ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 1

Attitudes toward Gender Roles in Male & Female Young Adults

Amna Zeeshan

B.A. (hons.) 3rd year (morning)

Department of Psychology

University of Karachi

Submitted to

Ms. Saba Abid

Department of Psychology

University of Karachi

Date: 31st May, 2021

Group members

1. Amna Zeeshan……..

2. Aiman Naeem……...

3. Ayesha Ayub………

4. Mohadisa Fatima….......,

5. Maryam Aslam………
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 2

Abstract

The aim of this research was to study the attitudes of young adults towards gender roles. It

was hypothesised that the females will show more egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles

than the males, who will show more traditional attitudes. A survey form containing a 38 item

Gender Roles Attitude Scale (GRAS) (Zeyneloglu & Terzioglu, 2011); and a demographic

sheet, was given to 82 male and 82 female university students, aged between 18 to 26 years.

Survey method was used to conduct the study. The participants were approached physically

and were requested to fill the form. The submitted responses were then scored and the results

were calculated applying the t-test. The t-value was 1.680 and critical value was 1.654; also

the mean score of females was 129.475 and mean score of males was 124.487; these results

show that the females show more egalitarian attitude towards gender roles than males. In this

study all the ethical guidelines were followed.

Keywords: attitudes, gender roles, egalitarian attitudes, traditional attitudes

ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 3

Introduction and Literature Review

Gender roles can be defined as responsibilities, duties, behaviors, specific activities

and chores that are attributed by the culture and society to men and women (Dökmen, 2004;

World Health Organization, 1998). Gender roles also refer to the gender stereotypes and

normative expectations about the way we are supposed to live in a society as a male or

female human being. It focuses on how we speak, dress, act, our likes and dislikes, our

interests etc. as a member of a particular gender. Generally, gender roles are mostly similar in

all cultures, but they may also differ greatly in some (Planned Parenthood, n.d.).

These gender roles, according to the social role theory, are derived from how men and

women are divided into social roles in different social contexts i.e. domestic and occupational

life etc. These roles are embedded into the minds of every male and female since birth and

are being transferred from generation to generation (Eagly, 1987, 1997; Koenig & Eagly,

2014). For example; women in many societies are expected to take the role of a caregiver,

nurturer and take the different responsibilities in domestic sphere and in the occupational

sphere, women are supposed to work in more people oriented jobs, whereas the competitive

and combative jobs are considered suitable for men, who are pressured to become providers

for their families. (Lippa, et al., 2014). Gender roles influence every aspect of a person’s life.

People adopt these roles right from childhood like in many societies, girls have been taught to

be polite, modest, submissive, caring, emotional and so on, whereas a boy learns to be stoic,

aggressive, strong, uncompromising and less emotional (Ikegwu, 2017).

Everyone holds different opinions about different concepts, the attitudes towards

gender roles are the opinions and perceptions people hold about how a person should behave

or perform in a society with respect to his or her gender. These attitudes are of two types;

First is the traditional attitudes towards gender roles, which refer to agreeing with the
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 4

stereotypical and traditional division of labour between men and women i.e. man as a

provider, breadwinner and head of the house; and the women as caregiver, homemaker and

nurturer. On the other hand are the egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles, which refer to

rejecting such traditional division and favouring more equal labour division (van der Horst,

2014).

There are several researches that aimed to study how people of each gender think

about the gender roles. In a study, conducted on 367 participants, including male and female

psychology and business students, police, and senior citizens. The results showed that

females scored higher in egalitarian attitudes than males; also both psychology and business

students scored higher in egalitarian attitudes than police and senior citizens, and lastly,

psychology students scored more egalitarian than business students on the Sex-Role

Egalitarianism Scale (Beere, et al., 1984). In a similar research, carried out on university

students in Turkey, it was found that females had more egalitarian attitudes than the males, on

gender roles (Baykal 1988; Güvenç 1996).

In another research, conducted via comparative survey on 20 to 55 years old men and

women from 24 highly developed countries, observed the factors describing attitudes towards

gender roles like education, family background and other contexts. It was found that people

having working women in their families, and people who were more educated held

egalitarian attitudes (Boehnke, 2011).

A similar study was conducted on 44 male and 56 Nigerian college students studying

in Ireland. The findings suggested that female students possessed more egalitarian attitudes

towards gender roles than male students (Ifechukwu, 2013).

There is another study on a sample of American undergraduate students in which their

attitudes regarding the gender roles at work and at home were examined. It was found that
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 5

both male and female students had very egalitarian attitudes towards sex roles (Ferber &

Young, 1997).

Objective:

To study the attitudes towards gender roles in male and female young adults.

Hypothesis:

The females will show more egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles than the males.

Operational definition:

Gender roles:

The specific tasks, duties, obligations and activities, a culture and society associate or

assign to each gender are called gender roles (Dökmen 2004; World Health Organization

1998).

Attitudes towards gender roles:

The views and opinions people possess regarding how a male or female should

function in the society, considering their gender (van der Horst, 2014).

Methodology

Research Design:

Survey research method was employed to carry out the study and the results were

calculated by applying the t-test.

Sample:

The sample consisted of 164 young adult participants, 82 males and 82 females, aged

between 18-26 years, studying in different departments of University of Karachi. Convenient

sampling technique was used and participants were physically approached.

Material:

Informed consent:
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 6

There was an informed consent containing brief information about the research and it

was used to let the participants know about the study and to assure them that the

confidentiality will be maintained. It also confirmed the voluntary participation of the

participants. Blanks were provided for the sign of the participants and the sign of the person

obtaining consent.

Demographic sheet:

A demographic sheet was used, containing spaces for gender, age and departments of

the participants taking part in the study.

Gender Roles Attitude Scale (GRAS):

The Gender Roles Attitudes Scale (GRAS) (Zeyneloglu & Terzioglu, 2011) was used.

It is a 38 item scale, these items are divided into 5 dimensions which are; egalitarian gender

roles, female gender roles, marriage gender roles, traditional gender roles and male gender

roles. In this research, these five subsections were not mentioned and every item was directly

followed by another item, making it a simple 38 undivided items questionnaire. It is a 5-point

scale, ranging from “completely agree” to “absolutely disagree”. For egalitarian attitudes

sentences, the participants were given 5 points for “completely agree”, 4 points for “agree”, 3

for “undecided”, 2 for “disagree” and 1 point for “absolutely disagree”. For traditional

attitudes sentences this sequence was opposite. The scoring was done by summing up all the

responses of each participant. The higher the score, the more egalitarian attitudes the

participant has; and the lower the score, the more traditional attitudes the participant has.

Procedure:

A survey form consisting of an informed consent, a demographic sheet and a Gender Roles

Attitudes Scale (GRAS) (Zeyneloglu & Terzioglu, 2011) was given to 82 male and 82 female

young adults, who were approached physically. They were asked to go through the informed

consent and fill the demographic sheet as well as both the questionnaires with their responses.
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 7

When all the responses were collected, the scoring was done by summing up the scores on

each form, male and female separately. Lastly, when all the final scores were calculated, the

mean scores and standard deviation of both genders were calculated and the t-test was

applied, to find out the difference between the attitudes of male and female young adults,

towards gender roles.

Results

Gender N Mean Standard Df t-cal Alpha Critica P

deviation value l value

Males 82 124.48 126.026 162 1.680 0.05 1.654 0.0474

7
Female 82 129.47 130.735
s 5

The results indicate that the mean score females obtained was 129.475 and mean

score of males was 124.487; also the calculated t value was 1.680 and the critical value was

1.654 at alpha level 0.05. Along with that, the P value is 0.0474 which shows that the results

are statistically significant.

Discussion………

As the results show that females achieved higher score on egalitarian attitudes as

compared to males, it supports the hypothesis that females will show more egalitarian

attitudes towards gender roles than males.

In a similar study, done on a sample of 1544 American, 912 Slovene and 996 Croatian

male and female university students between years 1991 and 2000, to study the attitudes

towards gender roles. As expected, it was observed that male students showed more sexist

attitudes and females showed more egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles. It was also

observed that over the years there was no change in attitudes for females, but in Slovene

males, the attitudes became more traditional (Frieze, et al., 2003).

ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 8

In 2004, Khalid and Frieze studied the attitudes towards gender roles in 195

Pakistanis and 140 muslim US immigrant populations. It was again found that men held more

conservative or traditional attitudes and females held more egalitarian attitudes towards

gender roles. Results also indicated that liberal population in Pakistan and those who were

immigrants in USA were of more egalitarian attitudes towards sex roles.

In a longitudinal research, consisting of two waves (1 and 2), conducted on two

cohorts (younger and older adolescents) of Indian male and female adolescents, it was

observed that the attitudes towards gender roles became more egalitarian as the adolescents

grew up. This was not observed in the older group of male adolescents. It was also found that

in both younger and older cohorts, females were showing more egalitarian attitudes towards

gender roles (Patel, et al. 2021).

There may be several reasons that almost all studies show that females are of more

egalitarian attitudes than males. One reason is that in many societies, increasing female

education, awareness of women rights, rising women employment and secularism have

contributed to the increased egalitarianism, particularly in women (Thijs, et al. 2019).

Another reason is that the rise of feminism and egalitarianism have lead women, who have

been oppressed by men for millennia, to seek freedom and gender equality. And now even in

less egalitarian societies, women hold significantly high egalitarian attitudes towards gender

roles than males. On the other hand, in more egalitarian countries, male and female attitudes

towards gender roles are almost similar, i.e, more egalitarian (McDaniel, 2008). Research

also suggests that women and men who have working mothers, who are well educated and

women who are employed themselves are more likely to hold egalitarian gender role attitudes

and opinions (Boehnke, 2011).

These specified gender roles and gender stereotypes hold women from becoming

more successful and enjoying higher and more competitive positions in organizations; as
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 9

basic traditional views suggest that women are less competitive, less combative and less

logical than men. Also women are not given enough credit if they somehow become more

successful professionally. This gender biased attitude toward females causes further

decrement in their professional performance and leads to strengthening of above mentioned

traditional and conservative opinions and attitudes (Heilman, 2001). This is mostly the case

in poor and developing countries, where males are more favored in multiple aspects, which

causes males to hold more traditional attitudes (Jayachandran, 2015).

Limitations and Recommendations:

First limitation is that the sample under study was not that large and mostly consisted

of students of University of Karachi who were young adults. That’s why this research can not

be generalized on a larger population or all young adults. Another limitation is that many

people fake good while taking part in surveys due to social desirability, and they try to give

answers that make them seem good or better than others. Another limitation is that the

questionnaire was time consuming and also people don’t take surveys seriously which can

influence the results. It is thus recommended that the sample taken should be larger and the

participants represent the entire population properly, i.e. they should belong to different

educational, familial, socioeconomic backgrounds.

Conclusion:

This study was carried out to find out the gender differences in attitudes towards

gender roles in male and female young adults and the results indicated that females hold more

egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles than males, who hold more traditional attitudes.
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 10

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ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 13

Appendices

Gender Roles Attitudes Scale (GRAS):

ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 14
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 15
ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES IN YOUNG ADULTS 16