Bem’s Gender Schema Theory Summarized by Margaret Hsiao

“Indeed, no other dichotomy in human experience appears to have as many entities linked to it as does the distinction between female and male” (Bem, 1983).

Overview of Theory

Bem’s Gender Schema Theory consolidated contemporary theories of sex typing by identifying the values and inherent flaws of psychoanalytic, social learning, and cognitive developmental theories. Bem rejected Freudian beliefs of “anatomy is destiny” and instead proposed that an individual’s gender identification emerged from his or her cognitive development and societal influences. Bem’s publication, The Lenses of Gender, sought to “render those lenses [of stereotypical and socially accepted masculine and feminine traits]visible rather than invisible, to enable us to look at the culture's gender lenses rather than through them” (Bem, 1993, p. 2).

There are three defining features of gender schematics based on Bem’s research:

1. Gender schemas develop through an individual’s observation of societal classifications of masculinity and femininity, which are evidenced in human anatomy, social roles, and characteristics.
2. Males and females cognitively process and categorize new information in their environment based on its maleness or femaleness.
3. Self-authorship is displayed by an individual’s categorization of and conformity to the sets of elements that belong to either definition of masculinity or femininity.
   (Evans, 2010, p. 336)

Bem Sex Role Inventory (1972)

In response to her theory, Bem developed Bem’s Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), which was developed as a means of identifying gender schematic and gender aschematic individuals. Composed of 60 words (which are divided into 20 stereotypically masculine traits, 20 stereotypically feminine traits, or 20 neutral traits), the test asks participants how strongly they identify with a given characteristic. Participants would then be ranked based on the following results:

Unlike other questionnaires, however, the BSRI does not dichotomize masculinity and femininity; a person does not have to be characterized as one or the other in inventory results. In other words, the BSRI ranks masculinity and femininity on a continuum; scores may include evidence of high levels of masculinity and femininity (androgenous) or low levels of both (undifferentiated).

Use in Higher Education

Sandra Bem (1998) stated, “I live my life with little separation between the personal, the professional, and the political. My theory and my practice are thus inextricably intertwined” (p. ix). Likewise, advisors must automatically recognize differences between sex and gender without having to consult theory in their practices. Gender schema theory and the BSRI illuminate cultural influences in student self-perception about gender. Although intertwined with other theories of gender and sexual identity development, Bem underscores the importance of dispelling gender stereotypes in order to prevent self-fulfilling prophecies in student development (e.g., major selection, career goals).

Annotated Bibliography

Vikan, A., Camino, C., & Biaggio, A. (2005). Note on a cross-cultural test of Gilligan’s ethic of care. Journal of Moral Education, 34(1), 107–111.

Vikan and Biaggio conducted a study on Brazilian and Norwegian psychology students to analyze

two student development theories: Gilligan’s ethic of care (and Skoe’s Ethic of Care Interview

[ECI]) and Bem’s Gender Schema Theory (and the Bem Sex Role Inventory [BSRI]). The researchers

found that ECI scores were not noticeably higher in female participants, nor were the students’

correlations higher based on their degree of femininity sex-role scores. From these results,

Gilligan’s ethic of care model corresponded mainly with cultural rather than gender variations;

more specifically, Gilligan’s model focused more on criteria of collectivism and individualism

rather than femininity and masculinity. Their study provides insight to Gilligan’s cultural variance,

though it should also explore the possibility of the BSRI’s cultural influence as well. After all, the

BSRI itself was formed by finding cultural traits of masculinity and femininity.

Links

The official BSRI is available to take at http://www.mindgarden.com/products/bemss.htm

Sandra Bem’s faculty page is at http://www.psych.cornell.edu/people/Faculty/slb6.html

References

Bem, S. L. (1983). Gender schema theory and its implications for child development: Raising gender-aschematic children in a gender-schematic society. Signs, 8(4), 598–616.

Bem, S. L. (1993). The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Bem, S. L. (1995). An unconventional family. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Evans, N. J., Forney, D. S., Guido, F. M., Patton, L. D., & Renn, K. A. (2010). Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.