Men's Gender Role Research Articles

Emotional experiences and gender roles of men with fibromyalgia syndrome: a cross-cultural qualitative study.

Gender roles may impact men with fibromyalgia, causing a high number of negative emotional states and affective disorders. There are few studies that detect men's high emotional suffering. This study examined the emotional experience of men with fibromyalgia. A qualitative cross-cultural study utilized inductive thematic analysis was performed at the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Unit Santa Maria University Hospital in Spain, the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Clinic at Mayo Clinic in the US, and volunteers from the Winneshiek County in the US A total of 17 participants, 10 men from Spain and 7 men from the US were included. Three themes related to feelings/emotions emerged: (1) psychological level; (2) social level; and (3) physical level. Men with fibromyalgia from Spain and the US experienced many negative emotions. Men often experience negative emotions that are worsened by common misunderstandings and social biases/stigma about their condition. A proper assessment of emotions when evaluating the global health of men with fibromyalgia as well as the provision of emotional support would improve their mental health and therefore their overall physical health. Emotional management should be incorporated into all treatment protocols for fibromyalgia, especially for men given the gender stigma. Health policies designed by legislators, policymakers, and support agencies must be accompanied by education in gender role concepts to improve the emotions of men with FMS. The mass media will be essential for the disclosure of the emotional suffering of male patients so that society might better understand them.

Examining the association between men's gender equitable attitudes and contraceptive outcomes in rural Maharashtra, India

BackgroundPrevious literature suggests that men reporting more gender-equitable attitudes are more likely to use condoms, but there is a paucity of data evaluating whether these attitudes are associated with contraceptive communication and use. The objective of this study is to test the hypothesis that men reporting more gender-equitable attitudes will be more likely to (a) engage in contraceptive communication with their wives and (b) that they and/or their wives will be more likely to use all forms of family planning, compared to men with less equitable attitudes. MethodsUsing cross-sectional dyadic survey data from young married couples from rural Maharashtra, India (N = 989), we assessed the associations between men's gender role attitudes and a) spousal contraceptive communication and b) contraceptive use by type (none, traditional, condoms, pills, or IUD). The contraceptive use outcome is based on wives' report. We assessed these associations via bivariate t-test (communication outcome) or ANOVA test (contraceptive type outcome), as well as unadjusted and adjusted logistic (communication outcome) and multinomial logistic (contraceptive type outcome) regression models. Adjusted models included sociodemographic factors selected a priori based on established associations with gender-equitable attitudes and/or our assessed outcomes. FindingsMen with more gender-equitable attitudes were more likely to discuss family planning with their wives (AOR = 1·05, 95%CI 1·03-1·07, p < 0·001) and to use condoms (ARRR = 1·03, 95%CI 1·00-1·06, p = 0·07). There was no association between gender-equitable attitudes and use of other types of contraception. InterpretationWhile gender-equitable attitudes among men may facilitate condom use and family planning communication in marriage, they do not appear to be linked with greater likelihood of use of more effective types of contraceptive use. This suggests that males supportive of gender equity may take greater responsibility for family planning vis a vis a less effective contraceptive, condoms, in the absence of more effective short-acting contraceptives for men. FundingThe National Institutes of Health [Grant number 5R01HD084453-01A1] and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number INV-002967].

Misperception of peer beliefs reinforces inequitable gender norms among Tanzanian men.

Gender role ideology, i.e. beliefs about how genders should behave, is shaped by social learning. Accordingly, if perceptions about the beliefs of others are inaccurate this may impact trajectories of cultural change. Consistent with this premise, recent studies report evidence of a tendency to overestimate peer support for inequitable gender norms, especially among men, and that correcting apparent 'norm misperception' promotes transitions to relatively egalitarian beliefs. However, supporting evidence largely relies on self-report measures vulnerable to social desirability bias. Consequently, observed patterns may reflect researcher measurement error rather than participant misperception. Addressing this shortcoming, we examine men's gender role ideology using both conventional self-reported and a novel wife-reported measure of men's beliefs in an urbanising community in Tanzania. We confirm that participants overestimate peer support for gender inequity. However, the latter measure, which we argue more accurately captures men's true beliefs, implies that this tendency is relatively modest in magnitude and scope. Overestimation was most pronounced among men holding relatively inequitable beliefs, consistent with misperception of peer beliefs reinforcing inequitable norms. Furthermore, older and poorly educated men overestimated peer support for gender inequity the most, suggesting that outdated and limited social information contribute to norm misperception in this context.

The Interplay of Strength and Content of Women's Gender Identity, Ambivalent Sexism Targeted at Men, and Attitudes Toward Gender Role Subtypes.

In this on-line study of adult women (N = 145), we performed a series of moderation analyses, including women's self-reported gender in-group identification as moderator, their traditional/progressive identity contents as predictors, ambivalent sexism targeted at men and attitudes toward male and female conforming and non-conforming gender roles as outcome variables. We found that both traditional and progressive identity contents were significant predictors of benevolent sexism but did not predict hostile sexism toward men. Moreover, traditional identity contents predicted more negative evaluations of both male and female gender non-conforming roles, while progressive identity contents predicted more positive evaluations of both male and female gender non-conforming roles. The results have also indicated that the less a woman identifies with her gender in-group while having highly traditional identity contents, the lower she evaluates gender non-conforming roles of other women. The present study adds to the existing research on the links between women's gender identity and perceptions of the opposite sex, as well as their evaluations of various gender roles of men and women.

A Study on Emotional Expression, Perceived Stress and Belief of Masculinity / Femininity among Men

This study investigates the relationship between emotional expression, perceived stress, and beliefs of masculinity/femininity among men. A sample of 100 male participants within the age range 0f 18-44 years completed measures. Purposive sampling technique has been used. The exploratory research approach was adopted to determine the result of the variables The Results showed that the variables and age group that has been taken is not significant or is negatively correlated to each other. Except, the emotional expression is slightly significant with the personal attributes. These findings demonstrate the possible drawbacks of strict conformity to traditional masculine standards and emphasise the need of encouraging emotional expression and questioning traditional gender roles among males. In light of earlier studies on men's emotional expressiveness and gender role attitudes, implications of these findings are examined, and further study approaches are recommended.

Building an Inclusive Value Chain: Gender Participation in Cassava Marketing and Processing in Nigeria

The Nigerian cassava value chain shows different gender roles for men and women in marketing and processing activities. Women are typically found in the less profitable work and at the bottom of the value chain because of their position in the labor market. This study identifies farm and individual factors that shape gender participation in various phases of the cassava value chain and measures gender differences in the marketing and processing phases of the cassava value chain. The study draws from the survey of 4 geopolitical zones in Nigeria conducted by IITA in 2010 that surveyed 952 respondents consisting of 221 women. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics like frequencies, mean, range, and standard deviation and inferential tools like t-test, chi-square, correlation, and multiple linear regression to test the hypotheses. We draw from the sustainable livelihood approach for the theoretical framework. The analysis indicated that more women were involved in the marketing phase than men, while more men were in the processing node than women. Additionally, producing cassava now, land allocated to cassava farming, level of education, marital status, and household size registered correlation with the index of participation in marketing. However, only household size registered a weak correlation with the index of participation in processing.

P071Men's willingness to use novel male contraception is linked to gender equitable attitudes

<h3>Objectives</h3> To explore the association of men's willingness to use a new male contraceptive method with their attitudes toward gender equity. <h3>Methods</h3> We conducted an anonymous online survey examining willingness to use male contraception among reproductive aged (18–50) men, recruited via online forums, social media ads, and male contraceptive mailing lists from March to May 2022. The survey collected sociodemographics and reproductive histories, and used a 20-item Gender Equitable Men (GEM) Scale to examine men's gender role attitudes. We conducted bivariate analyses to inform a logistic regression that isolated the independent influence of increasingly gender-equitable attitudes on willingness to use new male contraceptives. <h3>Results</h3> We received 2,316 complete surveys from primarily White (58%), heterosexual (87.5%), married (46.3%) men, who were below the age of 30 (54%), and who had not completed a bachelor's degree (57%). The majority reported having sex multiple times per week (43.7%) but had never gotten someone pregnant (43.9%); 36.1% reported having gotten someone pregnant unintentionally and nearly half (46.3%) identified as parents. Nearly half of respondents (46.8%) ranked within the top third of GEM scores. Willingness to use new male contraceptives (76.6%) was linked to increasing respondent age (adjusted OR (aOR), 1.02; 95% CI, 0.99–1.06), having intercourse less than once a month (adjOR: 3.61; 95%CI:1.11-11.77), having had an abortion (adjOR, 2.23; 95% CI, 1.52–3.26), and increasing GEMS score (adjOR, 10.23; 95% CI, 1.94–53.96). <h3>Conclusions</h3> More than three-quarters of men surveyed reported willingness to use new male contraceptives, which was strongly correlated with gender-equitable attitudes.

The Bigger Picture: The Effect of Context on Gender Role Conflict in Greek Men.

Gender Role Conflict (GRC) is manifested through certain behavioral patterns when the person adopts unquestionably restrictive gender roles with negative consequences both at intrapersonal and interpersonal level. There is evidence that socially desired masculine behavior is in transition in modern Greek society boosting GRC among Greek men. In this study, GRC patterns have been assessed experimentally using the imagery technique in 1051 Greek men. Emotionally elicited vignettes were created, each demonstrating a different context (Men's gender role conflict: Psychological costs, consequences, and an agenda for change. American Psychological Association): (1) developmental, (2) family - friends' relations and (3) conformity to masculinity ideology, homonegativity and violent behaviour. A mixed ANOVA revealed a significant three-way interaction between GRC patterns scoring, GRC vignettes and time (before and after reading the GRC vignettes). Further investigation of the three-way interaction revealed that vignettes reflecting social pressure to conform to masculinity ideology in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood as well as vignettes reflecting outright bullying to conform to such stereotypic roles had a significant impact on GRC patterns scoring, mostly decreasing conflict. The construction and testing of the GRC vignettes can update the existing tools for assessing GRC. Moreover, the vignettes could be employed to shed light on the possible causes of GRC.

Gendered beliefs and behaviors in couple relationships as predictors of physiological stress functioning

AbstractObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to investigate associations among egalitarianism and marital equity with patterns of diurnal cortisol.BackgroundGender role ideology (i.e., beliefs about gender roles on a spectrum from egalitarian to traditional) and marital equity (i.e., fairness in the division of marital tasks) are distinct constructs that are related to relationship outcomes as well as health, and stress physiology is a potential mechanism linking egalitarianism and marital equity to health.MethodsSixty‐two heterosexual couples with children completed several questionnaires, including gender ideology and division of household tasks (a measure of marital equity). Diurnal cortisol concentrations were assessed from saliva samples at four time points across 2 days.ResultsResults suggested that men's more traditional gender ideologies significantly predicted more dysregulated physiological stress functioning for both men and women, as indicated by lower cortisol levels at awakening as well as flatter cortisol slopes throughout the day. Women with more traditional gender ideologies had steeper slopes, an indicator of more regulated physiological functioning, when they reported engaging in greater traditional feminine tasks.ConclusionThese results suggest that men's greater traditional gender role ideology is linked to physiological stress dysregulation. In addition, when women have more traditional expectations, having more clearly delineated gendered roles in the home may relieve stress.ImplicationsThis research highlights the importance of addressing gender roles and ideologies in interventions for couples, including couples therapy. The inclusion of the assessment and discussion of gender roles and ideologies in couples therapy may help to alleviate physiological stress.

Gender Roles in Intimate Relationships: Who Initiates and Why?

The gender roles of men and women are continuously changing in heterosexual relationships alongside the ever-increasing flexibility and variation of preferences, choice, agency, and individual needs. This paper delves into the role tradition plays between men and women in intimate relationships regarding marriage proposals and surname changes, as well as which sex initiates more when it comes to physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, and long-term commitment.

Gender Stereotypes in Teaching Aids on Russian as a Foreign Language for Beginners

The paper brings up the issue of reflecting gender roles in textbooks for international students, investigates which concepts of men and women they can potentially form among foreign students on the basis of these teaching aids. The aim of the present study is to describe the gender roles of men and women in the textbooks of the Russian language for beginners. For that, it was necessary to solve a number of tasks, such as fixing examples of gender-characterized units in teaching aids; creating a system of categories for comparison and comparing the analysis results of all involved textbooks. The following methods of qualitative content analysis, classification method, comparison method were used in the work. Popular textbooks on Russian as a foreign language were taken for the analysis. This study makes it possible to investigate gender roles in Russian culture through the spectacle of the textbooks for foreigners, allowing us to get a new angle on the correlation of gender characteristics. The study can also be used by future textbook authors to further develop textbook characters in terms of their gender roles. The authors of the study conclude that textbook representations convey stereotypic ideas about the roles of men and women, but these images cannot be recognized as corresponding to extra-linguistic reality, which can potentially result in communication failures among foreign students when interacting with Russians.

Psychometric Study of “Questionnaire of Barriers Perceived” (QBP) in Higher Education

This article presents the process of adaptation and validation, and the resulting psychometric properties, of the “Questionnaire of Barriers Perceived” (QBP). The scale identifies whether a student’s perceptions and expectations are mediated by stereotypes or roles associated with gender through the study of their professional aspirations, fear of negative judgement, and perceptions/awareness of gender roles of men and women. Two descriptive studies were conducted via a cross-sectional poll. The questionnaire was administered first to 240 students and then to a total of 1044 student from all the degrees studied at the Faculty of Education at the university at which the study took place. The data were subjected to item content analysis, descriptive analysis, analysis of internal consistency, study of the relationship between variables, correlational analysis, and an exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis. The results showed that the scale had a high goodness-of-fit index, as well as validity and reliability. The dimensions that the model comprised were found to be interrelated and coherent with the theoretical structure considered in the initial version of the instrument. The resulting questionnaire presented sufficient validity and reliability to be used in other contexts and studies of the same nature.

Политическая активность женщин в свете этнокультурных особенностей кыргызского общества

The author outlines that nowadays, the question of the influence of gender stereotypes on the role and participation of Kyrgyz women in politics, from a linguistic point of view, has been little studied in Kyrgyzstan. The article is devoted to the ethnocultural traditions and gender stereotypes of the Kyrgyz society that affect the activity and involvement of women in the political life of the state. The author pays attention to the role of Kyrgyz women in the history of the country, examines Kyrgyz proverbs and folk clichés, which are the folk heritage of the people. The purpose of the article is to identify ethnocultural factors that determine the gender roles of men and women, as well as their impact on society. Research methods. During the study a descriptive method was applied. The following folklore materials were taken as a basis: Kyrgyz proverbs from "Kyrgyz makal, lakap, uchkul sozdoru" by M. Ibragimov, traditional rules of relationships between people of different ages and genders, principles of youth upbringing. As a result of the analysis, the author concludes that the traditions and stereotypes of Kyrgyz society endow men and women with gender traditional roles: a man plays a major role in the family, in society and is engaged in “male affairs”, while a woman is assigned a secondary role, she only deals with home and family. It is emphasized that such attitudes largely limit the political activity of women.

Novel Anxieties

Abstract Building on recent scholarship on postcolonial theory and the history of the modern Middle East, this article analyzes the viewpoints of late nineteenth-century Ottoman novelists on the modernization projects of the Tanzimat and post-Tanzimat periods. It argues that the Ottoman novelists Ahmet Midhat, Fatma Aliye, and Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem developed a counter-discourse against rapid modernization projects in Istanbul. Through a depiction of everyday life experiences related to the latest inventions of modern technology, Ottoman novelists thematize individual anxieties on a range of topics, which included a criticism of productivity, changing gender roles for men and women, and the new order of time and space. Keeping in mind that drastic changes in technology introduced distinctive modes of experiencing time and space in the nineteenth century, this article suggests that criticism by Ottoman intellectuals can be better understood within the context of the reaction to shifting time-space schemes and the proliferation of new technologies across the globe.

Rodové rozdiely v preferenciách jednotlivých atribútov práce od roku 1991

Changing gender roles and the rise of paid jobs for women in the second half of the twentieth century affects not only the labour market but family life as well. The aim of the paper is to capture the differences in the opinions of men and women about the individual characteristics of work / job attributes . Two mechanisms are traditionally provided to explain gender-based differences in career preferences: a) different gender-based socialization creating a contrast between gender roles of men and women and b) the position of women in the labor market in the existing social structure. According to the model of gender socialization, men are considered to be the breadwinners, while the main role of women mostly refers to the care of children and household. Therefore, we expect that the characteristics that represent the material conditions will be of key importance for men. On the contrary, the most important characteristics for women will be the features enabling to combine work with family care related duties. The model of social structure expects the existing gender-based differences in the preferences of individual characteristics of work to reflect the differences between men and women in the labor market as well as their structural positions and their approach to the rewarding system in the workplace. Our analysis based on the European Values Study (waves 1991 - 2017) finds only minimal differences in job attribute preferences among men and women. The notion of women not willing to put as much effort into work as “the breadwinners” due to other priorities therefore seems to refer to a rather outdated gender stereotype.

Masculine gender role stress and self-stigma of seeking help: The moderating roles of self-compassion and self-coldness.

Many college men express stigma of seeking psychological help, possibly due to masculine gender role socialization proscribing help seeking. However, not every man who buys into restrictive masculine roles expresses self-stigma of seeking help, suggesting the presence of potential moderating variables. The present study examined self-compassion and self-coldness as potential moderating variables on the associations between men's masculine gender role stress and self-stigma of seeking help. College men (N = 777) were recruited via e-mail to participate in a brief online survey. Structural equation modeling revealed that masculine gender role stress was positively associated with self-stigma and self-coldness but was negatively associated with self-compassion. Both self-compassion and self-coldness were significant moderators. Men with low levels of self-compassion evidenced the strongest positive associations between masculine gender role stress and self-stigma, whereas men with low (but not high) self-coldness evidenced positive associations with self-stigma. These findings highlight differences between self-compassion and self-coldness and suggest that high levels of self-compassion may be a protective factor in reducing the associations between rigid masculinities and men's stigma of seeking help. By contrast, men with extremely negative and critical self-views may be likely to report stigma of seeking help regardless of their endorsement of rigid masculinities. Intervention and prevention implications include helping men enhance their self-compassion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Баланс жизни и работы у женщин-полицейских в Вологодской области

В статье анализируется сочетание жизни и работы в «мужской» профессии — в полиции — у женщин в Вологодской области. Анализ основан на качественном исследовании, проведенном в 2016—2017 гг. в Вологде, Вытегре, Тотьме и Никольске методами фокус-групп, индивидуальных и групповых интервью. Исследовательской целью было выявление способов поддержания баланса между жизнью и работой женщинами-полицейскими и мужчинами-полицейскими. Задачи исследования состояли в определении особенностей работы женщин и мужчин в полиции, возможного сегрегирования и дискриминации по полу внутри этой профессии, характера сочетания полицейскими рабочих и семейных обязанностей, степени и причин удовлетворенности работой, соотношения профессии с гендерными идеалами самих женщин и мужчин и их окружения, особенностей маскулинных идеалов, характерных для мужчин-полицейских, перспектив карьерного роста женщин и мужчин в полиции. Было выявлено, что мужчины и женщины самостоятельно и по-разному решают проблемы баланса жизни и труда при работе в полиции — первые стремятся проводить как можно больше времени на работе и ищут возможности дополнительного заработка, уделяя, однако, время и домашним делам — прежде всего для сохранения возможности жене также иметь оплачиваемую работу. Женщины поддерживают баланс путем флексибилизации своей общей рабочей и семейной занятости, устраняя временные границы между работой и семейными заботами. &#x0D; Благодарность. Статья подготовлена на основании данных, полученных в рамках проекта фонда Хамовники «Участковый уполномоченный полиции в системе взаимоотношений с местным сообществом: анализ ролевых моделей» (2016), а также при поддержке гранта №18-05-0049 от Научного фонда НИУ ВШЭ в 2018—2019 гг. на создание научно-учебной группы по изучению женщин и мужчин на госслужбе в России в рамках государственной поддержки ведущих университетов Российской Федерации «5-100».

EXPOsing Men's Gender Role Attitudes as Porn Superfans

Much contemporary debate about pornography centers on its role in portraying and perpetuating gender inequality. This article compares traditional gendered attitudes between cisgender men attending the Adult Entertainment Expo (n = 294) and a random sample of male respondents from the 2016 General Social Survey (GSS), a U.S. representative survey of general attitudes and beliefs collected every two years (n = 863). Our survey borrowed questions from the GSS to measure attitudes about gender equality across four dimensions: (1) working mothers, (2) women in politics, (3) traditional gender roles in the family, and (4) affirmative action for women in the workplace. Through bivariate analyses, we found that “porn superfans” are no more sexist or misogynistic than the general U.S. public on two of the four measures (women in politics and women in the general workplace) and held more progressive gender‐role attitudes than the general public on the other two measures. We conducted binary logistic regressions for those two measures to determine if the relationship remained significant when controlling for other factors. For one dimension, working mothers, it did (p &lt; .001). Our results call into question some of the claims that porn consumption fosters de facto negative and hostile attitudes toward women.

Validation of the Internal Structure of a German-Language Version of the Gender Role Conflict Scale - Short Form.

The Gender Role Conflict Scale – Short Form (GRCS-SF) assesses a person’s masculine gender role conflict. Masculine gender role conflict results when a person experiences discomfort showing a certain behavior because it is in conflict with masculine norms. The aim of the study was to test the questionnaire’s psychometric properties in an Austrian sample of older men. Three alternative structural models of the GRCS-SF were tested with confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). The maximum-likelihood method and the Bollen–Stine Bootstrap Method were used to estimate the fit indices of the CFA. Convergent validity was tested by correlating the GRCS-SF with the Sexual Performance Belief Scale (SPBS). Participating in the study were 127 male in-patients of a university hospital. Men’s average age was 59.5 (SD = 14.6) years. The one-factor model did not fit the empirical data well. In contrast, both the four-factor structure model and the bifactor structure model were supported. Good internal consistencies indicated acceptable reliabilities of the questionnaire’s scales. As expected, moderate to large correlations with the SPBS were detected. These findings support the claim that the GRCS-SF is a reliable and valid tool for assessing men’s gender role conflict also in a sample of older men in Austria.

Gender differences in beliefs about health: a comparative qualitative study with Ghanaian and Indian migrants living in the United Kingdom

BackgroundThere is a well-established association between migration to high income countries and health status, with some groups reporting poorer health outcomes than the host population. However, processes that influence health behaviours and health outcomes across minority ethnic groups are complex and in addition, culture ascribes specific gender roles for men and women, which can further influence perspectives of health.The aim of this study was to undertake a comparative exploration of beliefs of health among male and female Ghanaian and Indian migrants and White British participants residing in an urban area within the UK.MethodsThirty-six participants (12 each Ghanaian, Indian and White British) were recruited through community settings and participated in a semi-structured interview focusing on participant’s daily life in the UK, perceptions of their own health and how they maintained their health. Interviews were analyzed using a Framework approach.ResultsThree super ordinate themes were identified and labelled (a) beliefs about health; (b) symptom interpretation and (c) self-management and help seeking. Gender differences in beliefs and health behaviour practices were apparent across participants.ConclusionsThis is the first study to undertake a comparative exploration of health beliefs among people who have migrated to the UK from Ghana and India and to compare with a local (White British) population. The results highlight a need to consider both cultural and gender-based diversity in guiding health behaviours, and such information will be useful in the development of interventions to support health outcomes among migrant populations.