The Crucible of Current Gender Demands and Their Effect on Adolescence

Jeffrey Schein

Adolescent Psychology

Spring '05

Dr. Warren Spielberg

Midterm Paper

The Crucible of Current Gender Demands and Their Effect on Adolescence

Gender has always had a major impact on adolescence for several obvious reasons. Adolescence is the time when our physical sexual characteristics are developing, along with an influx of hormones, and the onset of sexual urges towards one another. It is virtually impossible to ignore the concepts of gender and gender related issues during adolescence not only due to these physical and chemical changes, but socially, sex will

Now more than at perhaps any other time in modern history gender-role, gender identity, and sexuality in general, are at the forefront of society issues. Naturally this is having a greater impact on adolescents than at any other time before. Sexuality is everywhere in the media; on television, in magazines, in the movies, and in our music. Ideas about gender, gender-roles, and sexual orientation are changing rapidly, while at the same time igniting vigorous debate and discourse from all sides of the issues. Along with changing attitudes of gender demands and expectations are open discussions about gay marriage, gays in the military, women in the military, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, child molestation etc. Now more than any other time in our country's history, adolescents are openly exposed to sexuality issues, and sexually explicit material and information, perhaps complicating what, obviously, is already a very intense time in ones life as far as gender and sexuality issues are concerned.

Gender, to begin with, refers less to one's physical reality as it does to society's ideas and concepts of what it means to be male or female. Gender-role refers to patterns of behavior that are partly due to genetic makeup, but perhaps more profoundly from traits that are considered in fashion at a particular time and in a particular culture.

Since adolescence is a very intense time in social terms and for sexuality issues and the development of gender concepts, it stands to reason that adolescents have a higher level of concern over conforming to gender expectations and demands of the day, even if they are stereotypes. This creates an environment that has led to what is known as the Gender Intensification Hypothesis (Hill & Lynch 1983). The idea is that various changes, chemical and otherwise, associated with puberty contribute to an increased concern about conformity to such gender stereotypes. Because adolescents are still unclear on the meaning of gender and sexuality issues they are more likely to be very rigid in their stereotyping of gender behavior. It is this rigidity in the face of very complex concepts that allows adolescents to develop a clearer understanding of gender and expected gender behavior. Only once they have solidified their understanding of gender, can they begin to think of these concepts in a more flexible manner.

Even more difficult, especially in today's society, and specifically in our Western culture, are the specific issues of sexual identity for the adolescent. Sexual Identity is described as the development of a cohesive sense of self as a sexual being in relation to culturally determined categories (Savin-Williams & Rodriguez 1993).

In today's society, the adolescent is bombarded with strong images and expectations regarding gender and sexuality. The media sends very strong messages to today's teens about gender-role behavior, the extent to which one's behaviors are considered masculine or feminine according to cultural norms. Many of these images and messages that teens are exposed to via advertising, television, movies, and music, for example, tend to escalate the rate at which teens might otherwise normally mature into sexuality. There is also a tendency for these influences to heighten the pressure on teens to conform to certain standards of sexual attractiveness, many of which are unrealistic.

Jane Brown and others (1990) found both of these suggestions to be true, in that, television, for one, has a major impact on gender-role expectations and sexuality on today's adolescent. It is obvious by nature of today's greater middle class affluence and the development of the television medium over the past generation that teens have far greater access to television than their parents did. Television, just as other media, has gotten far more permissive and far less censored over the years. Whereas in the 50's and 60's even married couples on television rarely, if ever, slept in the same bed, sexually explicit content is all over television today, both in visual and verbal content. According to several studies the average teenage viewer is exposed to more than 2,400 sexual references per year, and even more so among teens who watch soap operas and other dramas. Research has shown that watching television has a great impact on adolescent expectations about sex and sexuality.

Teens are also very likely to be heavily influenced by television and other media, especially advertising about specific gender-role expectations regarding attractiveness and body image. The ideals of "thinness" for females are often very unrealistic, especially for the physiology of the adolescent female. The current standards for female attractiveness as portrayed in today's media is the slimmest it has been in eighty years, and the risk for eating disorders among adolescent females is as great as it has ever been, while young girls desperately try to fulfill these unrealistic expectations.

Gender-role and current attitudes among adolescents and society as a whole towards gender-role behaviors and expectations have a varying range of influence on the experience of the adolescent. Gender-role, as stated earlier, is largely influenced by attitudes and traits in fashion with current times and within various cultures. For instance, there is a notion that women are more emotional than men, and cry more often, while men tend to be more stoic about expressing such "weak" or feminine emotions, even though there is no physiological evidence whatsoever to support this claim. This kind of thinking leads to gender-role behavior and the pressure on adolescents to act in ways that are considered either masculine or feminine. Many adolescents of today are under heightened pressure to engage in gender-role adaptation, which is defined entirely by