Cross cultural understanding: a handbook to understand others’ cultures

CHAPTER VIII 
MALE-FEMALE RELATIONSHIP 
 
People‘s ideas about appropriate behavior for men and 
women are deeply-held, and having been planted within them 
from a very early age. People tend to believe strongly that their 
own ideas on the subject are correct and other ideas are wrong or 
somehow inferior. People‘s ideas about what is proper in male-
female relationship do not change easily. 
Foreign visitors usually find that American pattern in 
male-female relationship are different from the ones to which 
they are accustomed. If they become involved with members of 
the opposite sex, as lover or friend, they are likely to have strong, 
negative reactions. At very least, they will be confused and 
unsettled. 
Besides this strongly-held ideas about what is and is not 
acceptable, there is another obstacle in understanding men-female 
relationship namely stereotype. People‘s stereotype about gender 
might become a great barrier in understanding male-female 
relationship.