Discuss Whether Cross Cultural Research Supports the View That Gender Roles Are Innate or Learnt?

Discuss whether cross cultural research supports the view that gender roles are innate or learnt?

Cross culture research has had a major effect on the view point to whether gender roles are innate or learnt. It allows us to look at a wider population of people from all around the world and get a more general idea that can apply to more than one culture. The research done involving cross cultures also helps increase our understanding of the relative contributions of biology and socialisation. If biology is the main thing in gender roles then we would expect to see that throughout cultures there would be similarities in the division of labour, whereas if socialisation is the main factor then we would expect to see variation throughout cultures.

Cross cultural studies show that every society has a division of labour and behaviour by gender. It is shown that nurturing of the babies and food preparation are jobs mostly carried out by the females. Although it is shown that sometimes the jobs are shared, but in no society is it found that the males have this as there major responsibility.

Margaret Mead did a study involving three tribes in New Guinea; the Arapesh whom both showed the stereotypes of western femininity, the Mundugumore whom both sexes behaved very masculine and the Tchambuli tribe where the women were the dominant sex being practical and strong whereas the men were flirtatious and gentle. Mead concluded that the data showed cultural determinism stating that gender roles are determined by social factors rather than biological but when re-evaluating her data changed her opinion to cultural relativism as even though these tribes showed different qualities within gender compared to a traditional western one, Mead found that the men in each tribe still did show a more dominant and powerful role. This suggests that some behaviours are innate but to what degree these behaviours are expressed is comparative to the particular culture. Although some have...