ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of sex and gender in human societies. It also explores both universal and variable features of gender relations throughout the world. The chapter looks at two topics of modern societies: how gender is learned by each sex, and why men and women tend to pursue different academic and occupational options. It looks at some representative studies of gender differences in expressed occupational interests. Modern women's stated occupational preferences directly reveal these kinds of traits necessary for successful motherhood. It considers the positions of men and women and their life outcomes in modern industrial societies. The sociologist Martin King Whyte examined political leadership in ninety-three of the societies in the Standard Sample and found that sixty-five political leadership was exclusively in the hands of men. Moreover, Kingsley Browne suggests that women today actually have more real choices than men.
