Gender Identity

In some societies sex-role stereotyping is decreasing. Even in traditional two-parent families, distinctions between appropriate tasks, roles, and occupations for women and men are changing. Styles of personal grooming and dress are becoming less differentiated, particularly among younger people.

There is no precedent for a human society without distinction between males and females: no society is sexless or gender neutral. However, societies vary in the content of different sex roles and in the number of characteristics that are sexually differentiated. The irreducible distinction is having a penis or having a vagina. When social differences between males and females are minimized, as in some tribal societies, children are usually exposed to nudity of both sexes. These children can develop gender identities based on physical differences between the sexes and not the social conventions of styles of grooming, dress, or social tasks and roles.

Social learning of new content of gender roles can be as difficult as learning a new language. Changes in the social content of gender roles may be threatening for individuals who developed their gender identities based on superficial gender characteristics.

In marriage and other social relations, interaction and communication are facilitated by a shared sense of gender roles. An individual's own gender identity presupposes a complementary schema for the gender-related behavior of the spouse and individuals of the other sex. Insofar as people do not share the same schema for gender roles, there can be conflict and misunderstood communication. For example, accurate interpretation of the verbal or nonverbal sexual communication of wife and husband presupposes that they each have similar mental schemas for male and female behavior.