Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 
Module 32 
Gender and Sex 
353
may believe that men are capable of having sex without being in love; consequently 
they may fi nd a man’s sexual infi delity less bothersome because it does not neces-
sarily mean that he is in love with someone else (DeSteno et al., 2002; Fernandez, 
Vera-Villarroel, & Sierra, 2007). 
Psychologists Alice Eagly and Wendy Wood criticize evolutionary explanations 
for gender differences on different grounds. In their biosocial approach , they argue that 
one important source of gender differences is the difference in the physical capabili-
ties of men and women. Consistently across cultures, the division of labor between 
men and women is based largely on men’s size, strength, and speed and women’s 
capacity for pregnancy and caring for children. However, the specifi c nature of activ-
ities in which men and women specialize varies from one culture to another, depend-
ing on the specifi cs of a culture (Wood & Eagly, 2002). 
The extent to which biological and evolutionary factors may underlie gender 
differences is an unanswered and highly controversial question. One thing is clear, 
however: Biological factors and evolutionary factors alone do not explain the com-
plete range of differences between male and female behavior. To fully understand 
the source of gender differences, we also must consider the social environment, 
which we will do next.
THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT 
From the moment of birth, with blue blankets for boys and pink ones for girls, most 
parents and other adults provide environments that differ in important respects 
according to gender. For example, boys and girls are given different kinds of toys, 
and—until protests recently brought the practice to an end—items in the largest toy 
store chain in the United States were laid out according to the gender appropriateness 
of particular toys (Bannon, 2000; Wood, Desmarais, & Gugula, 2002). 
Parents interact with their children differently, depending on their sex. Fathers 
play more roughly with their infant sons than with their infant daughters. Middle-
class mothers tend to talk more to their daughters than to their sons. It is clear that 
adults in general frequently treat children differently on the basis of gender (McHale, 
Crouter, & Tucker, 1999; Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2002). 
Such differences in behavior (and there are many more) produce different social-
ization experiences for men and women. Socialization is the process by which an 
individual learns the rules and norms of appropriate behavior. In this case, it refers 
to learning what society considers appropriate behavior for men and women. Accord-
ing to the processes of social learning theory, boys and girls are taught and rewarded 
for performing the socially perceived appropriate behaviors for men and for women, 
respectively (Archer & Lloyd, 2002; Liben & Bigler, 2002; 
Leaper & Friedman, 2007). 
It is not just parents, of course, who provide socializa-
tion experiences for children. Society as a whole commu-
nicates clear messages to children as they are growing up. 
Children’s reading books traditionally have portrayed 
girls in stereotypically nurturing roles, whereas boys have 
been given more physical and action-oriented roles. Tele-
vision, too, acts as a particularly infl uential source of 
socialization. Men outnumber women on television, and 
women are often cast in such stereotypical roles as house-
wife, secretary, and mother. The potency of television as 
an agent of socialization is underscored by data indicating 
that the more television children watch, the more sexist 
they become (Turkel, 2002; Ogletree, Martinez, & Turner, 
2004; Abelman, 2007 Dill & Thill, 2007). 
Our educational system also treats boys and girls dif-
ferently. For example, in elementary school, boys are fi ve