Editing Gender role (section)

==Major theorists==
===Talcott Parsons===
Working in the [[United States]] in 1955, [[Talcott Parsons]]<ref>[http://www.arte-tv.com Franco-German TV Station ARTE], Karambolage, August 2004.</ref> developed a model of the [[nuclear family]], which at that place and time was the prevalent family structure. The model compared a traditional contemporaneous view of gender roles with a more liberal view. The Parsons model was used to contrast and illustrate extreme positions on gender roles, i.e., gender roles described in the sense of Max Weber's [[ideal type]]s (an exaggerated and simplified version of a phenomenon, used for analytical purposes) rather than how they appear in reality.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=West |first1=Candace |last2=Zimmerman |first2=Don H. |date=1987 |title=Doing Gender |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/189945 |journal=Gender and Society |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=125–151 |doi=10.1177/0891243287001002002 |jstor=189945 |issn=0891-2432}}</ref> Model A described a total separation of male and female roles, while Model B described the complete dissolution of gender roles.<ref>Brockhaus: Enzyklopädie der Psychologie, 2001.</ref>
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible" border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse;"
|
! Model A – Total role segregation !! Model B – Total integration of roles
|-
! [[Education]]
| Gender-specific education; high professional qualification is important only for the man.
| Co-educative schools, same content of classes for girls and boys, same qualification for men and women.
|-
! [[Profession]]
| The workplace is not the primary area of women; career and professional advancement is deemed unimportant for women.
| For women, career is just as important as for men; equal professional opportunities for men and women are necessary.
|-
! Housework
| Housekeeping and child care are the primary functions of the woman; participation of the man in these functions is only partially wanted.
| All housework is done by both parties to the marriage in equal shares.
|-
! [[Decision making]]
| In case of conflict, man has the last say, for example in choosing the place to live, choice of school for children, and buying decisions.
| Neither partner dominates; solutions do not always follow the principle of finding a concerted decision; [[status quo]] is maintained if disagreement occurs.
|-
! Child care and education
| Woman takes care of the largest part of these functions; she educates children and cares for them in every way.
| Man and woman share these functions equally.
|}

The model is consciously a simplification; individuals' actual behavior usually lies somewhere between these poles. According to the [[interactionist]] approach, gender roles are not fixed but are constantly renegotiated between individuals.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ieet.org/archive/IEET-03-PostGender.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://ieet.org/archive/IEET-03-PostGender.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live |title=Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary |last=Dvorsky |first=George |date=2008 |work=ieet.org |access-date=3 May 2019}}</ref>

===Geert Hofstede===
[[File:Landsdowne Herakles.jpg|thumb|upright|In Greek mythology, [[Heracles]] is synonymous with [[Apollonian]] masculinity.]]
[[Geert Hofstede]], a Dutch researcher and social psychologist who dedicated himself to the study of culture, sees culture as "broad patterns of thinking, feeling and acting" in a society<ref>Hoststede, Geert. 1998. Masculinity and Femininity: The Taboo Dimension of National Cultures. p. 5</ref> In Hofstede's view, most human cultures can themselves be classified as either masculine or feminine.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hofstede |first=G. |date=1980 |title=Culture's consequences: international differences in work-related values |location=Beverly Hills, CA |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]]}}</ref>{{pn|date=February 2025}} Masculine culture clearly distinguishes between gender roles, directing men to "be assertive, tough, and focused on material success," and women to "be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life."<ref name="Hof 2001" /> Feminine cultures tolerate overlapping gender roles, and instruct that "both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life."<ref name="Hof 2001">Hofstede (2001), Culture's Consequences, 2nd ed. p. 297.</ref>

Hofstede's ''Feminine and Masculine Culture Dimensions'' states:<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hofstede |first1=G. |year=1986 |title=Cultural differences in teaching and learning |journal=International Journal of Intercultural Relations |volume=10 |issue=3 |page=308 |doi=10.1016/0147-1767(86)90015-5}}</ref>

<blockquote>Masculine cultures expect men to be assertive, ambitious and competitive, to strive for material success, and to respect whatever is big, strong, and fast. Masculine cultures expect women to serve and care for the non-material quality of life, for children and for the weak. Feminine cultures, on the other hand, define relatively overlapping social roles for the sexes, in which, in particular, men need not be ambitious or competitive but may go for a different quality of life than material success; men may respect whatever is small, weak, and slow.</blockquote>

In feminine cultures, modesty and relationships are important characteristics.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hofstede|first=Geert|year=2002|title=Consensus Societies with Their Own Character: National Cultures in Japan and the Netherlands.|journal=Comparative Sociology|volume=1|pages=1–16|doi=10.1163/156913202317346728}}</ref> This differs from masculine cultures, where self-enhancement leads to self-esteem. Masculine cultures are individualistic and feminine cultures are more collective because of the significance of personal relationships.

'The dominant values in a masculine society are achievement and success; the dominant values in a feminine society are caring for others and quality of life'.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hofstede|first1=Geert|last2=de Mooij|first2=Marickc|title=The Hofstede model Applications to global branding and advertising strategy and research|journal=International Journal of Advertising|date=2010|volume=29|issue=1|page=89|doi=10.2501/S026504870920104X|s2cid=17561016}}</ref>

===John Money===
"In the 1950s, [[John Money]] and his colleagues took up the study of [[intersex]] individuals, who, Money realized, 'would provide invaluable material for the comparative study for bodily form and physiology, rearing, and [[psychosexual]] orientation'."<ref name="Fausto-Sterling-2008">{{cite book |last=Fausto-Sterling |first=Anne |author-link=Anne Fausto-Sterling |title=Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-976qhsz7A4C&pg=PA46 |date=4 August 2008 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7867-2433-8 |page=46 |oclc=818855499 |orig-date=1st pub. 2000}}</ref> "Money and his colleagues used their own studies to state in the extreme what these days seems extraordinary for its complete denial of the notion of natural inclination."<ref name="Fausto-Sterling-2008" />

They concluded that [[gonads]], [[hormones]], and [[chromosomes]] did not automatically determine a child's gender role.<ref name="Fausto-Sterling, Anne 2000">Fausto-Sterling, Anne (2000). Sexing the body: gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books. {{ISBN|0-465-07714-5}}.</ref> Among the many terms Money coined was ''gender role,'' which he defined in a seminal 1955 paper as "all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman."<ref name="Basic-Concepts">{{cite journal |last1=Money |first1=John |author-link1=John Money |last2=Hampson |first2=Joan G |last3=Hampson |first3=John |date=October 1955 |title=An Examination of Some Basic Sexual Concepts: The Evidence of Human Hermaphroditism |journal=Bull. Johns Hopkins Hosp. |volume=97 |issue=4 |pages=301–19 |quote=By the term, gender role, we mean all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not restricted to sexuality in the sense of eroticism. Gender role is appraised in relation to the following: general mannerisms, deportment and demeanor, play preferences and recreational interests; spontaneous topics of talk in unprompted conversation and casual comment; content of dreams, daydreams, and fantasies; replies to oblique inquiries and projective tests; evidence of erotic practices and, finally, the person's own replies to direct inquiry. |pmid=13260820}}</ref>

In recent years, the majority of Money's theories regarding the importance of socialization in the determination of gender have come under intense criticism, especially in connection with the inaccurate reporting of success in the "John/Joan" case, later revealed to be [[David Reimer]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Colapinto |first=John |author-link=John Colapinto |title=The True Story of John/Joan |work=The Rolling Stone |date=11 December 1997 |pages=54–97 |url=https://www.healthyplace.com/gender/inside-intersexuality/the-true-story-of-john-joan}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Colapinto |first=J. |date=2000 |title=[[As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl]] |location=New York |publisher=[[HarperCollins]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Diamond |first1=M. |last2=Sigmundson |first2=H. K. |year=1997 |title=Sex reassignment at birth: Long-term review and clinical implications |journal=Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine |volume=151 |issue=3 |pages=298–304 |doi=10.1001/archpedi.1997.02170400084015 |pmid=9080940}}</ref>

=== West and Zimmerman ===
{{Further|Doing Gender}}Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman developed an interactionist perspective on gender beyond its construction of "roles."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Macht |first=Alexandra |date=25 September 2019 |title=Doing Gender |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199756384/obo-9780199756384-0229.xml |access-date=30 March 2024 |website=Oxford Bibliographies Online |language=en}}</ref> For them, gender is "the product of social doings of some sort undertaken by men and women whose competence as members of society is hostage to its production."<ref name="West+Zimmerman-1987">{{Cite journal |last1=West |first1=Candace |last2=Zimmerman |first2=Don H. |date=June 1987 |title=Doing Gender |journal=[[Gender and Society]] |volume=1 |issue=2 |page=129 |doi=10.1177/0891243287001002002 |s2cid=220519301}}</ref> This approach is described by Elisabeth K. Kelan as an "ethnomethodological approach" which analyzes "micro interactions to reveal how the objective and given nature of the world is accomplished," suggesting that gender does not exist until it is empirically perceived and performed through interactions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kelan |first1=Elisabeth K. |title=Gender Logic and (Un)doing Gender at Work |journal=Gender, Work and Organization |date=March 2010 |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=178–179 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0432.2009.00459.x}}</ref> West and Zimmerman argued that the use of "role" to describe gender expectations conceals the production of gender through everyday activities. Furthermore, they stated that roles are situated identities, such as "nurse" and "student," which are developed as the situation demands, while gender is a master identity with no specific site or organizational context. For them, "conceptualizing gender as a role makes it difficult to assess its influence on other roles and reduces its explanatory usefulness in discussions of power and inequality."<ref name="West+Zimmerman-1987" /> West and Zimmerman consider gender an individual production that reflects and constructs interactional and institutional gender expectations.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hirst |first1=Alison |last2=Schwabenland |first2=Christina |date=2018 |title=Doing gender in the 'new office' |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.12200 |journal=Gender, Work & Organization |language=en |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=159–176 |doi=10.1111/gwao.12200 |issn=0968-6673 |hdl=10547/622118 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>