Gender Roles In this section, we continue to pick apart ideas about how sexual/affectional orientation relate and interact with gender. We’ve been talking about sex, which is whether someone is physically male or female. Let’s define gender role as: –a person’s conformity with a society’s rules about what a male or female is “supposed to be or act like” –These rules are known as gender norms.

Gender Roles Let’s also define two more terms: –Gender identity: a person’s fundamental sense of belonging to one sex And –Sex-typed behavior: observable behaviors typically studied and associated with gender role and identity (affiliation for same vs. opposite sex peers, interest in rough and tumble play, fantasy roles, toy interests, and dress-up play)

Gender Roles: Questions Do heterosexuals automatically assume gender roles (males take male roles and females take female roles)? Do gay men assume female gender roles and lesbians male gender roles? Do boys who play with dolls and “tomboy” girls grow up to be gay and lesbian? What about bi folks? And why the hell does cross-gender behavior upset people so much? Which reminds me…

What does the Research Say? The article by Bailey & Zucker (1995) reviews many different studies about sex-typed behavior and sexual orientation, and analyzes them. It looks at two types of studies: –Prospective studies look at children and wonder how they’ll “turn out” –Retrospective studies look at adults and have them recall their childhoods

Prospective Studies Most studied male children who already displayed significant cross-gender behaviors 63-80% of them turned out to be gay or bi in adolescence or young adulthood

Prospective Studies While this seems to show a strong correllation, keep in mind that: –The studies did not involve girls –The samples were drawn from kids already at clinics, and therefore may represent kids who show more extreme cross-gender behavior to begin with –They’re freakin’ expensive studies (due to having to follow around each child for years asking “are you gay yet?” every few weeks until adolescence-- at least!) so there aren’t very many of them.

Retrospective Studies Studies asking women and men, both straight and lesbian/gay, to recall their childhoods have found: –More atypical sex-typed behavior among gays and lesbians –With great consistency

Retrospective Studies However, there are some problems: –Sampling bias (nonrepresentative samples) –It’s not a “perfect correlation”--some gay men and lesbians don’t recall any cross-gender behaviors in childhood –Recall is not perfect! Memory distortion: Did I really have this experience in childhood, or might the memory be influenced by my internalizing of stereotypes? Selective recall: Am I more likely to remember my cross- gender experiences because I’m gay, or less because I’m straight? Childhood amnesia: Am I really able to remember?

What did the research look like? Bailey and Zucker analyzed 48 studies (41 published and 7 unpublished), most between 1960 and 1995 (Kinsey’s ) Sample sizes ranged from 34 to 8,751 (median=189) Culturally, most samples were drawn from Western industrialized countries (2 studies from Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, and the Phillipines)

So does being a tomboy mean I’m gonna be a lesbian or what? They found: –6% of girls who are tomboys (or display other types of cross-gender behavior) will become lesbians and –51% of boys who display atypical sex-type behavior will become gay –Cross-gender behavior is thus more predictive for boys than girls

And um, why? Biological explanation: –Neural structures that involve both sex and orientation are influenced prenatally by hormones –One neural structure involving sex is influenced prenatally by hormones, and then affects another structure involving orienation –Neither of these are validated. Psychosocial explanation: –Identification with opposite-sex parent/distant same-sex parent –Parental socialization--parents more tolerant (not validated, and doesn’t explain why cross-sex behavior relates to sexual orientation –Neither of these are validated. There are also other unvalidated ideas too. But I’m not listing them ‘cause I don’t want to. So there.

And what about… “Within-orientation differences”: Lesbians and gay men who didn’t have cross-gender behaviors in childhood? –Biology: One brain structure controls sex-type behavior and another controls orientation, or one structure for both develops each at different times. Again, not validated. So why am I teaching this stuff? –Biology may only account for children who displayed atypical sex-type behaviors and also became homosexual adults; other explanations may account for children with typical sex-type behaviors who become homosexual adults.

And bi the way… Okay, that’s an awful pun. Men becoming bi (or at least straight with gay interest) has some correlation with childhood sex-type behavior, and Women becoming bi involves less “childhood gender nonconformity” than women becoming lesbians. In studies, men with childhood atypical sex- type behavior may show lower self-esteem, higher rates of depression and anxiety, and higher suicidality. Why d’ya think?