Gender Roles

PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology: Annotated Bibliography 1

Paek, H., Nelsion, M.R., & Vilela, A.M. Examination of gender-role portrayals in television advertising across seven countries. Sex Roles, 64, 192-207. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9850-y

The authors of the article have extensively researched gender roles on a cultural, country-wise, and practical level for the selected countries and their advertising strategies. The prime time TV commercials for seven countries were chosen in which China and the United States were also included. In China, it was revealed that very few female models in the advertisements are portrayed as homemakers, and this image was changed from strict role classification under Confucianism to less stringent female-gendered role under Communist reign. In contrast, United States advertisements have shown women as more homemakers, and the high masculinity factor has been associated with men’s role. In contrast, women are more of the product users only.

Gupta, T., Way, N., Hughes, D., Jia, Y., Chen, X., McGill, R.K., Santos, C., Yoshikawa, H. & Deng, H. (2013). Gender-typed behaviors in friendships and well-being: A cross-cultural study of Chinese and American boys. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 23(1), 57-68. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2012.00824.x

The social and psychological adjustments must be made when conformations to gender-typed roles become mandatory, especially in friendships. The authors of the selected article have investigated that boys in the United States having high depressive symptoms had stronger associations with a gender-typed role in their friendships and their quality. In China and the United States, if the depression is high, self-esteem is low, and the friendship quality for both gendered roles and their respective adherence is low. As the study was conducted among middle school students, the masculine and feminine cultural ideologies in both cultures depended on feeling confident inside, which was less evident in men if they had depression, directly influencing their friendship adherence.

Koenig, L.R., Blum, R.W., Shervington, D., Green, J., Li, M., Tabana, H., & Moreau, C. (2021). Unequal gender norms are related to symptoms of depression among young adolescents: A cross-sectional, cross-cultural study. Journal of Adolescent Health, 69, S47-S55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.01.023

The authors of this study explored that girls and boys had different depressive symptoms in different world areas with relevance to their gendered roles in their societies. Adolescent boys and girls from China and Ecuador (South America) are of special concern since their cultures are different. It was observed that gender role inequality caused more depressive symptoms for boys and girls in all regions, including China and South America, and that gender perceptions pushed them more at the brink of depression risk. Girls exhibited more disturbing psychological health signs in depression in China, South America, and other regions, except Denpasar.

Mmari, K., Blum, R.W., Atnafou, R., Chilet, E., Meyer, S., El-Gibaly, O., Basu, S., Bello, B., Maina, B. & Zuo, X. (2017). Exploration of gender norms and socialization among early adolescents: The use of qualitative methods for the global early adolescent study. Journal of Adolescent Health, 61, S12-S18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.07.006

The researchers of this selected article scrutinized the Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS) initiated in 2014. A collaboration of universities and educational institutes from 15 cities, including China and the United States, was utilized to incorporate an in-depth interviews method for data collection. The results showed that the effectiveness of certain methods for obtaining data from adolescents on issues that were hard for them to talk about based on their gender in their respective cultures should be known to the researchers. The responses and topic areas should be developed carefully so that elicit responses for their romantic relationships, for example, could be studied in depth concerning the question of gender and its corresponding roles.

Hare-Mustin, R.T. (1988). Family change and gender differences: Implications for theory and practice. Family Relations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies, 37(1), 36-41. https://doi.org/10.2307/584427

The article discusses the main gender roles of father and mother in a family and raising the children together. Traditional families were meant to be run on the set segmentation by age, work assigned to specific genders, and the inherent nature of the gender for its suitability for the tasks to be performed in a family. However, in modern societies, industrialization and more need of work for the families have changed this notion conveniently as a wife can also now earn money outside the house, and parenting is an equal job for the father as it is for the mother. Particularly for women in China and the United States, hard work is associated with women’s gendered role even though both cultures have presented women alongside gender equality and negating gender discrimination in workplaces. It is still observed that women are paid lesser than men, which is a conspicuous portrayal of gender inequality and the gendered cultural roles for both.