HISTORY behind the test :
The sexual revolution of the mid-20th Century triggered dramatic social change, and it also sparked interest among psychologists regarding the issues of sex roles and gender identity. Sex roles refer to the social functions that are typically performed by men and women. Roles such as "bread winner," "protector," and "father" were traditionally played by men, while "home maker," "care giver," and "mother" were traditionally played by women. The roles that men and women have in society affect the expectations we have about their respective behavior, and that often translates into our beliefs about masculinity and femininity.
In the early 1970's, psychologists developed measures of masculinity and femininity such as the Bem Sex Role Inventory and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Prior to this, it was thought that it was important for psychological health and well being for men to be masculine and women to be feminine. While these measures found that most men were masculine and most women were feminine, there was evidence that androgyny, the integration of both masculine and feminine qualities, could also be desirable and psychologically healthy. More recent research shows that sex-role transcendence, or not identifying strongly with masculine or feminine characteristics, may also be psychologically healthy.
Tickle's own research used the established measures of psychology as a starting point and we conducted our own studies to discover what masculinity and femininity mean today. It may be somewhat surprising to learn that society's beliefs about masculinity and femininity haven't changed all that much. What has changed is that in current times more people are scoring as androgynous and sex-role transcendent. This area continues to be an active research topic in psychology because gender identity can affect how we think, behave, and communicate.
FINISH
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