Bem and Androgyny: Origin, theories, discussions, equality

[Kendall]

Looking into the past at work already done covering androyny and androgynous research, I am mainly starting at the beginning of modern androgyny. Dr. Sandra Lipsitz Bem is the name to look at. Zhi is the one that started beginning analyzing and researching androgyny. Although more clear cut back then in the early 70s, modern research still shows a rift between male and female psychology, behavior, and characteristics.

I was impressed by what information and facts have been discovered already. Reading some of the hard data from the research, proves some things I had not even thought about yet.

All modern androgyny research will refer back to Bem and hir original theories and tests. Certainly women have made great strides in becoming more equal since back then, and more able to reveal the masculine within them. By far, men havent had such strides. More of they are still stuck in the same gender roles, or only minimum amount of change. Non polar gender behavior does remain important, and many of the information gained from the research is still applicable today.

You can read hir papers from Cornell University's Department of Psychology faculty page zhi has. Like the first paper I read was the 1973 paper http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/sec/pubPeople/slb6/sex-biased%20job%20advertising.pdf which phenomenally shows the power language using gender vocabulary had, and still has on the job market. Although now days you wont find much of those discriminating jobs. Its also great to see how far the US's social gender structure and norms have changed. And you can compare the advertising wording to modern job posts, which are clearly different and more androgynous.

And one can find such discrimination in less civilized countries around the world even today.

[Wendy]

K/K,

Actually men can do a lot of female roles and it is accepted.  Cooking food is traditionally a female role yet some of the best cooks are male.

There are some differences that are very real between men and women.  First men on average have 50% more muscle than women.  I am sure many women would be better auto mechanics than many men, however, when working on machinery strength is frequently useful.  If you ever tried to remove a rusty lugnut from a tire you will understand.

Also some jobs require patience.  T works to build muscle but E tends to make a person calmer.  Women tend to be more patient than men and do a better job in general taking care of children.  Day care centers  have many more men than women.  It does not mean men can not take care of children but women tend to be more patient.

Recently I have have seen several males in receptionist roles.  Frankly they are extremely competent.

I have also seen females in senior management roles.  I have noticed some of these women have little compassion and try to assert their power.  Others have more patience than their male counterparts and do an extremely competent job.

I have seen an increase in the blending of gender roles in the past 30 years.

W

[Louise]

When I was in college in the 60's I worked for a law firm.  All of the lawyers in the firm were male, and all of the secretaries were female--with one exception--there was one male secretary.  I am sure that by now this firm has many more female lawyers, but I wonder if they have very many more male secretaries.  In some ways gender roles in employment are much more open than they were forty years ago, but in other ways there is still a gender gap in certain occupations.  I wonder how much this is due to the natural differences between average men and average women and how much it is still the result of social stereotypes.

In my ethics class I use a version of Sandra Bem's androgyny scale when we discuss the issues in feminist ethics.  While I do not require students to report their results, many report some degree of androgyny.  I always share my results with the class--I fall in the androgynous group.  Using her androgyny scale is a good starting point for discussions of gender stereotypes.

[Kendall]

Certainly there will be jobs that attract more of one gender over another. As you mentioned, biology creates a rift naturally.

In fact in Bem's latest paper (http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/sec/pubPeople/slb6/Dismantling.pdf), zhi mentions that in order to overcome, interupt, and break the current social sex polarizations and compulsory heterosexuality (written in 1995) one needs to sever all the cultural constructs of what sex a person is to almost every part of the human experience. Meaning that the distinctions between male, female, intergender, and all the genders are no longer dimensions that the culture is organized.

The more practical method to achieve this is set forth in the paper to , in that rather then trying to minimize and lessen gender differences, one should try to emphasize, magnify, and elaborate the gender varieties and individual differences. Magnify that gender isnt just one or two , or even three types, but rather thousands of individual and unique variations.

And the first major problem to overcome is biology. In that first the realization that sex itself comes in different hormone levels, different anatomy sizes, different chromosome variations, and a variety of genital variations. And that any variation should not be instantly corrected, hidden, and changed to "fit in", because doing so just emphasizes the false separation that uses the sexual basis as a social construct for much of cultural roles, norms, limits, rules, issues, positions, and discriminations.

Until science makes sex a more easy to correct to true gender (not just 2), until sex birth variations are not instantly corrected, and others realize that sex has variations, as well as gender and orientations, will a great number of the population of masses be able to reap the benefit of allowing themselves to enjoy the human experience without gender limits. when a person wanting the attributes (such as more physical strength, or calm hormones to care for children more) can receive or develop that biology. And the limits of biology can be broken.

Magnify gender, sexual, and orientation variations is the first key. Which can be accomplished by logic, examples, sharing experiences, using medical facts and statistics, and sharing one's own experiences and beliefs.
Just found this chart that shows gender today.


When thinking about the strides women have made I think the feminist group is one of the reasons why such progress has been made. Is there a Masculinist group(a group that promotes equal gender expression, opportunities, rights, and roles for bio born males wanting more traditional feminine behavior, characteristics, and traits) ? The men that I know have to go along and join the feminism.