Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Psychology paper 3
- Issues and Debates
- Gender and Culture
- There are three main types of gender bias:
- Alpha bias - this occurs
when the differences
between men and women
are exaggerated.
Therefore, stereotypically
male and female
characteristics may be
emphasised.
- Beta bias -this occurs when
the differences between
men and women are
minimised. This often
happens when findings
obtained from men are
applied to women without
additional validation.
- Androcentrism - taking
male
thinking/behaviour as
normal, regarding
female
thinking/behaviour as
deviant, inferiour,
abnormal, ‘other’ when
it is different.
- Positive Consequences of Gender Bias
- Alpha Bias: • Has led to some
theorists (Gilligan) to assert the worth
and valuation ‘feminine qualities’. •
Has led to healthy criticism of cultural
values that praise certain ‘male’
qualities such as aggression and
individualism as desirable, adaptive
and universal.
- Beta Bias: • Makes people
see men and women as the
same, which has led to
equal treatment in legal
terms and equal access to,
for example, education and
employment.
- Negative Consequences of Gender Bias
- Alpha Bias: • Focus
on differences
between genders
leads to the
implication of
similarity WITHIN
genders, thus this
ignores the many
ways women differ
from each other. •
Can sustain
prejudices and
stereotypes.
- Beta Bias: • Draws
attention away
from the
differences in
power between
men and women. •
Is considered as
an egalitarian
approach but it
results in major
misrepresentations
of
both
genders.
- Consequences of Gender Bias Kitzinger (1998) argue that questions about sex differences
aren’t just scientific questions – they’re also political (women have same rights as men). So
gender differences distorted to maintain the status quo of male power.
- • Women kept out
of male-dominant
universities. •
Women were
oppressed. •
Women
stereotypes
(Bowlby)
- Feminist argue that although gender
differences are minimal or
non-existent, they are used against
women to maintain male power.
- Feminist argue that
although gender
differences are minimal
or non-existent, they are
used against women to
maintain male power.
- Judgements about an individual women’s
ability are made on the basis of average
differences between the sexes or biased
sex-role stereotypes, and this also had the
effect of lowering women’s self esteem;
making them, rather than men, think they
have to improve themselves (Tavris, 1993).
- Relationships
- schizophrenia