Tomboys and sissies: Androgynous children?

Hemmer, Joan D.; Kleiber, Douglas A.

doi:10.1007/bf00287972

Cited by 47 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…For the woman with high facial masculinity, the results corroborate prior research that found attributions of leadership (e.g., Hemmer & Kleiber, 1981). But for the woman with low masculinity, our findings are a surprising discovery.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Masculine faces are likely associated with dominance and power, because in many animal species, including primates (De Waal, 1982) and humans (Murray & Schmitz, 2011), facial masculinity is linked to greater physical size and strength, body features which in many species determine social status and rank (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001;Little et al, 2007;Re et al, 2013). This pattern was also evident in a study of elementary school children who ascribed strength, resourcefulness, independence and, indeed, leadership to those girls whom they categorized as rather masculine (Hemmer & Kleiber, 1981).…”

Section: Facial Masculinity and Leadership Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 95%

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Reading the Face of a Leader: Women with Low Facial Masculinity Are Perceived as Competitive

Silberzahn

Menges

2016

AMD

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In competitive settings, people prefer leaders with masculine faces. But is facial masculinity a trait that is similarly desired in men and women leaders? Across three studies, we discovered that people indeed prefer men and women leaders who have faces with masculine traits. But surprisingly, we find that people also prefer women with low facial masculinity as leaders in competitive contexts (Study 1). Our findings indicate that low facial masculinity in women, but not in men is perceived to indicate competitiveness (Study 2). Thus, in contrast to men, women leaders who rate high in facial masculinity as well as those low in facial masculinity are both selected as leaders in competitive contexts. Indeed, among CEOs of S&P 500 companies, we find a greater range of facial masculinity among women CEOs than among men CEOs (Study 3). Our results suggest that traits of facial masculinity in men and women are interpreted differently. Low facial masculinity in women is linked to competitiveness and not only to cooperativeness as suggested by prior research. Editor's CommentThe paper by Silberzahn and Menges provides important insights into the effects of masculine and feminine facial features. Do leaders in competitive situations profit from masculine or feminine features, and does this vary across men and women? Based on their intuition and a few available data points, the authors expected mainstream ideas to hold for men but not for women, where those ideas support masculinity for leaders embedded in strongly competitive situations. The authors were right-among men, those with masculine features were favored as leaders and indeed were seen as more competitive, but among women those with strongly masculine features and those with strongly feminine features were favored and were rated as more competitive. Having shared these findings with several executive audiences, this editor can tell you that practicing managers are quite intrigued by the implications. For scholarship, the findings reported in the paper have implications for several research streams and theories.C. Chet Miller, Action Editor 272

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Facial Masculinity and Leadership Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 95%

Reading the Face of a Leader: Women with Low Facial Masculinity Are Perceived as Competitive

Silberzahn

Menges

2016

AMD

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“…We note that the girl in this study was accepted as an equal participant by her male peers, and was in many respects less marginalized than many of the gender divergent boys. That girls with masculine attributes may enjoy higher status than boys with feminine attributes may help explain the findings by Donelson and Gullahorn (1977) and Hemmer and Kleiber (1981) that tomboyism, although quite common, is less recognized as abnormal. The relative paucity of tomboys in this study may be artifact of the emic sampling strategy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…But "tomboys" (masculine girls) are not rare in school settings. Donelson and Gullahorn (1977) and Hemmer and Kleiber (1981) showed that "tomboys" are quite common although less likely to be seen as "abnormal. "…”

Section: F L Cardoso E Colsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender divergence in physical education classes

Cardoso

Felipe

Hedegaard

2005

Psic.: Teor. e Pesq.

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-We evaluate a group of students, presumed by their physical education teachers to be gender divergent. This study suggests that PE teachers confuse "gender-divergence" with uncoordinated motor behaviors. This may be because PE classes emphasize motor abilities and coordination and PE teachers may pay particular attention to these characteristics and use them (wrongly) as a criterion for gender divergence. However, the 10 presumed "divergent students" differ from their peers by being more likely to have friends of the opposite sex, interacting with groups of the opposite sex, preferring physical activities typical of the opposite sex, demonstrating less knowledge of sex, preferring interactive rather than collaborative activities and preferring more individual, less complex, less aggressive activities with less body contact.

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“…Within the literature, it is generally loosely understood: definitions, where they occur, centre around active play, interest in activities stereotypically favoured by boys, and choosing boys as companions. In the very few cases in which tomboys have been researched directly (Hemmer & Kleiber, 1981;McGuffey & Rich, 1999;Reay, 2001;Renold, 2005), the status as an 'honorary boy' is highly salient, apart from in my own work with Sheryl Clark , in which this was not found to be as important as other factors. Retrospective studies (Bailey & Zucker, 1995;Burn, O'Neill, & Nederend, 1996;Gottschalk, 2003;Morgan, 1998;van Volkom, 2003) tend to concentrate more on active play and stereotypically masculine pursuits, although this may be partially because of their focus on such matters as the potential to predict high activity levels or same-sex sexual orientation in adult life.…”

Section: Outline Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 82%

Tomboys and girly-girls: embodied femininities in primary schools

Paechter

2010

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

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This paper is about how nine to eleven year old children, particularly girls, coconstruct tomboy and girly-girl identities as oppositional positions. The paper sits within a theoretical framework in which I understand individual and collective masculinities and femininities as ways of 'doing man/woman' or 'doing boy/girl' that are constructed within local communities of masculinity and femininity practice. Empirical data come from a one-year study of tomboy identities within two London primary schools. The paper explores the contrasting identities of tomboy and girlygirl, how they are constructed by the children, and how this changes as they approach puberty. The findings suggest that the oppositional construction of these identities makes it harder for girls to take up more flexible femininities, though it is possible to switch between tomboy and girly-girl identities at different times and places.

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Tomboys and sissies: Androgynous children?

Cited by 47 publications

References 24 publications

Reading the Face of a Leader: Women with Low Facial Masculinity Are Perceived as Competitive

Reading the Face of a Leader: Women with Low Facial Masculinity Are Perceived as Competitive

Gender divergence in physical education classes

Tomboys and girly-girls: embodied femininities in primary schools

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