Page 181 - Cultures and Organizations

He, She, and (S)he 157

Obviously, a country’s position on the masculinity-femininity scale also
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affects its norms about sexual behavior. Feelings about sex and ways in
which sex is practiced and experienced are culturally infl uenced. Although
individuals and groups within countries differ, too, women and men are
affected by the written and unwritten norms of their country’s culture.
The basic difference in sexual norms between masculine and feminine
cultures follows the pattern of Figure 5.2. Masculine countries tend to
maintain different standards for men and for women: men are the subjects,
women the objects. In the section on family, we already found this double
moral standard in masculine cultures with regard to the chastity of brides:
women should be chaste, but men need not. It can also be noticed in norms
about nudity in photos and movies: the taboo on showing naked men is
much stronger than on showing naked women. Feminine cultures tend
to maintain a single standard—equally strict or equally loose—for both
sexes, and no immediate link is felt between nudity and sexuality.
Sex is more of a taboo subject in masculine than in feminine cultures.
This is evident in information campaigns for the prevention of AIDS,
which in feminine countries tend to be straightforward, whereas in mas-
culine countries they are restricted by what can be said and what cannot.
Paradoxically, the taboo also makes the subject more attractive, and there
is more implicit erotic symbolism in TV programs and advertising in mas-
culine than in feminine countries.
Double standards breed a stress on sexual performance: “scoring” for
men, and a feeling of being exploited for women. In single-standard femi-
nine countries, the focus for both is primarily on the relationship between
two persons.
In the 1980s Geert was involved in a large survey study on organi-
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zational cultures in Denmark and the Netherlands. The questionnaire

contained among other items a list of possible reasons for dismissal. In a
feedback session in Denmark, Geert asked respondents why nobody in their
company had considered “a married man having sexual relationships with
a subordinate” as a valid reason for the man’s dismissal. A woman stood up
and said, “Either she likes it, and then there is no problem, or she doesn’t
like it, and then she will tell him to go to hell.” There are two pertinent
assumptions in this answer: (most) Danish subordinates will not hesitate
to speak up to their bosses (small power distance), and (most) male Danish
bosses will “go to hell” if told so by a female subordinate (femininity).