SOC 201 Chapter 14: Chapter 14.26
Document Summary
The evidence increasingly shows that gender differences tend to override sex differences that social expectations, for example, are much more powerful determinants of people"s behaviors than their physical attributes. Summarizing the differences between women and men is not an easy task, once one leaves the obvious biological domains [that is, differences in reproductive capacities]. The basic repertoires of women and men are quite similar, particularly when it comes to social behaviors. Both women and men know how to be aggressive, how to be helpful, how to smile, and how to be rude. What they actually do is determined less by differential abilities than by the context in which they are acting. Attitudes and actions of others affect what people do. So, too, do people alter their own behavior from one situation to another, depending on their goals and objectives. Comparisons of women and men cannot be analyzed in a vacuum, independent of their social context.
