Abstract
In their foundational work on the social construction of gender, Kessler and McKenna (1978) investigated the relationship between gender attribution and genital attribution. We used digital reproductions of the original stimuli to replicate their findings in the current social context. To further investigate the underlying decision processes we applied eye tracking. The stimuli shown varied in the composition of gender cues: from those more commonly associated with maleness to associated with femaleness. Applying the ethnomethodological approach originally used, participants were asked to decide for each stimulus whether they saw a man or a woman and to indicate subjective confidence with the decision. In line with the original results we found that the genital attribution contributed immensely to the gender attribution. Also, male gender was ascribed more often when the penis was present than was female gender when the vulva was shown. Eye tracking revealed that overall most dwell time as a proxy for important information was dedicated to the head, chest and genital areas of all the stimuli. Total dwell time depended on whether the gender attribution was made in line with the depicted genital, if the genital was a penis. Attributing female gender when a penis was present was associated with longer total dwell time, unlike attributing male gender with a vulva shown. This is indicative of higher cognitive effort and more difficulty ignoring the penis as opposed to the vulva. We interpret this finding in context of the persistent male dominance as well as to the socio-cultural understanding of the vulva as a concealed and therefore seemingly absent organ. In summary, we were able to show that the gender attribution is still closely linked to genital attribution when having a binary forced choice task and that the penis is a special cue in this attribution process.
Highlights
Every time we interact with someone or even just see them from a distance, we always attribute gender–that is, we decide whether a person is male or female [1]
For the gender attributions and the subjective confidence ratings, we tested whether we could replicate the general tendency concerning the dominance of the penis in the attribution process
The incongruent stimulus with a penis was rated as male by 75% of the participants, while only 55% rated the incongruent stimulus with a vulva as Attribution in line with the Genital Subjective Confidence Very Confident Somewhat Confident
Summary
Every time we interact with someone or even just see them from a distance, we always attribute gender–that is, we decide whether a person is male or female [1]. Because we do not usually see or know about each other’s genitalia, the attribution depends on indirect cues of the anatomical genitals as observed in facial structure, voice, dress, assumedly gendered behavior or social context. This not directly visible “cultural genital” [7] which is expected to be there “exists in a cultural sense if the person [. This not directly visible “cultural genital” [7] which is expected to be there “exists in a cultural sense if the person [. . .] is assumed to have it.” ([8], p. 154)
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