ABSTRACT
Although sex-role standards in this country have been modified and liberalized over the past decades, men and women continue to be distinguished by a diverse array of attributes, attitudes, and behaviors, and are assigned primary responsibility for different societal tasks. In the initial section of this chapter, we briefly examine some of the psychological models that have been concerned with describing and explaining the relationships among these “masculine” and “feminine” attributes and behaviors. This discussion sets the stage for the second section, which presents a set of data that explores individuals’ images of masculinity and femininity from a different perspective than has typically been employed. In the final section, a theoretical reconceptualization of the masculinity and femininity concepts is outlined.
