“That’s Just How It Is”

Abstract

In this mixed-methods study, we adopted a feminist theoretical lens in conceptualizing gender as hierarchical and complementary ideologies—femininity and masculinity—that are fundamental constituents of institutionalized heterosexuality as a way to understand the persistence of gender inequity in adolescents’ heterosexual relationships. In Study 1, we conducted separate analyses for girls and boys to evaluate whether masculinity ideology for boys and femininity ideology for girls account for boys’ endorsement of male coercion and for girls’ endorsement of feminine conventions in heterosexual relationships with a sample of 250 tenth-grade students (n = 144 girls). Masculinity ideology proved to be as strong or stronger than femininity ideology in predicting these respective outcomes. In Study 2, we sought to understand this pattern through a thematically informed narrative analysis of interviews with 53 of the Study 1 participants (n = 35 girls) on their beliefs about and experiences with sexual expression and heterosexual relationships. Girls described the dual task of managing boys’ masculinity as well as their own femininity. Boys, by contrast, described girls’ femininity in instrumental terms for the management of their own masculinity. Integration of these results provides greater insight into how institutionalized heterosexuality is reproduced through the functioning of these hierarchical complementary gender ideologies.

Reimagining Social and Emotional Development: Accommodation and Resistance to Dominant Ideologies in the Identities and Friendships of Boys of Color

“…32-33) While developmental researchers have not considered the study of gender socialization, for example, as a study of accommodation to ideological structures, it is, in fact, the study of how boys and girls adopt dominant gender ideologies in their peer groups, identities, and school behaviors [e.g., Cvencek et al, 2011;Fabes et al, 2004;Liben, 2017;Tobin et al, 2010]. The study of boys, in addition, typically reveals how boys align with masculine norms [Chu, Porche, & Tolman, 2005;Cunningham, Swanson, & Hayes, 2013;Kimmel, 2008;Pleck, Sonenstein, & Ku, 1993;Majors & Billson, 1992;Tolman, Davis, & Bowman, 2015]. Developmental studies have also focused on accommodation to racist ideologies and revealed how children "learn" or accommodate to such ideologies in their racial attitudes and stereotypes [e.g., Slaughter-DeFoe, 2012].…”

Pathways to Pleasure and Protection: Exploring Embodiment, Desire, and Entitlement to Pleasure as Predictors of Black and White Young Women’s Sexual Agency

“…Feminist theories and research on gender inequities in heterosexual relationships have articulated the challenges to and importance of young women's sexual subjectivity for sexual well-being, sexual safety, and health (i.e., Bay -Cheng, 2015a;Fahs, 2011;Fine & McClelland, 2006;Horne & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2005;Tolman et al, 2016). Sexual subjectivity, which is broadly defined as a person's understanding and experience of themselves as a sexual being, has been theorized and empirically demonstrated to have several distinct dimensions: (a) one's awareness of her embodied feelings of desire, pleasure, and/or sexual responses, (b) one's sense of entitlement to those feelings, and (c) one's agency or ability to recognize and utilize bodily, relational, and cognitive information in acting in the interest of her own sexual needs (Horne & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2005;Martin, 1996;Schick et al, 2008;Tolman, 2002).…”

Development of sexual assertiveness and its function for human sexuality: a literature review

“…Gender stereotypes are a combination of personality traits, attitudes, values, and behaviors that characterize the social expectations of men and women (Sánchez-Bravo et al, 2005). In general, most cultures differ in terms of the social expectations for men and women concerning behavior in sexual situations (Tolman et al, 2016). In Latin American cultures, these social expectations are quite conservative.…”