Androgyny. Sandra Bem, feminist icon and scholar, began her work on gender in 1967 with the publication of Training the Woman to know her Place: The Power of an Unconscious Ideology (Bem and Bem 1970).This work on sexual inequality in heterosexual marriages and the proposal of egalitarian marriages was published at a time when the word sexism had not even been invented (Bem 1995), and … This supports Sandra Bem’s theory that androgyny is manifested as situational flexibility (1975). Androgyny is a particular way of processing information. 356 SANDRA LIPSITZ BEM self-fulfilling prophecies, and thus do we ar-rive at the phenomenon known as sex typing. Sandra L Bem (1974) Bem views Androgyny to mean both highly masculine and highly feminine, rather than neither masculine nor feminine (i.e. Through an analysis of journal … androgyny by observing that both feminine and masculine qualities were almost always present, at least to some degree, within the same individual. Sandra Bem, a pioneer in social psychology, introduced the concept of androgyny in her 1974 study, ‘The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny’. Measuring androgyny – Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) In the early 1970’s the view that individuals were either exclusively masculine or feminine was being challenged. Because sex-typed individuals are seen as processing information in terms of and con-forming to whatever definitions of masculin- The concept of androgyny has been introduced to literature due to the work of Sandra Bem (1974). In particular, the theory proposes that sex typing results from the fact that the self-concept itself is assimilated in the gender schema. Dr Sandra Bem developed the androgynous hypothesis, which saw androgyny as a positive and desirable condition, as part of this hypothesis she developed the BSRI. It is importan t to note that gender schema theory is a theory of process, not content. 1976). midway between the two extremes). Some have said that Bem's results with the scale were hard to duplicate, and the test was invalid. Susan M. Andersen and Sandra L. Bem, "Sex Typing and Androgyny in Dyadic Interaction: Individual Differences in Responsiveness to Physical Attractiveness," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 41, no. Gender schema theory proposes that the phenomenon of sex typing derives, in part, from gender-based schematic processing— a generalized readiness to process information on the basis of the sex-linked associations that constitute the gender schema. The main explanation for the improvement of psychologically androgyny is offered by Sandra Bem. Shauna: "Suggesting that people should combine both 'masculine' and 'feminine' behaviors just reinforces outdated ideas of gender. After continued research into androgyny, Bem developed a cognitive schema theory of sex role behavior (Cook, E. P. 1985). In some of her early articles, Bem focused on telling the conceptual story of psychological androgyny (Bem 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981a, 1981b; Bem and Lenney 1976; Bem et al. Others have argued that the theory behind the BSRI, gender schema theory, was flawed. Students in your class are discussing Sandra Bem's theory of androgyny. She is an American psychologist recognized for her works in gender and androgyny studies. One of Sandra Bem’s important contributions was the development of gender schema theory (GST; Bem 1981a). Sandra used the term 'androgyny' as a label for people who scored high on both feminine and masculine traits. Which student has the view most similar to more modern researchers' ideas about androgyny? Bem was the first in her field to suggest that masculinity and femininity range on two separate dimensions as opposed to one single dichotomy. Her approach is based on gender schema theory wherein children have functioning schemas. 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