The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Introduction 11

gender culture, which reflects “society’s un-

derstanding of what is possible, proper, and

perverse in gender-linked behavior” (p. 2). In

other words, each society generates its own

standards for gender-linked behavior.

Because the majority of research that

has been conducted and examined in this

book interprets gender—the roles of women

and men in society—in similar terms, it might

be interesting to step outside our cultural

view and consider how gender is construed in

a few different cultures around the world.

Cultures with Multiple Genders

One assumption about gender shared by many

cultures is that there are only two of them:

male and female. Did it ever occur to you that

there could be more than two genders? In

several Native American cultures, there are

four genders. One example of multiple gen-

ders among Native Americans is theBerdache

(Tafoya, 2007; Williams, 1993). Berdache is a

term that was institutionalized among the La-

kota Indians, who currently reside in South

Dakota (Medicine, 2002). The male Berdache

and female Berdache are third and fourth gen-

ders. Of the two, the male Berdache is much

more common. The male Berdache is biologi-

cally male but takes on characteristics of both

women and men in appearance and manner.

These are men who prefer not to be warriors

but to take care of children and make cloth-

ing. Historically, the Berdache was highly re-

spected and viewed as sacred. The Berdache

was believed to be endowed with spiritual

powers and had the highest status among the

genders. Today, however, the status and re-

spect ascribed to the Berdache have waned.

Although Berdache is a social identity rather

than a sexual orientation, non-Natives infer

sexual orientation from the role. This is the

result of Western culture imposing its rigid

DO GENDER 1.2

Defining a Feminist

Ask 10 women and 10 men to describe the

first things that come to mind when they

think of the termfeminist. This will tell

you a couple of things: First, you will learn

whether people view the term favorably

or unfavorably; second, you will learn the

content of this category. Construct a fre-

quency distribution of the features listed.

The features most often listed by these

people are those central to the feminist

category; the features listed least are often

peripheral to the category and probably

more reflective of that particular individ-

ual. What percentage of features is nega-

tive versus positive? Do men or women

view a feminist in more positive or nega-

tive terms? To address this question, cal-

culate the number of positive and negative

features identified by the group of men

and the group of women.

Ask these same 20 people two

more questions. Ask whether they be-

lieve women and men should be treated

equally, the defining feature of a feminist.

You could ask people to respond on a five-

point scale: 1 = Definitely not, 2 = Prob-

ably not, 3 = Unsure, 4 = Probably should,

5 = Definitely should. Then ask whether

each person is a feminist. Do answers to

these two questions correspond?

Cultural Differences in the Construal of Gender

I have defined the terminology used in the psy-

chology of gender. All these terms, however,

are construed at least somewhat differently

by people of different ethnic backgrounds in

the United States and by people from other

cultures. Ramet (1996) proposes the idea of a

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