Page 179 - Cultures and Organizations

He, She, and (S)he 155

TABLE 5.2 Key Differences Between Feminine and Masculine Societies
I: General Norm and Family

FEMININE MASCULINE

Relationships and quality of life are Challenge, earnings, recognition, and
important. advancement are important.
Both men and women should be Men should be assertive, ambitious,
modest. and tough.
Both men and women can be tender Women are supposed to be tender
and focus on relationships. and to take care of relationships.
In the family, both fathers and In the family, fathers deal with facts,
mothers deal with facts and feelings. and mothers deal with feelings.
Girls’ beauty ideals are most Girls’ beauty ideals are most
infl uenced by the father and mother. infl uenced by the media and by
celebrities.
Parents share earning and caring The standard pattern is that the
roles. father earns, and the mother cares.
Both boys and girls are allowed to cry, Girls cry, but boys don’t; boys should
but neither should fi ght. fi ght back, and girls shouldn’t fi ght
at all.
Boys and girls play for the same Boys play to compete; girls play to be
reasons. together.
The same standards apply for Brides need to be chaste and
bridegrooms and brides. industrious; grooms don’t.
Husbands should be like boyfriends. Husbands should be healthy, wealthy,
and understanding; boyfriends should
be fun.

and free to get out, have traditionally dominated in social life outside the
home in virtually all societies. Only exceptional and usually upper-class
women had the means to delegate their child-rearing activities to others
and to step into a public role. If women entered dominant positions in
society at all, this was mostly after the age of forty-five, when their mother

status changed into grandmother status. Unmarried women were, and still
are, rare in traditional societies and often discriminated against.
The much greater liberty of choice among social roles that women in
modern industrialized societies enjoy, beyond those of wife, mother, and