Gender Stereotypes and Psychology
| By FEM - May 23rd, 2006 at 11:44 pm EDT |
I wrote a proposal for a psychology experiment that I am conducting as part of a psychology research methods course. For this proposal, I had to cite specific examples of previous research that had been conducted on women and men and their prescribed gender roles. There has been much research concerning female gender roles in the field of social psychology and most of it blatantly oppressive. There has also been much research conducted concerning men, and that research is just as blatantly sexist as well. The research is based on the assumptions and generalizations about the male and female genders that are widely known to society as "natural." Science doesn't leave very much room for feminists and other social theorists to contemplate the validity of these statements and conclusions and be taken seriously.
As a psychology student, I am a scientist and I always have been. As a feminist, I continuously theorize about gender. The chasm between social and physical sciences as resulted in failure to cooperate on projects like the one I am conducting. Psychological papers that disprove our general knowledge about how gender roles operate aren't welcomed with opened arms into the realm of science. In fact, there was only one book that supported my notion that women are not necessarily all emotionally unstable, irrational freaks. Agneta H. Fischer's "Gender and Emotion: Social Psychological Perspectives" was my only salvation, the only written work that made my proposal seem the least bit valid.
Fischer writes, "What are the reasons for the persistence of this dichotomy between emotional women and unemotional men? In this book the authors address this in an effort to disentangle the century-old, always fascinating, and often complex relationship between gender and emotions."
Why was this book so difficult for me to find? Why are feminist professionals not conducting more research on gender roles? And if they are, why aren't these works used to disprove our patriarchal judgment of women?
JW
As a psychology student, I am a scientist and I always have been. As a feminist, I continuously theorize about gender. The chasm between social and physical sciences as resulted in failure to cooperate on projects like the one I am conducting. Psychological papers that disprove our general knowledge about how gender roles operate aren't welcomed with opened arms into the realm of science. In fact, there was only one book that supported my notion that women are not necessarily all emotionally unstable, irrational freaks. Agneta H. Fischer's "Gender and Emotion: Social Psychological Perspectives" was my only salvation, the only written work that made my proposal seem the least bit valid.
Fischer writes, "What are the reasons for the persistence of this dichotomy between emotional women and unemotional men? In this book the authors address this in an effort to disentangle the century-old, always fascinating, and often complex relationship between gender and emotions."
Why was this book so difficult for me to find? Why are feminist professionals not conducting more research on gender roles? And if they are, why aren't these works used to disprove our patriarchal judgment of women?
JW
!
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...Wouldn't we have changed the societal messages already?
Think about it. I assume that those women who are emotionally unpredictable don't like being that way. So they'd have a hand in changing the messages.
And as any poor husband or boyfriend who's been the brunt of his girlfriend's wrath due to her mood swings (Hint: that's pretty much every man over age 14 on the planet) can tell you, we don't exactly find women's moodswings to be terribly fun either.
So if nobody enjoys the fact that women have often-shifting moods, why would we not have changed the cultural norms for our collective benefit?
I honestly don't know enough about the nature vs nurture side of this argument to lay out a large variety of evidence - I'm just talking about what passes the 'smell test' and what doesn't.
From my own personal experience, my girlfriend maintains that sometimes women feel a rush of emotions that is physically beyond their control.
When asked if simply changing cultural messages to girls would make women less prone to moodswings on average, she replied, "How about I inject you with estrogen in your sleep and see how you like it!? See if you can be so calm and in control of your feelings then! You insensitive bastard."
Ah, women!