Psychology2016

Sexuality and Gender 401

THINKING CRITICALLY

Can you think of examples of benevolent sexism in your own life?

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ANDROGYNY Psychologist Sandra Bem (1975, 1981) has developed the concept of androg-
yny to describe a characteristic of people whose personalities reflect the characteristics of
both males and females, regardless of gender. This allows them to be more flexible in every-
day behavior and career choices. People who fall into the gender-role stereotypes, according
to Bem, often find themselves limited in their choices for problem solving because of the ste-
reotype’s constraints on “proper” male or female behavior. An androgynous person, on the
other hand, can make a decision based on the situation rather than on being masculine or
feminine.
For example, let’s say that a man, through an unhappy circumstance, is left to raise
his three small children. If he is a male who has “bought into” the male stereotype, he has
no confidence in his ability to bring up these children by himself. He may rush into another
relationship with a woman just to provide his children with a “mother.” Similarly, a “tradi-
tional” female who is left without a husband might have difficulty in dealing with raising
sons and with a task as simple as mowing the lawn. Researchers have found that when tra-
ditional males, traditional females, and androgynous people are compared in terms of the
degree of depression they experience when their lives are filled with many negative events,
the androgynous people report less than half the depression exhibited by traditional men and
only a third of the depression felt by traditional women (Roos & Cohen, 1987). Figure 10. 2

Figure 10.2 Depression as Influenced by Negative Life Events
The bar graph shows that men who are masculine and women who are feminine in their gender roles expe-
rience a significant increase in depression when they are exposed to an increased number of negative life
events. The same is not true for people with an androgynous gender role. How might being androgynous
allow a person to be more adaptable?

Interactive

androgyny

characteristic of possessing the most

positive personality characteristics

of males and females regardless

of actual seZ.

Actress Tilda Swinton has had a life-long

interest in the concept of androgyny, and

typically is seen dressed in an androgynous

style.