Racial Differences in Men's Attitudes about Women's Gender Roles

Abstract

The attitudes that men and women hold toward appropriate gender roles have a significant influence on many aspects of marital and family dynamics. They also help to perpetuate gender-differentiated opportunities in employment, education, politics, and other areas. For women and girls, a substantial body of literature has documented the formation of gender role attitudes, the transmission of attitudes across generations (especially from their mothers), and the structural factors that modify existing attitudes and beliefs (Blee & Tickamyer, 1986; Boyd, 1989; Stevens & Boyd, 1980; Thornton, Alwin, & Camburn, 1983). Far less research has examined the attitudes of men or boys, how these attitudes are formed and changed over time, and how mothers influence this development. Yet, it is clear that, both in the family and in the larger society, men as well as women participate in the definition and perpetuation of gender roles. Recent scholarship suggests that male attitudes toward gender roles are more complicated than has been commonly assumed. Rather than a single standard of masculinity to which all men and boys are taught to aspire, studies have documented a variety of masculinities that define manhood differently across racial, ethnic, class, sexual, and regional boundaries (Connell, 1993; Franklin, 1994; Segal, 1993). Moreover, some evidence suggests that men's attitudes toward feminine gender roles also vary. The idea that women's roles should be circumscribed by home and family may reflect only a narrow segment of White, middle-class, heterosexual men; other groups of men may accept wider or different roles for women (Messner, 1993). The present study examines male attitudes toward women's gender roles and the influence of maternal and life course factors on these attitudes by examining data from pairs of African American and White mothers and their sons over time. We first describe existing research on the formation and nature of gender roles and race differences in men's gender role attitudes. We then formulate hypotheses about the factors that shape male gender role attitudes and test these with data on over 500 mother-son pairs from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) of Mature Women and Young Men from 1967 to 1981. We take advantage of the longitudinal nature of the NLS data, which permits examination of maternal and life course effects on the gender role attitudes of African American and White men during late adolescence and early adulthood. RACE DIFFERENCES AMONG MEN The ways in which gender role attitudes are formed, and how they are modified over time by life experience, may differ significantly across racial groups. Studies of women and girls have found racial differences in the definition of appropriate feminine gender roles, with African American women and girls more likely than their White counterparts to see paid employment as compatible with maternal and familial responsibilities (Collins, 1987, 1990; King, 1988; see also Herring & Wilson-Sadberry, 1993). Even the process through which mothers socialize daughters into gender roles attitudes is racially specific. The attitudes of White daughters are influenced significantly by their mothers' attitudes but not by mothers' employment history; for African American daughters, it is maternal employment--but not attitudes--that affect gender role attitudes (Blee & Tickamyer, 1986). The few studies of African American and White men's gender roles suggest that masculinity, too, may be formed and defined within racial categories. Hunter and Davis (1992), for example, concluded that African American men do not equate masculinity with success, wealth, ambition, and power, but rather with self-determinism and accountability. Research that has found that White men are more likely than African American men to see marriage as a necessary component of an adult masculine role also suggests racially specific constructions of masculinity (Bulcroft & Bulcroft, 1993; South, 1993). …