The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Methods and History of Gender Research 47

not throw the bouquet to the entire crowd,

only to eligible women; likewise, the groom

throws the garter to eligible men. This is an

occasion that may make differences in the

behavior of women and men more likely to

appear.

There also may be specific situational

pressures to behave in accordance with or in

opposition to one’s gender role. Being raised

in a traditional family, I have often found

myself behaving in ways more consistent

with the female gender role when I am with

my family than when I am at home. When

I was growing up, it was customary during

large family gatherings for women to tend to

the dishes and men to tend to football. Did I

help with the dishes? Of course. It would be

rude not to. Besides, I don’t really like foot-

ball. Would my dad help with the dishes?

Probably not. He likes football and would be

chased out of the kitchen.

There may be other situations in which

behaving in opposition to gender roles is at-

tractive. I remember the first time I went

to look for a car by myself. The salesperson

guided me to the cars with automatic trans-

missions and made some remark about

women not being able to drive cars with a

manual transmission. The worst part was he

was right; I had tried and could not drive a

stick shift. But that incident inspired me. I was

determined to learn to drive a stick shift and

to buy a car with a manual transmission—to

do my part in disconfirming the stereotype.

To this day, I continue to drive a car with a

manual transmission (despite such cars’ in-

creasingly limited availability) because of that

salesperson’s remark. In this case, the situation

made gender roles salient, but the effect was to

create behavior inconsistent with gender roles.

The situational forces that shape behav-

ior are a dominant theme in this book. We

cannot study gender outside of the context in

characteristics of the people, including their

sex. Other situations low in behavioral con-

straints would allow the opportunity for men

and women to display different behaviors;

informal social gatherings are an example of

such a situation.

Certain situations make gender espe-

cially salient. As shown in Figure 2.5, a het-

erosexual wedding is such a situation.

Traditions make sex salient. Here, the

norms for men’s and women’s attire are very

different; no one expects men and women

to dress the same at a wedding. The dress is

formal; it would be highly unusual for a man

to attend a wedding in a dress or a woman to

attend a wedding in a tuxedo. The bride does

FIGURE 2.5 Wedding picture, illustrating a

situation with high behavioral constraints and

a situation in which gender and gender-based

norms are salient.

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