Page 175 - Cultures and Organizations

He, She, and (S)he 151

Masculinity and Femininity in the Family

As only a small part of gender role differentiation is biologically deter-
mined, the stability of gender role patterns is almost entirely a matter of
socialization. Socialization means that both girls and boys learn their place
in society, and once they have learned it, the majority of them want it that
way. In male-dominated societies, most women want the male dominance.
The family is the place where most people received their fi rst social-
ization. The family contains two unequal but complementary role pairs:
parent-child and husband-wife. The effects of different degrees of inequal-
ity in the parent-child relationship were related to the dimension of power
distance in Chapter 3. The prevailing role distribution between husband

and wife is reflected in a society’s position on the masculinity-femininity
scale.
Figure 5.4 crosses PDI against MAS. In the right half of the diagram
(where PDI values are high), inequality between parents and children is
a societal norm. Children are supposed to be controlled by obedience. In
the left half, children are controlled by the examples set by parents. In the
lower half of the diagram (where MAS scores are high), inequality between
fathers’ and mothers’ roles (father tough, mother less tough) is a societal
norm. Men are supposed to deal with facts, women with feelings. In the
upper half, both men and women are allowed to deal with the facts and
with the soft things in life.
Thus, the lower right-hand quadrant (unequal and tough) stands for a
norm of a dominant, tough father and a submissive mother who, although
also fairly tough, is at the same time the refuge for consolation and tender
feelings. This quadrant includes the Latin American countries in which
men are supposed to be macho. The complement of machismo for men is

marianismo (being like the Virgin Mary) or hembrismo (from hembra, a
female animal) for women: a combination of near-saintliness, submissive-
ness, and sexual frigidity. 16
The upper right-hand quadrant (unequal and tender) represents a
societal norm of two dominant parents, sharing the same concern for the
quality of life and for relation ships, both providing at times authority and
tenderness.
In the countries in the lower left-hand quadrant (equal and tough), the
norm is for nondominant parents to set an example in which the father is
tough and deals with facts and the mother is somewhat less tough and deals
with feelings. The resulting role model is that boys should assert them-