyone who does not identify with conventional gender identities, roles, expectations, or expression.
• MtF – When a person is assigned a male sex at birth but whose gender identity is girl/woman
• Non – binary – When a gender identity is not exclusively masculine or feminine
• Transgender – When a person’s gender identity differs from their assigned sex

To learn more about gender, we encourage you to explore the https://www.genderspectrum.org/ website.

The World Health Organization also identifies two more key concepts in relation to gender. Gender equality is “the absence of discrimination on the basis of a person’s sex in opportunities, the allocation of resources and benefits, or access to services” while gender equity refers to “the fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities between women and men.” We will encounter these two concepts throughout the book.

Source: http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-determinants/gender/gender-definitions

Two other terms are worth mentioning. According to https://www.genderspectrum.org , gender expansive is, “An umbrella term used for individuals who broaden their own culture’s commonly held definitions of gender, including expectations for its expression, identities, roles, and/or other perceived gender norms.” Additionally, gender literacy is, “ the ability to participate knowledgeably in discussions of gender and gender-related topics.” It involves having a stance of openness to the complexity of gender and the idea that each person determines for themselves their own identity.

Additional Resources:

• CBS News Report on the Gender Identity Terms You Need to Know – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transgender-gender-identity-terms-glossary/
• Psychology Today article on the differences between sex and gender – https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201110/sex-difference-vs-gender-difference-oh-im-so-confused
• Psychology Today on sex differences and whether they are real – https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201711/the-truth-about-sex-differences
• Define feminism.
• Outline the three waves of feminism.
• List and describe the types of feminism.
• Describe and exemplify types of movements related to men.

1.2.1. Feminism

Feminism is a belief which advocates that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities socially, economically, and politically. According to Ropers-Huilman (2002) feminist theory is grounded in three main principles. One of which is that women have something of value to contribute to every aspect of the world. Second, due to oppression, women have not been able to achieve their full potential or gain full participation in society. Third, feminist research should go beyond just critiquing to include social transformation.

Feminism has developed over three waves. The first, occurring during the late 19th to early 20th centuries, was linked to the women’s suffragist movement and obtaining the right for women to vote, as well as abolitionism. Key figures included Elizabeth Cady Stanton who convened the Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848, saying “all men and women are created equal.” There, it was proposed in the “Declaration of Sentiments” that women be given the right to vote. During this time, Susan B. Anthony, who was arrested for attempting to vote, started the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) with Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Because of the work of feminists in the first wave, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed the right to vote for women, was passed and ratified.

The second wave of feminism spanned the 1960s to the 1990s and unfolded during the antiwar and civil rights movements, including women of color as well as women from developing nations. Books by feminists such as The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan, The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, and Sexual Politics, by Kate Millet fueled a revolution of sexuality and freedom from a life confined within the home, centered around a husband and children. Friedan also started the National Organization for Women (NOW) to fight for equality and raise awareness, with the concept of choice for women being the priority of these efforts. On January 22, 1973 the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal with the Supreme Court, asserting that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy, protected in the 14th amendment. Also during this wave, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and the National Organization for the Women was started.

In the 1990s and beyond, feminists of the third wave, having inherited professional and economic power gained by those in the second, have sought to redefine divisions of labor in their households, workplaces, and further economic, racial, and social justice. During this wave, focus shifted from fighting for equality of individuals to celebrating differences, emphasizing sexual exploration and empowerment within diversity of class, race, ethnicity, and gender.

Feminism takes several forms. First, liberal feminism was rooted in the first wave and seeks to level the playing field for women to gain the same opportunities for pursuits as men and dispel the myth that women are not as capable or intelligent. Liberal feminism states that the cause of the oppression of women is rooted in the legal system. Radical feminism, however, states that these problems are rooted in patriarchal gender relations. Radical feminists maintain that the liberal counterpart is not sufficient to address centuries of patriarchal oppression and domination of women on the individual, institutional, and systemic levels. This form of feminism seeks to place higher societal value on feminine qualities, which they believe would lessen gender oppression.

M ulticultural feminism suggests that women in a country such as the United States have different interconnected identities, and eco feminism links the destruction of the planet with the exploitation of women worldwide by the patriarchy, investigating racism, socioeconomic privilege, and speciesism. Finally, cultural feminism states that fundamental differences exist between men and women and those special qualities of women should be celebrated.

1.2.2. Men’s Movements

There are several forms of men’s movements (Fox, 2004). Pro-feminist men’s movements emerged in the 1970’s alongside second wave feminism, during which men questioned the traditional views of masculinity and campaigned in partnership with women for rights and opportunities. Pro-feminist men’s movements “exist in many countries and many feminist men’s groups focus on involving men in anti-violence work” (Jordan, 2019). A prominent pro-feminist men’s organization in the United States is the National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS). Their Statement of Principles says they advovate “a perspective that is pro-feminist, gay affirmative, anti-racist, dedicated to enhancing men’s lives, and committed to justice on a broad range of social issues including class, age, religion, and physical abilities. Men can live as happier and more fulfilled human beings by challenging the old-fashioned rules of masculinity that embody the assumption of male superiority. Traditional masculinity includes many positive characteristics in which we take pride and find strength, but it also contains qualities that have limited and harmed us.” They encourage men to spend more time with their children, have intimacy and trust with other men, display emotional expressiveness, build their identity around more than just a career, rethink a man’s obsession with winning, unlearn aggressiveness, and to not fear femininity. For more on the group, please visit: http://nomas.org/ .

Other forms of men’s movements include the mythopoetic men’s movement, a New Age movement which emerged in the 1980s. This movement is based on spirituality and psychoanalysis derived from Carl Jung, as well as a book by Robert Bly called Iron John: A Book About Men, in which Bly states that society and the feminist movement depleted male energy. Mythopoets believe society “trapped men into straightjackets of rationality, thus blunting the powerful emotional communion and collective spiritual transcendence that they believe men in tribal societies typically enjoyed” (Messner, 1997).  Proponents of this movement use self-help approaches to attain “deep masculinity.” Mythopoetic men’s groups include the ManKind Project and Promise Keepers. The ManKind Project has a flagship, three-phase training program called the New Warrior Training Adventure which they describe as a modern male initiation and self-examination, as well as a “hero’s journey” of classical literature and myth (ManKind Project Chicago, 2022). For more on the ManKind Project, please visit: https://mankindproject.org/ .

The Promise Keepers, a Christian men’s group, states that masculinity is in crisis and the soul of men is at stake due to society rejecting biblical definitions of manhood. They write, “Men are seeking authentic relationships and real connections. They long to be men of influence within the workplace, among their friends, and within their own households. But these connections, these relationships, these identities are difficult to establish and maintain successfully.” They cite 7 promises – honor, brotherhood, virtue, commitment, changemaking, unity, and obedience. For more on the Promise Keepers, please visit: https://promisekeepers.org/ .

Some men’s movements are geared toward the rights of men, focusing on legislative, political, and cultural change. One such group is the National Coalition for Men (NCFM) which states, “Perhaps you are a victim of paternity fraud, lost your children in family court, were falsely accused of a gender targeted crime, were denied health services or protection by a domestic violence shelter… the list of possible discrimination’s against males is seemingly endless. Here, you may quickly realize that you are not alone…you are among friends.” To learn more about NCFM, please visit: https://ncfm.org/ . Additionally, the website, www.avoiceformen.com states its mission is, “… to provide education and encouragement to men and boys; to lift them above the din of misandry, to reject the unhealthy demands of gynocentrism in all its forms, and to promote their mental, physical and financial well-being without compromise or apology.”

• Clarify what it means to communicate findings.
• Identify professional societies related to the study of gender and related issues.
• Identify publications related to the study of gender and related issues.

One of the functions of science is to communicate findings. Testing hypotheses, developing sound methodology, accurately analyzing data, and drawing cogent conclusions are important, and equally important is disseminating those findings. This is accomplished through joining professional societies and submitting articles to peer reviewed journals. Below are some of the societies and journals important to the study of gender and related issues.

1.3.1. Professional Societies

• Website – https://www.apa.org/about/division/div35
• Mission Statement – “Division 35: Society for the Psychology of Women provides an organizational base for all feminists, women and men of all national origins, who are interested in teaching, research, or practice in the psychology of women. The division recognizes a diversity of women’s experiences which result from a variety of factors, including ethnicity, culture, language, socioeconomic status, age and sexual orientation. The division promotes feminist research, theories, education, and practice toward understanding and improving the lives of girls and women in all their diversities; encourages scholarship on the social construction of gender relations across multicultural contexts; applies its scholarship to transforming the knowledge base of psychology; advocates action toward public policies that advance equality and social justice; and seeks to empower women in community, national and global leadership.”
• Publication – Psychology of Women Quarterly (journal) and Feminist Psychologist (quarterly newsletter)
• Other Information – The division has 5 special sections for the psychology of black women; concerns of Hispanics women/Latinas; lesbian, bisexual, and transgender concerns; psychology of Asian Pacific American women; and Alaska Native/American Indian/Indigenous women.
• Website – https://www.apadivisions.org/division-44
• Mission Statement – “Div. 44 (SPSOGD) is committed to advancing social justice in all its activities. The Society celebrates the diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender nonconforming and queer people and recognizes the importance of multiple, intersectional dimensions of diversity including but not limited to: race, ethnicity, ability, age, citizenship, health status, language, nationality, religion and social class.”
• Publication – Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (journal) and Division 44 Newsletter
• Website – https://www.apa.org/about/division/div51
• Mission Statement – “Division 51: Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities (SPSMM) advances knowledge in the new psychology of men through research, education, training, public policy and improved clinical services for men. SPSMM provides a forum for members to discuss the critical issues facing men of all races, classes, ethnicities, sexual orientations and nationalities.”
• Publication – Psychology of Men and Masculinities (journal)
• Other Information – The division has five special interest groups focused on applied and professional practice, racial ethnic minorities, sexual and gender minorities, students, and violence and trauma.

1.3.2. Publications

• Website: https://www.apadivisions.org/division-35/publications/journal/index
• Published by: APA Division 35
• Description: “The Psychology of Women Quarterly ( PWQ ) is a feminist, scientific, peer-reviewed journal that publishes empirical research, critical reviews and theoretical articles that advance a field of inquiry, teaching briefs and invited book reviews related to the psychology of women and gender.” Topics include violence against women, sexism, lifespan development and change, therapeutic interventions, sexuality, and social activism.”
• Website: https://www.apadivisions.org/division-44/publications/journal
• Published by: Division 44 of APA
• Description: “A quarterly scholarly journal dedicated to the dissemination of information in the field of sexual orientation and gender diversity, PSOGD is envisioned as the primary outlet for research particularly as it impacts practice, education, public policy, and social action.”
• Website: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/men
• Published by: Division 51 of APA
• Description: “ Psychology of Men & Masculinities is devoted to the dissemination of research, theory, and clinical scholarship that advances the psychology of men and masculinity. This discipline is defined broadly as the study of how boys’ and men’s psychology is influenced and shaped by both gender and sex, and encompasses the study of the social construction of gender, sex differences and similarities, and biological processes.”
• Website: https://tandfonline.com/toc/cjgs20/current
• Published by: Taylor and Francis
• Description: “The Journal of Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary journal which publishes articles relating to gender and sex from a feminist perspective covering a wide range of subject areas including the Social, Natural and Health Sciences, the Arts, Humanities, Literature and Popular Culture. We seek articles from around the world that examine gender and the social construction of relationships among genders.”
• Website: http://ijgws.com/
• Description: “ International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary international journal which publishes articles relating to gender and sex from a feminist perspective covering a wide range of subject areas including the social and natural sciences, the arts, the humanities and popular culture. The journal seeks articles from around the world that examine gender and the social construction of relationships among genders.”
• Website: https://addletonacademicpublishers.com/journal-of-research-in-gender-studies
• Published by: Addleton Academic Publishers
• Description: “The Journal of Research in Gender Studies publishes mainly original empirical research and review articles focusing on hot emerging topics, e.g. same-sex parenting, civil partnership, LGBTQ+ rights, mobile dating applications, digital feminist activism, sexting behavior, robot sex, commercial sex online, etc.”
• Website: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=wglm20
• Description: “J ournal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health seeks out and publishes the most current clinical and research scholarship on LGBT mental health with a focus on clinical issues.”

Module Recap

If you asked a friend or family member what the difference between sex and gender was, they might state that they are synonyms for one another and can be used interchangeably. After reading this module, you know that this is incorrect, and that sex is a biological concept while gender is socially constructed. Gender is further complicated by the fact that it consists of the three dimensions of body, identity, and social. As humans, we have a psychological need to have gender congruence or a sense of harmony in our gender, though at times to get there we have to transition. We also contrasted gender and sexual orientation, and outlined some of the language of gender you will encounter throughout this book. Movements linked to gender include feminism and men’s movements. Finally, we featured three divisions of the American Psychological Association which study gender and several journals that publish research on it, all in an effort to communicate findings and connect with other psychologists studying gender.

In our next module, we will discuss how psychology as a discipline is scientific and demonstrate the ways in which the psychology of gender is studied. This discussion will conclude Part I: Setting the Stage of this book.

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Home - Blog - Gender Roles and Norms: What Are They & How Do They Affect Children?

Gender Roles and Norms: What Are They & How Do They Affect Children?

May 19, 2023

by United Way NCA

Gender norms are deeply ingrained in our society and can significantly impact individuals, particularly children. Restrictive gender norms often limit children’s potential and opportunities, affect their self-esteem and mental health, and shape their relationships with peers.

Gender norms can be particularly detrimental to those living in poverty, as well as the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) population, as gender norms perpetuate cycles of inequality and limit access to resources and opportunities. For instance, according to the 2023 ALICE Reports , single mothers in the United States are more likely to live in poverty due to gender discrimination and limited access to affordable childcare. We must challenge harmful gender norms to create a more equitable and inclusive world for future generations.

What Are Gender Norms?

Gender norms are societal expectations and rules regarding how men and women should behave, express themselves and interact with others according to their gender. Media, socialization and culture contribute to the development of gender norms and they differ across time and place.

Gender socialization is one of the primary ways gender norms affect children. Gender socialization refers to how children learn the appropriate behavior, appearance and attitudes for their gender. For example, boys learn to be assertive, competitive and independent, while girls are encouraged to be nurturing, emotional and compliant. These gendered messages can shape children’s self-concept, beliefs and expectations about themselves and others.

Research suggests that adherence to gender norms can negatively influence a child’s mental health, social development and academic performance.

For instance, boys who feel pressured to conform to traditional masculine standards may be less likely to seek help for emotional problems or engage in prosocial behaviors. On the other hand, girls who internalize restrictive feminine norms may experience lower self-esteem and limited leadership opportunities.

Examples of Gender Norms in Society

Gender norms are pervasive in society and are identifiable in various aspects of our lives, including media, education and family. Here are some examples of gender norms in each of these areas:

• Many TV shows and movies feature predominantly male protagonists who are strong, dominant and aggressive while portraying female characters as emotional, dependent and sexualized.
• Commercials and advertisements often use gendered stereotypes to sell products, such as associating men with sports and outdoor activities, and women with beauty and domesticity.
• In video games, male characters are heroic and violent, while female characters are hypersexualized and serve as objects of male desire.
• Teachers may inadvertently reinforce gender norms by calling on boys more often, praising girls for being quiet and compliant or discouraging boys from communicating their feelings.
• Textbooks and other reading materials often portray men as inventors and leaders, while women are absent or assume passive roles.
• Sports programs in schools often prioritize male athleticism and show less attention to girls’ teams.
• Parents may have separate expectations and rules for their sons and daughters, such as encouraging boys to pursue careers in STEM fields and girls to prioritize raising a family and nurturing relationships.
• Gendered household chores are typical, such as girls being responsible for cooking and cleaning while boys do yard work and repairs.
• Children may bully their siblings who do not conform to gender norms, such as boys who like dolls or girls who prefer sports.

These are just a few examples of how gender norms operate in society and can shape our beliefs and behaviors. Recognizing and challenging these norms can help us create a more equitable and inclusive world for everyone.

How Gender Norms Affect Children

Gender norms can significantly impact a child’s development, affecting his or her self-esteem and opportunities for growth. Restrictive gender norms often discourage children from pursuing interests that are “inappropriate” for their gender, limiting their potential and opportunities for exploration.

For example, girls may feel discouraged from pursuing careers in STEM fields or leadership positions, while boys face ridicule for expressing interest in traditionally feminine activities like dancing or cooking. The pressure to conform to gender norms can also negatively influence children’s mental health, leading to anxiety and depression. If boys feel that they cannot communicate their emotions or seek help, they may begin to feel stressed and isolated. Girls who feel the need to prioritize appearance and social status may experience eating disorders or body dissatisfaction.

Children who do not conform to gender norms may experience lower self-esteem and negative self-concept, as they are made to feel like they don’t fit in or are “abnormal.” Boys perceived as weak or feminine may face bullying and social exclusion, while girls who are not conventionally feminine may feel pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards.

Gender norms can also affect a child’s relationships with their peers, as they may face pressure to conform to societal expectations. Additionally, these norms can influence children’s future career choices and opportunities, as they may face gender inequity or bias in traditionally gendered fields. For example, girls may be discouraged from pursuing careers in politics or law enforcement, while boys may face stigma for choosing caregiving professions like nursing or teaching.

Gender Roles

Gender roles are the social and cultural expectations for how people should behave according to their assigned gender. These roles shape the behaviors, attitudes and responsibilities considered appropriate for men and women.

Gender roles evolve over time but still trend toward traditional and stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity. Gender roles can limit and restrict people’s choices and prospects based on their gender, perpetuating gender inequality .

Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes are beliefs or assumptions about characteristics, traits, behaviors and roles of people based on their gender. These stereotypes are created and reinforced by gender norms and can lead to biased judgments and discrimination against individuals who do not conform to them. Gender stereotypes can be positive and negative, but they tend to fit rigid ideas of masculinity and femininity.

How to Break Gender Norms

Breaking down gender norms can be difficult, but it is essential for creating a more inclusive and fair society that supports children’s well-being and growth. Here are some strategies for challenging gender norms:

Parents can challenge gender norms by avoiding stereotypes and encouraging children to pursue their interests and passions, regardless of gender. For example, instead of relegating activities and toys according to gender norms, parents can provide a wide range of things to do without limiting them based on gender stereotypes.

Parents should also foster an environment that encourages open communication and allow their children to express themselves in their preferred way without judging or criticizing them. By being mindful of their own biases and challenging them, parents can create a home for their children that encourages them to express themselves emotionally, regardless of gender.

Educators play a critical role in contesting gender norms and promoting inclusion and diversity in the classroom. Creating an inclusive and equitable learning space can help students feel valued and supported, regardless of gender identity or expression. Teachers should avoid using gendered language or stereotypes in the classroom. Instead, educators should strive to create opportunities for all students to participate in all activities and subjects.

One way to create an inclusive learning space is by introducing diverse books and resources representing all gender identities and expressions. Teachers can also encourage students to explore their interests and pursue non-traditional paths, breaking away from gender stereotypes that limit potential and opportunities. Additionally, educators can provide opportunities for open discussions on gender and identity and promote respectful communication and understanding among students.

The media we consume plays a significant role in shaping our perceptions and beliefs about gender, making it essential for creators to develop diverse and inclusive representations of gender in their work. By avoiding harmful stereotypes and tropes that reinforce gender norms, media creators can take significant steps toward promoting gender equality. For instance, instead of relying on traditional expectations, creators can develop characters that challenge these norms, allowing viewers to see beyond the confines of rigid gender categories.

To create authentic and respectful representations of gender, media creators must work collaboratively with experts and members of marginalized communities. Consulting with these individuals can help creators further understand the problems regarding gender, which can inform their work and promote inclusivity. Furthermore, providing a positive representation of nonbinary and gender nonconforming individuals can help to reduce the discrimination they struggle with.

Creating a Gender-Equal World

Creating a gender-equal world is essential for the well-being and development of all children. We can create a more equitable society where everyone will thrive if we unite to break down restrictive gender norms and promote inclusivity. Each one of us has a part to play in the movement toward gender equality.

One way to take action is by challenging gender norms in our own lives, whether it’s by breaking down gender stereotypes in the media we consume, encouraging children to pursue their interests and dreams, or creating an inclusive place to learn in schools. We can also support organizations that work toward gender equality, such as the ALICE Lives Here initiative, which seeks to support families living in poverty and break down the barriers to upward mobility.

It’s important to remember that taking action to create a gender-equal world is a collective effort, and it requires ongoing work and education. By staying informed, raising awareness and actively working toward gender equality, we can create a better future for all children.

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Applying Gender Norms: Innovative Research and Reporting

Kristina Baines

Stella and Charles Guttman Community College, CUNY

Baines, K. (2015). Applying gender norms: innovative research and reporting. Guttman Community College, CUNY.

Description

Applying Gender Norms asks students to use observation as a tool to identify foundational theories of gender norms at play in everyday public spaces. Students write both observational narratives and analysis pieces, as well as creating videos to disseminate their findings. Proficiencies addressed include: applying course content to the students’ lives in the community, trusting in and honing observational skills as a research tool, and returning critical knowledge to local and global communities using technology.

Background and Context

Applying Gender Norms was designed for a 200-level Anthropology course, Sexuality and Gender in Urban Life, required for all Liberal Arts and Sciences Majors and taken in the second year of their progression toward an Associate’s degree. It is the first assignment in the course and introduces the multiple course expectations and desired learning outcomes while also serving as a model for the course-long research project: applying course content to the students’ lives in the community, trusting in and honing observational skills as a research tool, and returning critical knowledge to local and global communities using technology.

Students often have challenges becoming proficient in applying knowledge and making observations without adding previous judgments, especially on topics of sexuality and race, where most people have an opinion before the start of class. They also find it challenging to observe in a systematic way and to trust in their own observational and critical thinking skills to create meaningful analysis that they are comfortable sharing back with their communities, and the assignment addresses these concerns and encourages the blurring of the lines between school and life, which addresses the proficiencies and prepares the student to continue research and dissemination along similar lines throughout the course, leading to the development of the skills needed to address these outcomes.

Alignment and Scaffolding

Applying Gender Norms is the first assignment in the course. It assumes that the students have used observation as a research method and written narrative and analysis pieces prior to taking the class. At Guttman Community College, students take 2 semesters of an Ethnographies of Work course as part of their required first-year curriculum, which teaches these methodological skills in workplace observation assignments. The assignment is designed as a first step at applying more in-depth theoretical ideas to research observations and then preparing a product for dissemination. These skills are used for the final research project in the course, and are also designed to prepare students for the identification and application skills needed in preparing their capstone e-portfolios before graduation.

Reflections

I have found that Applying Gender Norms is accessible for a variety of skill levels, but is challenging to accomplish all parts of the assignment well. It works well in encouraging students to negotiate the difficulty of making an unbiased and lengthy observation in the public world. It also works well in encouraging students to make videos that are casual in style but meaningful in substance- something many are reluctant to do at the start of class. Through 2 charrette processes and one semester of teaching, the assignment directions have been clarified and the different parts of the assignment further scaffolded so as not to overwhelm the students with multiple parts and skills needed simultaneously.

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What Are Gender Stereotypes?

• How They Develop
• How to Combat

Gender stereotypes are preconceived, usually generalized views about how members of a certain gender do or should behave, or which traits they do or should have. They are meant to reinforce gender norms, typically in a binary way ( masculine vs. feminine ).

Gender stereotypes have far-reaching effects on all genders.

Read on to learn about how gender stereotypes develop, the effects of gender stereotypes, and how harmful gender stereotypes can be changed.

Davin G Photography / Getty Images

Meaning of Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes are ideas about how members of a certain gender do or should be or behave. They reflect ingrained biases based on the social norms of that society. Typically, they are considered as binary (male/female and feminine/masculine).

By nature, gender stereotypes are oversimplified and generalized. They are not accurate and often persist even when there is demonstrable evidence that contradict them. They also tend to ignore the fluidity of gender and nonbinary gender identities.

Classification of Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes have two components, which are:

• Descriptive : Beliefs about how people of a certain gender do act, and their attributes
• Prescriptive : Beliefs about how people of a specific gender should act and attributes they should have

Gender stereotypes can be positive or negative. This doesn’t mean good or bad—even stereotypes that seem “flattering” can have harmful consequences.

• Positive gender stereotypes : Describe behaviors or attributes that align with accepted stereotypical ideas for that gender, and that people of that gender are encouraged to display (for example, girls should play with dolls and boys should play with trucks)
• Negative gender stereotypes : Describe behaviors or attributes that are stereotypically undesirable for that gender and that people from that gender are discouraged from displaying (such as women shouldn’t be assertive, or men shouldn’t cry)

The attribute is undesirable for all genders but more accepted in a particular gender than others. For example, arrogance and aggression are unpleasant in all genders but are tolerated more in men and boys than in women, girls, or nonbinary people .

Gender stereotypes tend to be divided into these two generalized themes:

• Communion : This stereotype orients people to others. It includes traits such as compassionate, nurturing, warm, and expressive, which are stereotypically associated with girls/women/femininity.
• Agency : This stereotype orients people to the self and is motivated by goal attainment. It includes traits such as competitiveness, ambition, and assertiveness, which are stereotypically associated with boys/men/masculinity.

Basic types of gender stereotypes include:

• Personality traits : Such as expecting women to be nurturing and men to be ambitious
• Domestic behaviors : Such as expecting women to be responsible for cooking, cleaning, and childcare, while expecting men to do home repairs, pay bills, and fix the car
• Occupations : Associates some occupations such as childcare providers and nurses with women and pilots and engineers with men
• Physical appearance : Associates separate characteristics for women and men, such as women should shave their legs or men shouldn’t wear dresses

Gender stereotypes don’t exist in a vacuum. They can intersect with stereotypes and prejudices surrounding a person’s other identities and be disproportionately harmful to different people. For example, a Black woman experiences sexism and racism , and also experiences unique prejudice from the intersectionality of sexism and racism that a White woman or Black man would not.

Words to Know

• Gender : Gender is a complex system involving roles, identities, expressions, and qualities that have been given meaning by a society. Gender is a social construct separate from sex assigned at birth.
• Gender norms : Gender norms are what a society expects from certain genders.
• Gender roles : These are behaviors, actions, social roles, and responsibilities a society views as appropriate or inappropriate for certain genders.
• Gender stereotyping : This ascribes the stereotypes of a gender group to an individual from that group.
• Self-stereotyping vs. group stereotyping : This is how a person views themselves compared to how they view the gender group they belong to (for example, a woman may hold the belief that women are better caregivers than men, but not see herself as adept in a caregiving role).

How Gender Stereotypes Develop

We all have unconscious biases (assumptions our subconscious makes about people based on groups that person belongs to and our ingrained associations with those groups). Often, we aren’t even aware we have them or how they influence our behavior.

Gender stereotyping comes from unconscious biases we have about gender groups.

We aren’t preprogrammed at birth with these biases and stereotypes. Instead, they are learned through repeated and ongoing messages we receive.

Gender roles, norms, and expectations are learned by watching others in our society, including our families, our teachers and classmates, and the media. These roles and the stereotypes attached to them are reinforced through interactions starting from birth. Consciously or not, adults and often other children will reward behavior or attributes that are in line with expectations for a child’s gender, and discourage behavior and attributes that are not.

Some ways gender stereotypes are learned and reinforced in childhood include:

• How adults dress children
• Toys and play activities offered to children
• Children observing genders in different roles (for example, a child may see that all of the teachers at their daycare are female)
• Praise and criticism children receive for behaviors
• Encouragement to gravitate toward certain subjects in school (such as math for boys and language arts for girls)
• Anything that models and rewards accepted gender norms

Children begin to internalize these stereotypes quite early. Research has shown that as early as elementary school, children reflect similar prescriptive gender stereotypes as adults, especially about physical appearance and behavior.

While all genders face expectations to align with the stereotypes of their gender groups, boys and men tend to face harsher criticism for behavior and attributes that are counterstereotypical than do girls and women. For example, a boy who plays with a doll and wears a princess dress is more likely to be met with a negative reaction than a girl who wears overalls and plays with trucks.

The Hegemonic Myth

The hegemonic myth is the false perception that men are the dominant gender (strong and independent) while women are weaker and need to be protected.

Gender stereotypes propagate this myth.

Effects of Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes negatively impact all genders in a number of ways.

Nonbinary Genders

For people who are transgender / gender nonconforming (TGNC), gender stereotypes can lead to:

• Feelings of confusion and discomfort
• A low view of self-worth and self-respect
• Transphobia (negative feelings, actions, and attitudes toward transgender people or the idea of being transgender, which can be internalized)
• Negative impacts on mental health
• Struggles at school

Unconscious bias plays a part in reinforcing gender stereotypes in the classroom. For example:

• Educators may be more likely to praise girls for being well-behaved, while praising boys for their ideas and comprehension.
• Boys are more likely to be viewed as being highly intelligent, which influences choices. One study found girls as young as 6 avoiding activities that were labeled as being for children who are “really, really smart.”
• Intentional or unintentional steering of children toward certain subjects influences education and future employment.

In the Workforce

While women are in the workforce in large numbers, gender stereotypes are still at play, such as:

• Certain occupations are stereotypically gendered (such as nursing and teaching for women and construction and engineering for men).
• Occupations with more female workers are often lower paid and have fewer opportunities for promotion than ones oriented towards men.
• More women are entering male-dominated occupations, but gender segregation often persists within these spaces with the creation of female-dominated subsets (for example, pediatrics and gynecology in medicine, or human resources and public relations in management).
• Because men face harsher criticism for displaying stereotypically feminine characteristics than women do for displaying stereotypically male characteristics, they may be discouraged from entering female-dominated professions such as early childhood education.

Despite both men and women being in the workforce, women continue to be expected to (and do) perform a disproportionate amount of housework and taking care of children than do men.

Gender-Based Violence

Gender stereotypes can contribute to gender-based violence.

• Men who hold more traditional gender role beliefs are more likely to commit violent acts.
• Men who feel stressed about their ability to meet male gender norms are more likely to commit inter-partner violence .
• Trans people are more likely than their cisgender counterparts to experience discrimination and harassment, and they are twice as likely to engage in suicidal thoughts and actions than cisgender members of the Queer community.

Stereotypes and different ways of socializing genders can affect health in the following ways:

• Adolescent boys are more likely than adolescent girls to engage in violent or risky behavior.
• Mental health issues are more common in girls than boys.
• The perceived “ideal” of feminine slenderness and masculine muscularity can lead to health issues surrounding body image .
• Gender stereotypes can discourage people from seeking medical help or lead to missed diagnosis (such as eating disorders in males ).

Globally, over 575 million girls live in countries where inequitable gender norms contribute to a violation of their rights in areas such as:

• Employment opportunities
• Independence
• Safety from gender-based violence

How to Combat Gender Stereotypes

Some ways to combat gender stereotypes include:

• Examine and confront your own gender biases and how they influence your behavior, including the decisions you make for your children.
• Foster more involvement from men in childcare, both professionally and personally.
• Promote and support counterstereotypical hirings (such as science and technology job fairs aimed at women and campaigns to gain interest in becoming elementary educators for men).
• Confront and address bias in the classroom, including education for teachers on how to minimize gender stereotypes.
• Learn about each child individually, including their preferences.
• Allow children to use their chosen name and pronouns .
• Avoid using gender as a way to group children.
• Be mindful of language (for example, when addressing a group, use “children” instead of “boys and girls” and “families” instead of “moms and dads,”).
• Include books, toys, and other media in the classroom and at home that represent diversity in gender and gender roles.
• View toys as gender neutral, and avoid ones that promote stereotypes (for example, a toy that has a pink version aimed at girls).
• Ensure all children play with toys and games that develop a full set of social and cognitive skills.
• Promote gender neutrality in sports.
• Be mindful of advertising and the messaging marketing sends to children.
• Talk to children about gender, including countering binary thinking and gender stereotypes you come across.
• Take a look at the media your child engages with. Provide media that show all genders in a diversity of roles, different family structures, etc. Discuss any gender stereotyping you see.
• Tell children that it is OK to be themselves, whether that aligns with traditional gender norms or not (for example, it’s OK if a woman wants to be a stay-at-home parent, but it’s not OK to expect her to).
• Give children equal household chores regardless of gender.
• Teach all children how to productively handle their frustration and anger.
• Encourage children to step out of their comfort zone to meet new people and try activities they aren’t automatically drawn to.
• Put gender-neutral bathrooms in schools, workplaces, and businesses.
• Avoid assumptions about a person’s gender, including children.
• Take children to meet people who occupy counterstereotypical roles, such as a female firefighter.
• Speak up and challenge someone who is making sexist jokes or comments.

Movies That Challenge Gender Stereotypes

Not sure where to start? Common Sense Media has compiled a list of movies that defy gender stereotypes .

Gender stereotypes are generalized, preconceived, and usually binary ideas about behaviors and traits specific genders should or should not display. They are based on gender norms and gender roles, and stem from unconscious bias.

Gender stereotypes begin to develop very early in life through socialization. They are formed and strengthened through observations, experiences, and interactions with others.

Gender stereotypes can be harmful to all genders and should be challenged. The best way to start combating gender stereotypes is to examine and confront your own biases and how they affect your behavior.

A Word From Verywell

We all have gender biases, whether we realize it or not. That doesn’t mean we should let gender stereotypes go unchecked. If you see harmful gender stereotyping, point it out.

YWCA Metro Vancouver. Dating safe: how gender stereotypes can impact our relationships .

LGBTQ+ Primary Hub. Gender stereotyping .

Stanford University: Gendered Innovations. Stereotypes .

Koenig AM. Comparing prescriptive and descriptive gender stereotypes about children, adults, and the elderly . Front Psychol . 2018;9:1086. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01086

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Gender stereotypes .

Hentschel T, Heilman ME, Peus CV. The multiple dimensions of gender stereotypes: a current look at men’s and women’s characterizations of others and themselves . Front Psychol . 2019;10:11. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00011

Eagly AH, Nater C, Miller DI, Kaufmann M, Sczesny S. Gender stereotypes have changed: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of U.S. public opinion polls from 1946 to 2018 . Am Psychol . 2020;75(3):301-315. doi:10.1037/amp0000494

Planned Parenthood. What are gender roles and stereotypes?

Institute of Physics. Gender stereotypes and their effect on young people .

France Stratégie. Report – Gender stereotypes and how to fight them: new ideas from France .

Bian L, Leslie SJ, Cimpian A. Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interests . Science . 2017;355(6323):389-391. doi:10.1126/science.aah6524

Save the Children. Gender roles can create lifelong cycle of inequality .

Girl Scouts. 6 everyday ways to bust gender stereotypes .

UNICEF. How to remove gender stereotypes from playtime .

Save the Children. Tips for talking with children about gender stereoptypes .

By Heather Jones Jones is a freelance writer with a strong focus on health, parenting, disability, and feminism.

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Gender Analysis

Whether you are an evaluator or someone commissioning evaluation, any intervention to be evaluated that takes place within human society and involves human interactions will have gendered dimensions. 

And that means that you as an evaluator should be able to identify and analyse those gendered dimensions.

But the way in which this analysis is done will depend on how the evaluator (and the intervention being evaluated) thinks about gender in the first place.

Note:  Gender is one of many ‘markers of difference’ along which humans tend to judge each other. Other such markers include disability, ethnicity, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, sexuality, or socio-economic status. The ways in which these markers of difference  intersect  to increase marginalisation, exclusion and inequity is also vitally important for evaluators to keep in mind.

What do we mean by gender?

‘Gender affects everyone, all of the time. Gender affects the way we see each other, the way we interact, the institutions we create, the ways in which those institutions operate, and who benefits or suffers as a result of this.’ (Fletcher, 2015:  Addressing Gender In Impact Evaluation: What Should Be Considered? )

The importance of considering gender is widely acknowledged in evaluation  Terms of Reference , training curricula, evaluation-related publications and evaluation reports. But these documents often fail to clearly define what they mean by the term. There can be an assumption that the word is clearly understood, but in reality there is no one accepted way to understand what gender  is.  And that means there is no one accepted way of doing ‘gender analysis’. Similarly, there is no one way of doing feminist evaluation (as noted on the BetterEvaluation  feminist evaluation theme page ). This is about your way of thinking.

With that in mind, this theme page will begin by exploring the meaning of gender before moving on to issues of gender analysis.

There are many different definitions of gender, but the majority focus on unfair differences in the ways that women and men ( categories  of people) are treated in our societies. For example:

‘Gender refers to the roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society at a given time considers appropriate for women and men … In most societies there are differences and inequalities between women and men in responsibilities assigned, activities undertaken, access to and control over resources, as well as decision-making opportunities.’  ( UN Women Gender Equality Glossary )

Alternatively gender can be defined as:

‘a process of judgement and value … related to stereotypes and norms of what it is to be masculine or feminine, regardless of your born sex category … certain forms of femininity and masculinity are given greater value than others (with particular forms of dominant masculinity usually having the greatest access to power and resources).’  (Fletcher, 2015:  Addressing Gender In Impact Evaluation: What Should Be Considered? )

What do we mean by gender analysis?

If one takes the first definition provided above as a starting point, then analysing the gendered aspect of an intervention would involve focusing on the differences between men and women within that intervention. For example, are there equal numbers of men and women involved in the intervention and, if not, why not.

If one takes the second definition as a starting point, then analysing the gendered aspect of an intervention would involve examining the judgements, stereotypes and norms related to masculinity and femininity that occur in the intervention’s context and, from there, exploring the effect these stereotypes and norms had on the intended intervention outcomes.

The difference between these two definitions is a crucial one when it comes to evaluating change. The first definition is looking for change in ‘differences and inequalities between women and men’ while the second one is looking for change in the ‘process of judgement and value’ that rewards certain forms of masculinity and femininity while punishing others.

This is an important difference. Gender analysis that is based on the seemingly binary categories of women/men looks for changes in the numbers, and ways, that men and women are engaged in an intervention.

Gender analysis that is based on processes of judgment, norms and stereotypes looks for whether, and how, changes have occurred during the intervention in judgements, stereotypes and norms related to masculinity and femininity, and the effects of those changes. 

Taken from a Guidance Note on impact evaluation (Fletcher, 2015:  Addressing Gender In Impact Evaluation: What Should Be Considered? ), the following table demonstrates the gendered dimensions of an intervention, when analysed for its effect on (a)gender as process of judgement, and (b) gender as category (men/women). This work draws on Patricia Rogers’ (2012) key evaluation questions for impact evaluation :

Table 1: Gender as a process vs. gender as a category in a road-building intervention

Important issues and considerations.

It is worth repeating that every evaluation of an intervention that occurs within human society and involves human interactions will have gendered dimensions, whether or not these gendered dimensions are acknowledged within the intervention design, explicit or implicit theory of change (an implicit theory of change can also be understood as a  ‘mental model’ ) and/or intervention implementation.

If, having examined an intervention’s documentation and having spoken to key stakeholders you can find no reference at all to gender in any form (gender as man/woman or gender as process of judgements, stereotypes and norms on masculinity and femininity), it is fair to identify the intervention as ‘gender blind’. In other words, it ‘ignores gender considerations all together’ ( Interagency Gender Working Group, undated ).

The implications of this would then need to be explored; and the depth of the analysis undertaken in exploring this will depend in large part on the resources available for the evaluation. It may well be that your gender analysis of such an intervention cannot go much beyond saying ‘this intervention is gender blind, and as such falls below the minimum standards expected’.

An intervention that ‘examines and addresses … gender considerations’ can be defined as ‘gender aware’ ( Interagency Gender Working Group, undated ) but then needs to be further analysed to see where it lies on what has been called ‘the gender continuum’:

An  ‘exploitative’  intervention with regards to HIV prevention would be one that takes cultural judgements around gender and sexuality then uses them to promote ‘good’ behaviour: telling young women they will be ‘spoilt’ if they have sex before marriage, or saying that men who have sex with men (and who are often judged within society as ‘not real men’) are vectors of disease, when the risk lies in unprotected anal sex regardless of the sex of the bodies involved.

An  ‘accommodating’  intervention would be one that ‘does not rock the boat’, for instance by claiming it would be ‘culturally inappropriate’ to involve sex workers or trans women in ‘women’s projects’ or accepting that, in an intervention working with civil society organisations, all those organisations are run by men (who will no doubt be from the majority religious and ethnic group in the intervention site).

A  ‘transformative’  intervention would be one that works on gender processes; in other words, one that goes beyond the men/women categorical approach and that looks at judgements, stereotypes and norms of masculinity and femininity, and how they are applied regardless of the sex assigned to a body at birth. Referring back to  Addressing Gender in Impact Evaluation :

Focusing on the stereotypes, norms and judgements related to masculinity and femininity (rather than on male/female) frees us up to think about the processes through which certain forms of femininity and masculinity are given greater value than others (with particular forms of dominant masculinity usually having the greatest access to power and resources).

Examples would include an intervention that shifted people’s ideas of what it takes to be ‘a leader’ (often considered to be something that requires certain traits seen as being dominantly masculine, such as lack of compassion and willingness to engage in conflict over conciliation; take for example the former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher). An intervention that supported women’s right to contraception could also be gender transformative, if it did so by challenging the view (often held by women, as well as by men) that women who do not have children are somehow ‘lesser’ or that sex for pleasure is incompatible with ‘femininity’.

It is important to know which category the intervention to be evaluated falls into because this will determine, in part, what you can expect to achieve with using a gender analysis as part of your evaluation. In all instances, however, the role of the evaluator is to bring to light the positive and negative effects of the intervention in relation to gender. Sometimes these effects will be intended; often they will be unintended.

How to do a gender analysis

There are many different tools promoted for undertaking gender analysis. However many of these are based on a purely categorical understanding of gender, where ‘men’ and ‘women’ are seen as homogenous groups that are somehow in opposition to each other. The dynamics of gender—the ways in which we all participate in (re)creating norms and stereotypes against which we judge ourselves and others—are usually lost.

The reality is that there is no single, sure fire, A-Z way of  doing  gender analysis. But there are key steps to follow:

Question yourself:  How do you think about gender? (How aware are you of the intersections between gender and other markers of difference that feed inequity?

Identify whether the intervention to be evaluated is gender blind or gender aware:  Start with a desk review of key documents, such as funding applications/design documents; monitoring reports; theory of change or other logic model if available; but supplement this using different methods: see following section. N.B.: doing a word search on ‘gender’ in key documents is not the same as analysing the documents for gendered content. It is entirely possible for an intervention to not actually use the word ‘gender’ but to still challenge stereotypes and norms. Equally, there are many interventions where the documents use the word ‘gender’ widely but the intervention itself is gender blind.

Gender blind interventions:  If, based on this first stage, the intervention is gender blind (in that it pays no attention to gender, either in categorical terms or in terms of processes of judgement), then say so! If resources allow, it would also be appropriate to draw out some of the consequences of this gender blindness. There are many resources to draw on that clearly define gender as a required component of evaluation of interventions that take place within human society and involve human interactions. (This page is one such resource; others include the Australian  Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Monitoring and Evaluation Guidelines , the Australasian Evaluation Society  Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Evaluations , which deserves praise for also requiring account to be taken of other markers of difference, not just gender; and the  United Nations Evaluation Group , whose latest resource is listed below.)

Gender aware interventions:  If, based on stage two above, you determine that the intervention is gender aware, how would you describe its understanding of gender? There may not be an explicit explanation—this is often missing—but you will be able to tell by what is done, with whom, and how. Refer back to Tables 1 and 2 for examples of how the different types of gender might play out in the same intervention.  Easy questions to keep in mind are: ‘does this intervention engage differently with men and women?’ or ‘does this intervention engage with judgements, stereotypes and norms about masculinity and femininity?’. As we are talking about evaluation, your over-arching questions for  either  understanding of gender should be: What gendered changes have occurred as the intended, or unintended, results of the intervention? (descriptive question) What explains those changes? (causal question) and, if you are undertaking an impact evaluation, ‘What does this say about the value of the intervention?’ (evaluative question) . If the evaluation is a process evaluation, then you would need to think about ‘How can the intervention be adapted to reduce any negative changes, increase positive changes, and ensure that the intervention’s theory of change or mental model is appropriate?

There is a large range of methods available to the evaluator as they move through the steps above. As with all forms of social enquiry, the method adopted should be coherent with your evaluation logic. What do you want to know, who can help you find that out, and finally which method(s) are most appropriate? Selection of method cannot be your starting point in gender analysis; thinking your logic through has to come first.

And remember; as with feminist evaluation, gender analysis is, after all, an exercise in exploring inequities and promoting social justice. As such it sits most comfortably with ‘participatory, empowering’ methods ( Podems, 2016 ).

The Institute of Development Studies manages a  Participatory Methods  website that has a specific section on participatory monitoring and evaluation, as well as providing details on a wide range of methods that can be used to support gender analysis.

The World Bank Group also has a list of methods (archived link) ranging from desk review to stakeholder workshops and social mapping .

This UN Women Independent Evaluation Service guide on the Inclusive Systemic Evaluation for Gender equality, Environments and Marginalized voices (ISE4GEMs) approach brings together innovative systemic evaluation practice with intersectional analysis.

This guide by Gillian Fletcher helps to clarify the meaning of gender as socially constructed norms and expectations around masculinity and femininity as opposed to the common misunderstanding of gender as the biological sex difference between men and women. The guide explains the implications of this crucial distinction for categorizing interventions with an explicit or implicit gender focus and for assessing their impact on gender-related injustice and inequality. The guide recommends specific steps in assessing gender-related impact including: understanding and classifying how an intervention seeks to engage with gender; defining gender-sensitive evaluation questions to address gender impact; and, methods and tools that are particularly helpful in answering such questions.

Developed by Status of Women Canada (2017), GBA+ is an analytical process used to assess how diverse groups of women, men and non-binary people may experience policies, programs and initiatives. The “plus” in GBA+ acknowledges that GBA goes beyond biological (sex) and socio-cultural (gender) differences. We all have multiple identity factors that intersect to make us who we are; GBA+ also considers many other identity factors, like race, ethnicity, religion, age, and mental or physical disability.’ The Government of Canada is committed to using GBA+ analysis in all of its work. The link provided above enables access to a range of materials and resources, including a ‘GBA+ Research Guide’. While still taking a firmly categorical approach that prioritises types of individuals over process of exclusion, GBA+ is a very interesting example of a way in which government can shape these debates.

Engendering Transformative Thinking and Practice in International Development draws on a range of real world examples which demonstrate both the limitations of the frameworks currently in use, and the very real possibilities for change when the intersecting social hierarchies that sustain and create inequity and inequality are challenged. This book brings together theoretical perspectives on social change, gender, intersectionality, and forms of knowledge, concluding with a set of proposals for revitalising a change agenda that recognises and engages with intersectionality and practical wisdom. Perfect for students and scholars of social change, gender, and development, this book will also be useful for practitioners looking for new ideas to help to generate social change.

This article by Emily Hillenbrand et al. (2014) discusses the application of Naila Kabeer’s Social Relations Approach (SRA) to gender analysis ‘to frame a baseline gender analysis of a food security project undertaken in Cambodia’. The project was being implemented as a randomised control trial; this paper demonstrates the ways in which such an approach is not ‘fit for purpose’ when trying to shift social norms, because it does not allow for adaptation and change based on learning generated during implementation. However use of the SRA helped those involved to highlight ‘the nuances and complexities of gender relations’, as well as ‘listening closely – and responding to – what women (and men) themselves consider to be empowering and positive indicators of change’. The authors noted: ‘An analysis approach such as this that emphasises processes of gender change and the dynamic nature of gender relations and institutional changes also requires effective process-monitoring and learning tools that facilitate introspection and interpretation of changes over time’ (emphasis in original).

Discussion Papers

The aim of this WHO working paper is to assist countries to better consider issues of gender and equity in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) efforts, and to 'inform the implementation of strategies in national action plans and contribute to improved reach and effectiveness of AMR efforts in the longer term.’ While highly health specific, the Working Paper offers a range of interesting and insightful reflections on gender analysis, for example: ‘A gender analysis can be used to review health education and behaviour change strategies to check that they are not gender blind (i.e. ignoring the differences in opportunities and resource allocation for women and men) and or don’t reinforce gender inequalities by relying on traditional gender norms and stereotypes e.g. assuming that young men are not interested in healthy behaviours and are not amenable to behaviour change’.

This week, EvalPartners will be launching EvalGender+, the global partnership for equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluations. The launch is part of the Global Evaluation Week in Kathmandu to celebrate the International Year of Evaluation.

I am at the European Evaluation Society conference in Helsinki and I attended the gender and evaluation session to learn more about approaches and practices.

Fletcher, G. (2015). Addressing gender in impact evaluation. A Methods Lab Publication. London: Overseas Development Institute & Melbourne: BetterEvaluation. Retrieved from  www.betterevaluation.org/en/resources/addressing_gender_in_impact_evaluation

Fletcher, G. (2018). Engendering transformative change in international development. London, New York: Routledge. 186pp.

Hillenbrand, E. et al. (2014) 'Using the Social Relations Approach to capture complexity in women's empowerment: using gender analysis in the Fish on Farms project in Cambodia'. In Gender & Development, 22:2, pp.351-368. Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13552074.2014.920992

Interagency Gender Working Group (n.d.). Gender Integration Continuum. Retrieved from:  www.igwg.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FG_GendrIntegrContinuum.pdf

Podems, D. and Negroustoueva, S. (2016) Feminist evaluation. BetterEvaluation. Retrieved from  http://www.betterevaluation.org/approaches/feminist_evaluation 

Status of Women Canada (2017). Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+). Ottawa, Canada: Status of Women Canada. Retrieved from:  cfc-swc.gc.ca/gba-acs/index-en.html

Stephens, A., Lewis, E.D. and Reddy,S.M. (2018). Inclusive Systemic Evaluation (ISE4GEMs): A New Approach for the SDG Era. New York: UN Women. Retrieved from http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2018/9/ise4gems-a-new-approach-for-the-sdg-era#view

WHO (2018). Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Together. Working Paper 5.0: Enhancing the Focus on Gender and Equity. Geneva: World Health Organization. Retrieved from:  https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/336975

Expand to view all resources related to 'Gender Analysis'

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• Equitable evaluation: Voices from the Global South
• Evaluation and Gender Equality: Why we need more feminist evaluations
• Feminist evaluation and gender approaches: There’s a difference?
• Gender analysis tools
• Gender and evaluation international online community of practice
• My “home-made” evaluation tools to avoid gender (and equity) blindness by Sara Vaca
• Tool kit on gender equality results and indicators

'Gender Analysis' is referenced in:

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A Simple Way to Understand the Origin of Gender Roles

We can understand gender differences via the "influence matrix.".

Posted July 27, 2019 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

As evidenced by the infamous Google Memo debacle a few years ago , there is much confusion in our society regarding the best way to think about gender similarities and differences. From the vantage point of the unified theory, people are generally using only two “vectors” in thinking about sex and gender, when the reality is that we need three.

The two vectors are the so-called "biological" and "social" forces. The biological generally refers to the genetic, physiological, evolutionary, and hormonal “nature” dimension, whereas societal roles, norms, ideals, and expectations for how men and women ought to act form the "social force" dimension. What is missing in this analysis is a clear understanding of the human mental architecture that is neither a purely "biological" nor "social" force.

A recent article in the American Psychologist on gender stereotypes makes the problem clear. Alice Eagly and colleagues examined the gender stereotypes of people in the United State from 1946 to 2018.

Specifically, Eagly et al. examined perceptions of men and women on agency , which the authors define as the tendency to “orient toward the self and one’s own mastery and goal attainment (e.g., ambitious, assertive , competitive),” and communion , which the authors define as the tendency to orient toward the “other and their well-being (e.g., compassionate, warm, expressive).” The authors note: “Communion prevails in the female stereotype, and agency in the male stereotype.”

Consistent with my point above about "biology" versus "society," the Eagly article explains that there are two primary ways of understanding why people tend to see men as more agentic and women more communal. They state: “Although some people ascribe such trait essences to biology, others instead ascribe them to socialization and social position in society” (Rangel & Keller, 2011).

The article does not explore human mental architecture , nor core mental relational tendencies, like attachment style. For the article, the authors examined stereotypes on agency and communion over 50+ years in the U.S. They also included a third construct, competency (i.e., the extent to which men or women were perceived as the generally more or less competent or intelligent). What did they find?

Over the years, women were seen as increasingly more competent, such that they now are rated as the more competent and intelligent group. We should note that this is an interesting and somewhat counterintuitive finding, given the claims by some that modern society is pervasively sexist. I agree with Eagly et al.'s interpretation of this finding, which is that as women have been given the freedom to attain and have now regularly outpaced men in things like educational attainment, people are evaluating their general competence accordingly.

Our primary focus here is on the agency and communion variables. Given the remarkable change in attitudes toward gender in the last 50 years, and the huge societal push to see men and women as having no essential (i.e., nonsocially constructed) differences, and all the work to challenge gender stereotypes and move away from a socially constructed gender binary, it seems to me that a basic, straightforward prediction would be that the differences between the stereotypes that people have about men being more agentic and women being more communal would be expected to go way down.

After all, if we are awakening to the idea that the gender identity binary is simply a function of the social construction of reality, then shouldn't our newfound freedom allow us to be unshackled from these primitive notions and allow people to toss off the shell of rules imposed upon them by society?

What did the study find? A massive convergence, stemming from enlightenment about the true nature of gender as a social construction? Not at all. In fact, they found basically the opposite.

The perceived differences between men and women increased over the years. Women are now seen as even more communal, whereas men generally stayed the same on their perceived agentic advantage. This means that the perceived distance between the key personality features of the two genders is now even greater than 50 years ago.

In the words of the authors: “In sum, U.S. poll data show that it is only in competence that gender equality has come to dominate people’s thinking about women and men. For qualities of personality, the past 73 years have produced an accentuated stereotype of women as the more communal sex, with men retaining their agency advantage."

The authors used tortured logic to try to defend their social role construction view that “gender stereotypes stem from people’s direct and indirect observations of women and men in their social roles.” Although clearly social roles play a huge part in how people experience their gender and sexuality , from the vantage point of the unified theory, it is not the primary origin/source of the gender differences (see here, here , and here for analyses of gender from this perspective).

So what is the source of the gender differences in agency and communion? On aggregate, human males and females have different relational tendencies.

Just as the description of agency suggests, on average men tend to be more “self-over-other” oriented, whereas on average women are more “other-over-self” (i.e., communal). (Hopefully, readers will be clear that aggregate claims of population-level differences are different than claims about specific individuals).

This is not hard to understand when we map the human relationship system using the "Influence Matrix." The Influence Matrix says that humans have an intuitive mental architecture that (pre-verbally) guides their perceptual-motivational-emotional ways of being the world in relation to others.

Specifically, we humans automatically and intuitively map our place in the “social influence matrix.” That is, we are constantly tracking self-in-relation-to-other, and use that to act accordingly. Here is the map.

The idea is that folks perceive self-in-relation-to-other on these dimensions. We track first our "relational value and social influence," which is the black line. And we also track our relative power (dominance-submission), love (affiliation-hostility), and freedom (autonomy-dependency).

How we see ourselves in relation to others on these process dimensions plays a guiding role in navigating the social world. It is important to note that basically all scholars of the human condition agree that humans are social animals and that they care about things like attachment and love and status and power.

And it is generally agreed that these drives are not socially constructed, but are at the core of our structure and existed long before modern society. From this vantage point, it is a function of our mental structure rather than our "socialization" that gives rise to patterns like the fact that if we don't experience high relational value in our development, then we are much more likely to get depressed (see here ).

Directly relevant to the issue at hand, we see the Influence Matrix includes two “self-other” quadrants, one of which is the upper left corner and the other is the lower right. The upper left is “self over other” and emphasizes the poles of dominance, autonomy (i.e., independent goal attainment), and hostility. The lower right, aka the “other over self,” quadrant emphasizes affiliation, dependence (i.e., longing for connection and need for approval), and submissive deference to others.

In other words, the Influence Matrix clearly maps the core representations of the central features of "agency" and "communion."

It is essential that we recognize that this human mental architecture existed long before the social construction of reality (which is perhaps only 50,000 to 150,000 years old), and is certainly much older than ideas about what is socially justifiable for how men and women should act in the 21st century.

The Matrix goes back to a time when we were primates rather than persons; thus we are talking about tens of millions of years . The Influence Matrix analysis directly accounts for the counterintuitive finding from the Eagly article and provides a frame that explains why gender stereotypes are so "robust" (to use their word).

To begin with, the Matrix explains in a direct and straightforward way why there are “self-over-other” and “other-over-self” tendencies and archetypes in the first place. Notice, this says nothing about males/masculinity or females/femininity per se . It simply says something about the mental architecture needed to navigate the social world. However, we can then use basic logic to understand why, on aggregate, males/men tend toward the former and females/women the latter.

For example, long before we were humans, females were giving birth and taking care of their young. Is it any surprise at all that their architecture would be more relationally oriented? My point is that we can analyze the general relational features of being a male and female human primate and see that males tend to lean relatively more toward self-over-other, whereas females tend to lean toward other-over-self.

This analysis means that Eagly et al have the explanatory sequence backward. Rather than social roles driving the perception of difference, it is clear from this analysis that the mental architecture is prior, and is the primary driver of the personality differences and people's perception of them.

As such, the Matrix helps explain other "counterintuitive" findings about gender role/job preferences, like the Nordic gender-equity paradox , which is the finding that greater gender equity in social roles and expectations is associated with greater (not lesser) divergence in things like employment preferences.

The real point is that our society is painfully confused in its understanding of sex and gender differences ( and similarities !). A core reason for our confusion is we have an unhelpful "biology" versus "sociology" binary—as if these are the only two forces, and we need to choose either one or the other.

Of course, in the real world, forces are interacting all over the place. Moreover, there are "mental" forces that are neither "biological" nor "social." Rather, we need a clear analysis of the animal-mental dimension of complexity, which as the Tree of Knowledge shows us, is its own plane of complex adaptive behavior and is different from both the "Cell-Life" biological plane and "Person-Culture" societal plane.

By mapping the mental architecture of the human relationship system, the Influence Matrix fills in the missing piece of the puzzle. With it, perhaps we can achieve more light and less heat on this polarizing issue.

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D. , is a professor of psychology at James Madison University.

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In this guide

3. gender norms and educational achievement.

Schools often reflect, replicate and reinforce the discriminatory gender norms found in wider society. Here, we outline how norms can undermine educational outcomes.

Stereotypes around the relative abilities of girls and boys

Levtov (2013) and Kagestan et al. (2016) summarise studies on how education reinforces discriminatory gender norms and stereotypes across a range of country contexts through teaching practices (such as responding more readily to boys or asking boys more questions) and through school and classroom organisation, such as gendered assignment of chores – such as asking girls to clean and boys to chop wood.   

Discriminatory norms and stereotypes that affect learning and education outcomes are common and often reflect perceptions of girls’ competence (particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)) and are linked to norms about ‘suitable’ subjects for girls to study or pursue as a future career. In some schools, gender norms see girls channelled towards technical subjects seen as useful for their future role (such as domestic science) and as unsuitable for (and rejected by) boys. Often, boys are steered towards the subjects that may lead to more lucrative careers in later life. UNESCO’s 2017 report, Cracking the Code , provides useful insights into girls and STEM subjects.

Recent data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) show some narrowing of gender inequalities in STEM achievement in some regions. But boys still have better overall outcomes than girls in mathematics, physics and computing, as well as greater participation in these subjects. Qualitative evidence shows the strength of these gendered stereotypes among teachers and students alike. For example, see Masinire (2015) (subscription required) on school vocational and technical education in Zimbabwe, and Dunne (2007) on factors and processes related to gender inequality in Botswana and Ghana.

Norms around gender-segregated education

Some studies suggest that boys’ schools may reinforce hypermasculinity (exaggerated male stereotypical behaviour) but there is little comparative evidence. There is also conflicting evidence on whether girls’ schools challenge stereotypes about girls’ capabilities or reinforce conventional norms, as noted by Unterhalter et al. (2014). In both cases, the extent to which they challenge or reinforce discrimination reflects the school’s ethos and its commitment to gender equality, rather than whether boys and girls are educated together.  

Gender stereotypes and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education

There is a pervasive stereotype that girls are less well suited to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and, therefore, less competent in these subjects than boys. This can hamper girls’ interest and achievement in STEM and reinforce the behaviour of girls and boys during STEM classes, with girls reluctant to ask or answer questions and boys monopolising equipment and resources. Some studies show girls being discouraged from STEM subjects, which are seen as harder than others, particularly if subjects are not taught in a way that reflects real world issues.

Girls who have more self-efficacy and confidence in STEM subjects are more likely to reject such stereotypes, with self-efficacy improving both STEM education outcomes and increasing aspirations for STEM-related careers.

Globally, there are sign of a narrowing of the gender gap in STEM-related learning outcomes, but significant regional variations remain. Where data are available in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, the gender gap in mathematics achievement in secondary education favours boys, with less marked differences in sciences. In contrast, in the Arab states, girls perform better than boys in maths and science subjects in primary and secondary education. UNESCO suggests this may reflect the high proportion of single-sex schools in the region, which may limit the impact of negative stereotypes.

A range of initiatives (mostly small scale and/or time-bound) are underway to interest girls in computing and technology, often in girl-only environments with female mentors. UNESCO’s Cracking the Code and Gardner et al. (2018) provide examples. Though these initiatives look promising, their impacts have not been synthesised. Where all schools are underfunded and most boys also lack STEM opportunities, offering similar initiatives to boys (in parallel, rather than in mixed groups) could prevent resentment and backlash.

Policy question: Are there thresholds for the impacts of education on gender norms? 

The emerging consensus from the literature is ‘yes’. Attending at least some years of secondary education seems to have a critical effect on gender norm change. This is the conclusion of analysis based on the International Men and Gender Equality Survey ( IMAGES ) in India, Rwanda, Brazil, Chile, Croatia and Mexico, and of analyses of education, women’s work and decision-making power in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan by Barker et al. (2012). Qualitative evidence from India sets the threshold a little lower. Arnot et al. (2012), looking at Ghana and India, suggest that girls need at least five years of education to expand their self-confidence and change the way in which young married women are treated by their husbands and in-laws. Apart from IMAGES, few studies from other parts of the world have explored this issue. 

Book traversal links for 3. Gender norms and educational achievement

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Current Trends in the study of Gender Norms and Health Behaviors

Paul j. fleming.

Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, 302 Rosenau Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7440, (tel) 630-777-0160, (fax) 919-966-2921

Christine Agnew-Brune

Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, 302 Rosenau Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7440

Gender norms are recognized as one of the major social determinants of health and gender norms can have implications for an individual’s health behaviors. This paper reviews the recent advances in research on the role of gender norms on health behaviors most associated with morbidity and mortality. We find that (1) the study of gender norms and health behaviors is varied across different types of health behaviors, (2) research on masculinity and masculine norms appears to have taken on an increasing proportion of studies on the relationship between gender norms and health, and (3) we are seeing new and varied populations integrated into the study of gender norms and health behaviors.

Introduction

Gender is recognized as one of the major social determinants of health. According to the American Psychological Association, gender norms refer to, “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women” [ 1 ]. While gender is sometimes viewed as something that an individual is , current social science understandings of gender emphasize that it is something that an individual does through their behaviors and interactions with others [ 2 ]. Thus, a person’s behaviors are critical to their ability to fit into cultural gender norms. These gender norms can play a powerful role in a person’s life since deviating from the norms associated with one’s biological sex can be met with censure from peers, social exclusion, and sometimes even emotional or physical violence [ 3 , 4 ].

Conforming to gender norms can have implications for an individual’s health because certain behaviors considered to be normative for a particular gender may be associated with health outcomes [ 4 , 5 ]. For example, it is normative for men in many cultures to drink alcohol excessively [ 6 ], avoid certain healthy food options [ 7 ], or avoid health-care [ 8 ]. Each of these behaviors has implications for the overall health of men. Similarly, for women, gender norms may have effects such as lessening decision-making power over family planning behaviors [ 9 ] or limiting physical activity out of a concern for appearing less feminine [ 10 ]. The role of gender norms on health behaviors is typically slightly different for men and women. Risky health behaviors are expressions of masculinity for men, but, for women, gender norms can constrain women’s power and limit their ability to take control of their health [ 11 , 12 ]. In both cases, the influence of gender norms on health operates through health behaviors.

In a foundational article, Mokdad and colleagues identify the major health behaviors that are the leading causes of death in the United States [ 13 ]. Below, we review the recent advances in research on the role of gender norms on each of these types of health behaviors. While numerous studies explore gender differences in health behaviors (e.g. differences in smoking patterns between males and females), we focus on those articles that are exploring and explaining how gender norms, masculinity, or femininity influences these behaviors.

Gender and Health Behaviors

Diet and physical activity.

Empirical research on the role of gender norms in diet and physical activity related behaviors is limited and lacks coherent trends. Two articles examined the role of gender dynamics – specifically the role of wives as food-preparers – in men’s eating habits [ 14 , 15 ]. These studies highlight the lack of power and control that men have over their diets because food preparation is a traditionally female domain. Other research explored whether or not food choices are used to construct one’s gender identity. One study found that men sometimes eat meat is because it makes them feel more masculine [ 16 ], and another study showed that women’s choice of being a meat-eater or vegetarian is unrelated to how closely she conforms to feminine norms [ 17 ]. These studies suggest that the choice of eating meat is more associated with masculinity and unrelated to femininity. Another area of this research explores the role of gender norms in eating disorders. Research has long recognized the role of feminine norms in women’s eating disorders related to striving for thinness, but two recent studies have explored how men’s disordered eating may be related to feminine or masculine norms [ 18 , 19 ]. These studies suggest that eating disorders among men may be more related to conformity to constructs of femininity rather than masculinity. Though, muscularity-oriented eating disorders are associated with masculine norms [ 18 ]. Finally, a few recent studies in this area examine media portrayals of diet and physical activity and how they influence men and women. Media portrayals of men depict them as unconcerned about weight issues and that dieting is exclusively a female behavior [ 20 ]. Two other studies showed that consumption of certain types of media (e.g. men’s magazines) were associated with both men and women’s drive for muscularity [ 21 , 22 ]. Taken together, the recent literature suggests research on diet and physical activity is increasingly considering the importance of gender and gender norms but the research is still limited.

Sexual Behaviors

Research on the role of gender norms in sexual behaviors is relatively well-developed compared to other types of health behaviors. In recent years, researchers have continued to add to the evidence that attitudes towards gender norms are associated sexual risk behaviors. These studies find that men who believe in traditional gender roles (i.e. separate roles for men and women) are more likely to have a greater number of sexual partners or avoid condom use [ 23 – 27 ]. Though these studies are not the first to document this relationship, they document this relationship within a wider range of populations and measures. Notably, Nelson finds that there is no relationship for women between attitudes towards gender roles and sexual behaviors, indicating that the mechanism may be more salient for male populations [ 25 ].

Recently, there have been several articles that explore gender dynamics and gender roles within sexual and gender minority populations. For example, two articles explored the concept of ‘gender affirmation’ within transgender individuals sexual risk behaviors [ 28 , 29 ]. Given that penetrative sex is socially constructed as a masculine individual penetrating a feminine individual, these studies find that some transgender women who have sex with a man consider that act to affirm their femininity and status as a woman [ 28 , 29 ]. These transgender women describe seeking out sexual relationships with men or engaging in sex work in order to affirm their feminine identity. Two studies with men who have sex with men similarly demonstrate that sexual roles (insertive vs. receptive sexual partner) usually translate to gender roles where the insertive partner is considered masculine and has greater sexual decision-making power and the receptive partner is feminized and has less power [ 30 , 31 ]. Another study showed that for men who have sex with both men and women, condom use with women is negatively associated with their gender role conflict (i.e. concerns about demonstrating masculine characteristics), but there was no relationship between gender role conflict and their condom use with men [ 32 ]. Each of these studies highlights the ways that gender and power dynamics can vary across different types of relationships and that the resulting association with sexual behaviors can also vary.

Substance Use

Unlike sexual health behaviors, substance use research has a less developed history of examining gender roles. However, recent articles addressing gender norms and their influence on substance use behaviors have typically focused on three content areas: 1) alcohol, 2) tobacco, and 3) other forms of substance misuse, including injection drug use, prescription drug abuse, etc. Articles discussing gender norms and alcohol often linked problematic drinking to different types of masculinity that equated drinking with demonstrating masculine traits [ 33 – 37 ] and also how masculine ideas that discourage help-seeking may prevent men from entering treatment programs [ 38 , 39 ]. Of research examining gender and tobacco, multiple articles focused on men and highlighted that smoking cessation programs can be successful by encouraging positive masculine ideas such as responsibility and fatherhood [ 40 – 43 ]. There was also research suggesting increasing gender equality by challenging traditional gender norms may encourage women to engage in unhealthy behaviors like smoking [ 44 ] and problematic drinking [ 45 , 46 ]. Specifically, women who endorse more equitable roles for men and women may adopt what they view as traditionally masculine behaviors as a means of demonstrating parity. However, other research suggests that increased gender equity may reduce alcohol consumption among both men and women [ 47 ]. Both sets of findings point to the potential importance that gender norms play in substance use and health behaviors writ large and the need to continue to examine it in future studies on substance use. There were few articles that examined gender norms and other forms of substance use beyond alcohol and tobacco. Those that did were focused on the intersection of sexual/violent behaviors, substance use, and gender norms, not on the direct relationship between gender roles and substance use [ 48 , 49 ]. There seems to be an emerging trend to examine the role masculinity plays in substance use; however, more research is needed to better understand conflicting findings and extend beyond alcohol and tobacco to other forms of substance use.

Injury and Violence

The discussion of gender within the field of injury and violence is varied. Research on injuries tended to focus solely on gender differences with the exception of research on suicide which has a well-developed body of literature on the role that masculinity plays in suicide. Several recent articles argue that suicide rates among men are persistently higher than among women due to the difficulty they face attaining traditional masculine norms, including personal autonomy and socio-economic security [ 50 – 52 ]. Further, researchers suggest that adhering to certain masculine norms that discourage help-seeking when emotionally distressed further encourage suicidal behaviors among men [ 53 , 54 ]. Similar to suicide, articles focused on violence have seen a wealth of publications examining the role of gender norms, particularly research focused on gender-based violence. Multiple gender-based violence researchers called for reducing harmful masculine norms in order to encourage increased gender equity and reduce in men’s violence perpetration – including a special issue of the journal Lancet dedicated to this topic. Recently interventions targeting unhealthy masculine norms to decrease gender-based violence have recently shown positive results both in the United States [ 55 ] and globally [ 56 – 58 ]. Intimate partner violence and domestic violence has increasingly moved to focus on primary prevention efforts by targeting perpetrators, typically male, that endorse unhealthy masculine norms [ 59 – 62 ]. While most recent studies on other types of violence (e.g. child abuse, peer violence, youth violence, and sexual aggression) tends to confirm that supporting traditional masculine norms play a role in violence perpetration, one study on sexual aggression found that men who experience high levels of shame about their bodies often react aggressively to women in sexual situations when they perceive that the women is slighting their appearance [ 63 ]. Though injuries and violence are usually categorized together, the literature from the past two years demonstrate the divide between the study of injury and violence with respect to gender roles. Apart from suicide, the examination of gender roles and norms – and masculinity in particular – seems limited to research on violence perpetration.

Preventative Health Behaviors

Preventive health behaviors include those behaviors related to getting vaccines, screened for cancer or other health problems, or seeking help for health problems. Several recent articles explored the role of masculine norms in men’s screening behaviors related to getting a digital rectal exam, including within new populations [ 64 – 67 ]. An article by Christy reviews some of the evidence over the past decade and highlights the specific aspects of masculinity that impact men’s decision to get screened: self-reliance, avoidance of femininity, heterosexual self-presentation, and risk-taking [ 65 ]. One recent study found that even men who do get screened frame their decision within masculine norms, but they focus on the masculine norm of responsibility [ 66 ]. Screening services (e.g. breast and cervical cancer screening) for women were also shown to be related to women’s adherence to masculine norms, but that women who adhered to masculine norms were more likely to be screened rather than less likely.

Seeking health services is often examined through a gender lens. Studies over the past two decades show that women are sometimes constrained by gender norms that limit their decision making power, and several recent studies echoed these ideas in various settings [ 68 – 70 ]. Studies have highlighted men’s avoidance of help-seeking behaviors as a strategy to demonstrate their masculinity [ 71 ]. One recent study explored men’s health seeking behavior in a new way. Sanchez and colleagues interviewed identical male twins where one identified as gay and the other identified as straight [ 72 ]. They showed that the straight men were more likely to endorse traditional masculine norms and less likely to seek health care services than their co-twins. These studies demonstrate the interrelation of sexual identity and gender identity and their role in seeking health services.

Conclusions

There are several key findings and trends to note. First, the study of gender norms and health behaviors is varied across different types of health behaviors. There were far more articles examining gender norms and sexual or violent behaviors, and those fields have had a longer history of researching this relationship. Thus, the studies discussed here are more varied and tackle more dimensions of the relationship. In contrast, research on other types of health behaviors appears to be more nascent, and there were fewer studies to draw upon. Second, research on masculinity and masculine norms appears to have taken on an increasing proportion of studies on the relationship between gender norms and health. Historically, gender studies was often associated with research on women [ 12 ] and focused on the limitations gender norms placed on their health behaviors. But, recently, more articles explore the role that masculinity plays in men’s – and sometimes women’s – risk behaviors. In fact, in 2013, there was a special issue of Health Psychology titled ‘Men’s Health: Masculinity and Other Influences on Male Health Behaviors.’ Third, we are seeing new and varied populations integrated into the study of gender norms and health behaviors. Transgender individuals are a population that is gaining increasing attention in the research on sexual behaviors, and we are seeing research on gay and lesbian populations integrated into research on health behaviors beyond just sexual behaviors [ 73 ]. Researchers are also exploring culturally specific forms of masculinity and/or gender norms in various countries beyond just the United States or Europe.

Researchers need to continue building the evidence base for the relationship between gender norms and health behaviors. To move the field forward, researchers will need to focus on examining the mechanisms by which these norms influence behaviors. Additionally, we need further exploration on how gender norms lead to health outcomes differently for men and women. As a social determinant of health, gender norms play an important role in the health of individuals and documenting and exploring this relationship can help improve health at the population level.

• Gender norms play an important role in men and women’s health behaviors
• Research on gender norms is most developed in studies of sexual behaviors
• Recent studies of gender norms and health behaviors are more focused on masculinity
• Gender norms and health research is expanding to new populations

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Carolina Population Center for training support (T32 HD007168) and for general support (R24 HD050924). Mr. Fleming was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under grant number T32 AI007001.

Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Contributor Information

Paul J. Fleming, Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, 302 Rosenau Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7440, (tel) 630-777-0160, (fax) 919-966-2921.

Christine Agnew-Brune, Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, 302 Rosenau Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7440.

• Anniston/Gadsden

Screw gender norms: Meet the nonbinary parents raising totally free kids

• Published: Apr. 18, 2024, 3:00 p.m.

In the thick of nationwide attacks on LGBTQ+ books and programs, nonbinary parents are raising their children with fierce love and an unwavering commitment to open-mindedness. Courtesy of Jess & Andie Vanacore and Jay Brisette & Miguel

• Denny | [email protected]

Stories that will make you laugh, cry and question everything you thought you knew. Step into a portal where LGBTQ+ folks can live authentically, free from hate and where their contributions to art and culture are celebrated. Sign up for the QueerVerse newsletter today!

Milo’s first words were “Zaza.”

The one and a half-year-old is the daughter of two queer parents, Jess Vanacore and Andie Vanacore , based in Reno, Nev. Jess , a white, queer cis woman, and Andie , a Black nonbinary person, run The Queer Social Podcast , breaking down all things parenting, relationships, life and more.

Jess carried and birthed Milo in August 2022 , but their plan to become parents was formed much earlier in their 11-year relationship. Andie uses the title “Zaza” as an alternative to traditional parental names, while their nieces and nephews refer to them as “Nobi” (short for nonbinary).

Labels aside, what matters most to Jess and Andie is for Milo to lead her life with an open mind.

“We are a society that jumps to assumptions and conclusions without any space for somebody to tell you who they are; people just think they know who you are,” Jess said. “So, we give her the tools to be able to navigate in a way of non-judgment and non-assumption.”

This approach to parenting comes at a time when Drag Story Hour , a series where drag queens read children’s books to children, is under attack , and LGBTQ+ literature is being challenged and banned across the country .

While trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people are deemed to be a threat to children’s safety, how do nonbinary parents reconcile what it means to raise kids of their own?

The small moments

Jess and Andie are not only impressed at how their daughter Milo’s first word was “Zaza,” considering how challenging Zs can be for children to pronounce, but also that she learned Andie’s pronouns quickly.

“We play hide and seek, and she’ll go, ‘Where are they?’” referring to Andie, Jess said.

The Vanacores mostly experience stares of confusion and silent judgment from older people who they suspect to be conservatives in the small city Reno. They anticipate having to navigate more complex conversations around their family when Milo begins school.

For now, the highlights of raising Milo are simple: watching her dance with Zaza. Gender is very much in the background of their lives—even when Milo gets mistaken often for a young boy, and they are OK with that.

“What we want to teach Milo is to leave [gender] back there,” Andie said. “We don’t need to take on practices that don’t ultimately benefit the human.”

Breaking the binary

As a parent, Jay Brisette hopes their kid to be open to the infinite possibilities across all identities, including gender. Brisette, a Black, queer, nonbinary parent from Los Angeles, grew up with little room over their agency around exploring gender. Now raising their child with their partner Miguel, a Mexican trans person, their wish for their child’s understanding of the world is limitless and does not need to be bound within binaries.

“I want them to hear truths that people share with them about themselves and know that those truths, whether it’s about their gender or sexuality or whatever, are only parts of a whole,” Brisette said. “No one thing defines anyone and it’s in the intersections that we really get to know anyone, ourselves included.”

Nearly five years ago, the couple was featured in a Los Angeles Times article where despite California issuing gender-neutral markers as an option for birth certificates, the Social Security Administration stepped in and made a decision on behalf of the couple’s child anyway.

For Brisette, being nonbinary and therefore spending personal time thinking about their own gender in relation to the world has given them a solid base to pour confidence into their child. They note that a more imaginative perspective is not as easily afforded to cis people as it is for trans and nonbinary people.

“Anyone living inside of any socially accepted identity means that at least that one piece of you is affirmed all day, everyday by everything and everyone,” they explained. “It means you get to choose whether or not you think about that thing and it also means you get to turn your consideration of other possibilities on and off.”

Ultimately, parenting is still about meeting the child where they are, rather than expecting them to follow suit of parents’ perspectives—nonbinary or not.

Over in the Midwest, brand new parents are finding themselves in similar positions as they are freshly kicked into parenthood.

Living in Peru, Ind., Jordan and Emmitt are freshly new parents to a two-month-old son. Jordan, a drag queen who identifies as nonbinary, is married to their trans husband Emmitt. For safety purposes, Jordan and Emmitt requested to not disclose their last names.

“We’ve talked about gender as far as you [our son] having questions in the future or any confusion that he has, but it’s not even in the top 10 things that we had concerns about in bringing another person into this world and raising them,” Jordan said.

If anything, concerns have mostly come from people on the outside who worry about their son feeling confused. But that’s not a concern for Jordan and Emmitt, either. While it’s too early to know what conversations around gender with their newborn son will look like, Jordan tells Reckon that one philosophy is clear-cut: Jordan and Emmitt are his parents more than he is their child.

“We are here to support him, guide him and help him get to where he needs to be or learn what he needs to learn, instead of projecting anything and making him see, feel or like things the way we do.”

The challenge of repeated coming outs

Mac, a nonbinary parent based in San Diego, Calif., goes by “Mozzy.” Mac doesn’t have any trouble explaining their gender to their two kids—a three-year-old and a very recent newborn.

Still, they struggle with being assumed as the mother of their kids. And despite San Diego’s rich gay history , it also happens to be a military town, which Mac points out can bring about a surprising number of conservatives.

“I have to come out every time I meet a new parent, or even when I drop my son off at school, they’re always like, ‘Say bye to your mom,’ and I have trouble speaking up because I’m just so tired.”

As their son grows up, he is learning more about traditional gender roles from his friends, TV, and other external factors outside of his family of four, which brings up mixed feelings for Mac. They tell Reckon that sometimes they feel frustrated that their oldest child is going to get ideas from places outside of his parents’ control.

Considering their nonbinary identity is important to them, Mac finds themselves straddling between not compromising who they are, while meeting their son where he is regarding all things gender. The silver lining is that he’d rather be playing with his car toys rather than overcomplicate his love for his Mozzy.

“I try to probe him sometimes to see what he wants to know or what he does know, but he seems greatly uninterested, which feels refreshing to me.”

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Each week on the assignment, host audie cornish pulls listeners out of their digital echo chambers to hear from the people whose lives intersect with the news cycle. from the sex work economy to the battle over what’s taught in classrooms, no topic is off the table. listen to the assignment every monday and thursday..

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This week, the Supreme Court ruled that Idaho could temporarily enforce a law that would ban providing gender-affirming care to minors. That means doctors who administer puberty blocking-drugs, hormone therapy, and perform certain surgeries could face up to 10 years in prison. It’s the latest move to prevent doctors from providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth. With politicians passing anti-trans bills and hospitals and doctors facing vitriol and threat, is this care on the line for trans kids? In this episode from the early days of our podcast, Audie speaks with two gender-affirming care providers to discuss the negative attention they’ve faced and understand the lifesaving care at risk. 

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