Gender, Culture, and Media

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Gender, Culture, and Media

• Media reflect cultural values
• Nearly all Americans (98.3) own a tv.
• Well over half own VCRs.
• 60.2 subscribed to cable.
• 89 to 94 of the American population watch tv on
  any given day.

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• Other media includes billboards, magazines,
  radios, newspapers, books.
• In 1991, Playboy, had 3,488,006 subscribers while
  Newsweek had 3,211,958

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Themes in Media

• Underrepresentation of women.
• Stereotyped presentation of men and women.
• Men are portrayed as aggressive, dominant, and
  engaged in exciting activities.
• Media have created 2 images of women good women
  and bad ones.

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• Stereotypical images of relationships between men
  and women.
• Womens dependence/Mens independence
• Mens authority/womens incompetence
• Women as primary caregivers/men as caretakers.
• Women as victims and sex objects/men as
  aggressors.

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Implications of Media Representation of gender

• Fostering unrealistic and limited gender ideals.
  Images of men and women are unrealistic.
• Research suggests that the unrealistic ideals in
  popular media do influence how we feel about
  ourselves and our relationships.

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• For adolescents, radio is a major influence, with
  the average listening time being 5 hours/day.
• Readers of self-help books experienced more than
  typical amounts of frustration and disappointment
  when their relationships failed to meet the
  ideals promoted by media.

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Gender comparisons in social and personality

• Social constructionist explanation
• We construct or invent our own versions of
  reality, based on prior experiences in our
  culture.
• Everyday we construct what it means to be male
  and female.

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Factors influencing social/ personality gender
difference

• Gender differences are largest when behavior is
  measured in terms of self-report. (women are more
  likely than men to report nurturance)
• Gender differences are largest when other people
  are present (women react () when others are
  nearby)

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• Gender differences are largest when gender is
  prominent and other shared roles are minimized.
  In a singles bar, gender is emphasized.
• Gender differences are largest when the behavior
  requires specific gender-related skills. Men
  might be especially likely to offer to change a
  tire.

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Communication patterns

• Verbal communication
• Talkativeness Males are typically more
  talkative, based on data gathered in elementary
  classrooms, college classrooms, and college
  students conversations.
• In the study by Spender (1989) of faculty
  conversations, men spoke 58 to 75 of the time.

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• Language style Men use more slang.
• In conversations with men, women use disclaimers
  or tag questions.
• The most popular topics for both men and women
  were work and money.
• Women talked about men about 4 times as much as
  men talked about women.
• Men were more likely to talk about hobbies.

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Percentage of time females/ males discussed 5
topics.
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Non-verbal communication

• Personal space
• Invisible border around each person that other
  people must not invade during ordinary social
  interactions.
• Females approach closer to others than males do.
• People are especially likely to approach closely
  to females rather than males.

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• Body posture
• Women look more tense men appear more relaxed.
• Men and women walk differently.

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• Touch
• 2 women touch more than 2 men.
• Mixed dyads showed Hall Veccia (1990) no
  overall differences but in older couples, women
  touched men more and in younger couples, men
  touched women more.
• Hall (1996) found no overall gender differences
  among professionals (psychology/philosophy)
  however if of equal status, male touch more.

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• Gaze
• Females gaze more at their conversational
  partners.
• People gaze more at females than males.

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• Facial expressions
• Women smile more than men.
• The smiles of women are due to social tension

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• Decoding ability
• The ability to figure out from another persons
  nonverbal behavior, what that person is feeling.
• Women are more likely than men to decode
  nonverbal expressions from facial expression.
• This is evident as early as elementary school.
• This is true cross-culturally.

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• Decoding from vocal cues
• Women more accurate at decoding voices that
  expressed fear, happiness, and sadness.
• There was no gender difference for anger.

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• Potential explanations for gender differences in
  communication
• Power and social status Gender differences in
  the area of communication is due to power and
  status.
• Social learning Gender differences are due to
  roles, expectations, and socialization
  experiences. Children are then reinforced for
  using the appropriate gender response.

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Characteristics related to helping and caring.

• Altruism
• Providing unselfish help to others who are in
  need without anticipating any reward.
• Some studies show men morel likely than women to
  offer unsolicited help.
• When someone asked for help there were no gender
  differences.
• Gender differences depend on the nature of the
  task and the nature of the request.

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• Nurturance
• the kind of helping in which someone gives care
  to another person.
• Women describe themselves as more nurturing but
  are equally responsive to the needs of others
  (especially babies)
• The social situation (whether alone or in public)
  influences displays of nurture. In public,
  people act according to the socially constructed
  ideal women get excited, men yawn.

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• Empathy
• Empathy is feeling the same emotion as another
  person.
• Gender differences when based on self-report
  women more empathic than men.

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• Moral judgments
• Kohlbergs theory
• Gilligans theory 2 approaches to moral decision
  making.
• Justice perspective
• Care perspective
• Clopton and Sorell (1993) found no gender
  differences

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• Friendship
• Gender similarities when assessing what friends
  do when they get together. Both are likely to
  just talk
• Self-disclosure revealing information about
  yourself to someone else.
• Women value self-disclosure somewhat more than
  men.
• Cross-racial friendships are rare.

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• Aggression and power
• Aggression is a male characteristic.
• Lepowsky (1998) reports on aggression in an
  egalitarian culture. In a culture that
  discourages aggression, gender differences may
  disappear.
• Harris (1994) on gangs, reports on a subculture
  that admires aggression, do not show gender
  differences.

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• Research on aggression shows
• Gender differences are relatively large in
  children.
• Gender differences are large for physical
  aggression.
• Women are capable of violence and it has been
  rising over the years.

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• Gender differences are large when based on
  self-report.
• Gender differences are small when aggression is
  provoked.
• Gender differences are small when the perpetrator
  or victim of aggression is anonymous.

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• Disadvantages of the myth of the non-aggressive
  female
• Women see themselves as weak.
• Women may be denied access to professions that
  value competition.
• Aggressive men may be seen as normal
• A double-standard for punishment in the criminal
  system.

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• Assertiveness
• The ability to stand up for ones rights.
• No gender differences.
• Leadership
• Males emerge as leaders
• Characteristics of female leaders
• High in achievement style
• No discomfort in using power

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• Performance as leaders
• In laboratory research, men are more concerned
  about getting the job done women are more
  concerned about the feelings of others. When
  analyze people employed as leaders, gender
  similarities.
• Leadership style
• Democratic allow others to have input
• Autocratic decision made by leader
• Gender differences were small but women more
  democratic and men more autocratic.

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• Males and females are equally effective.
• Persuasion
• Men most persuaded by women when women used
  tentative language and not persuaded by women who
  used assertive language.
• Women were persuaded by another woman using
  assertive language.
• A male audience was significantly more influenced
  by a man who used a competent style(rapid speech,
  upright posture, calm hand gestures)

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• rather than a women who used a competent style.
• A competent women finds herself in a bind.
• Influencibility
• No gender differences.