Increasingly, developmental theorists argue that men and women become more psych
ID: 3455602 • Letter: I
Question
Increasingly, developmental theorists argue that men and women become more psychologically androgynous in terms of their personalities and social interactions as they age. Based on your textbook and what you see going on in the real world, please answer two questions and give your reason for the answers: 1) Do you see this androgyny/increased flexibility of gender role scripts as being a reality for most people who are middle aged or older? 2) To what extent do you agree with theorists that this is a good thing for men and women? [***PLEASE NOTE: This question is about PSYCHOLOGICAL androgyny, which has been documented to shift across the lifespan (by theorists such as Bem), not PHYSIOLOGICAL androgyny, which tends to be malleable over time for a smaller group of people and is a completely different topic. The latter is a real-world hot topic, and includes things like "gender bending" and includes trans-gender issues, and is also important to understand, but right now we are talking about PSYCHOLOGICAL development of androgyny across the life span in this assignment.***]
Explanation / Answer
1) Do you see this androgyny/increased flexibility of gender role scripts as being a reality for most people who are middle aged or older?
Psychological androgyny refers to the stars in which a person does not adhere to only the rigid stereotypes of his gender. This means that’s a person could be rigid as well as sensitive, they could be dominant as well as submissive and these characteristics would be regardless of the gender of the person. Such a person, would be doubling their repertoire of the kind of responses they give along with the interaction they have with the world.
This increased androgyny is a reality for most people who are present at Middle Ages or at older ages. There is change in gender typing in the middle life. Among the middle aged men, there is a decrease in masculinity and there is an increase in masculinity among the middle aged women. With an increase in life satisfaction, this reversal of roles was seen to be more prominent.
2) To what extent do you agree with theorists that this is a good thing for men and women?
I agree, completely, with the theorists that this is a good thing for the men and women. This is because, men were always thought to be rigid and not showing any emotions to the family whereas, an increase in emotions or “femininity” would allow the men to display ample emotions to their family. Also, this will allow the women to have more amount of confidence in them so that there would be the belief that they could do things on their own with decreased dependency.