The New Male Role

During the last decade there has been a virtual explosion of publications about sex roles; however, most of them have been about women. There are, of course, innumerable studies of work, leisure, and political participation of Americans based upon all-male samples; yet, until recently, there have been few studies dealing explicitly with the male sex role.

Very recently, there has been a flurry of publications dealing with the male sex role.12,18,34,35,36 Most of these are edited books with articles that are often impressionistic and confessional. Chapter headings like “My Sex Role—And Ours,” “Being a Boy,” and “The Making of Dull Boys,” suggest the flavor of these books.

There are, however, studies of the male sex role from several different perspectives. There are many studies of the personality and temperamental components of the male sex role based upon personality inventories. This research tradition began with the study by Terman and Miles;44 since then, psychologists have developed many different types of research strategies to measure the “masculinity-femininity” dimension of personality. (There are innumerable scales which purport to measure the masculinity/femininity dimension of personality. For a discussion and evaluation of these see Constantinople.10) The findings from these studies have been consistent over time; yet, they have been criticized for reflecting sex stereotypes rather than “real” personality dimensions.13

Studies of sex stereotyping have also shown that there is considerable agreement among people from different backgrounds and diverse ages about the components of the male role.15,33 For example, Balswick's and Ward's1 study of sex role stereotypes, based upon the responses of 1,234 high school students, showed that these students believed the ideal man should be strong, dominant, and responsible.

Finally, there are numerous studies of sex role socialization which examine