Abstract
The present study aimed to replicate Kessler and McKenna’s (1978) ethnomethodological study that investigated how an individual attributes gender to a person. By administering figures depicted on overlays (Overlay Study), Kessler and McKenna found that the penis more than the vulva and the male sexual characteristics more than the female ones were significantly more salient in the gender attribution process. From all this, their adage is: “See someone as female only when you cannot see them as male.” Taking as a model Kessler and McKenna’s Overlay Study, we administered to 592 adults 120 new digital stimuli elaborated on realistic frontal images of human nudes to verify if the previously obtained results would be confirmed by using more realistic images. We found that the participants attributed male gender 86% of the time when the penis was shown, but only attributed female gender 67% of the time when the vulva was shown. All findings had strong statistical significance, confirming the findings of the Overlay Study that the penis makes the difference in gender recognition. Beyond an ethnomethodological approach, we have interpreted and discussed our results from the outlook of evolutionary and cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, concluding that the cultural stereotypes and prejudices that affect gender attribution might not just be a mere cultural product, but rather the consequence of evolved cognitive biases.
Highlights
In this study, we often associate gender with sex/biological categories, as we do in the title
One-way between-subjects ANOVAs were conducted to compare the effect of the independent variables—extracted through the Sociodemographic Questionnaire and the Kinsey scale—on the basis of the gender attribution, the confidence scale, and the pleasantness scale
In the presence of primary sexual characteristics, we expected a significant increase in the attributions of gender consistent with the external genitalia compared to the presence of secondary sexual characteristics
Summary
We often associate gender with sex/biological categories (male/female or penis/vulva), as we do in the title. If human figures with ambiguous sexual characteristics (not immediately definable as male or female and indicated by us as neutral) are shown, and if adult individuals are asked to determine such figures’ gender, according to common sense, one would expect that 50% of the participants would assign a “male” gender attribution to the figures, and 50% would provide a “female” gender attribution. This does not happen, as already demonstrated by Kessler and McKenna (1978). The participants were asked three questions: (1) “Does this figure represent a male or a female?”; (2) “Using a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 means ‘not at all sure’ and 7 means ‘very sure,’ how sure are you of the answer you gave previously?”; and (3) “How would you change the figure so that it becomes something else?” On the basis of their findings, Kessler and McKenna (1978) affirmed to have found a “schema” among “members of the West reality” that leads to gender attribution: “See someone as female only when you cannot see them as male” (p. 158)
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