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Chapter 3
Understanding Gender and Culture
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
In this chapter, students will learn:
• The important differences between sex, gender, and gender identity
• How gender shapes our verbal and nonverbal communication
• Suggestions for overcoming gender stereotypes
CHAPTER OUTLINE
WHAT IS GENDER?
Gender is a complex combination of physical, behavioral, and psychological attributes. It is distinct from
sex (a person’s biological, anatomical characteristics assigned at birth) and from gender identity (a
• Gender polarization, sorting people into binary categories of “male” or “female” based on legal,
social, or perceptual ideas, has traditionally been the norm in most societies.
• Many people today support the idea of a gender continuum, recognizing that individuals possess a
complex combination of attributes traditionally thought to be masculine or feminine.
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GENDER DEFINED
Gender Is Distinct from Sex and Gender Identity
• Sex is the anatomical, biological distinctions each of us is born with.
o Sex includes the differences in genitalia, internal reproductive sex organs, hormones, and
chromosomes each of us are born with.
• Gender identity is your deeply felt awareness and inner sense of being a boy, man, or male; a girl,
woman, or female; or an alternative, such as genderqueer, gender-nonconforming, or gender neutral
(APA, 2015; APA & National Association of School Psychologists, 2015).
o Individuals may identify on the transgender spectrum if their gender identity is different than
their assigned sex.
• Gender is a broad term encompassing all of the social, psychological, and behavioral attributes that a
particular culture associates with biological sex. It is more than sex or gender identity.
o Examples of the distinction between gender and sex:
• Steve’s child was born anatomically male and given the legal distinction as male on his birth
certificate establishing his sex as male.
• Therefore, Kyle is a cisgender male: his sex, gender, and gender identity all match.
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• Individuals may identify as cisgender if their gender identity corresponds to their sex.
• However, despite her physical anatomy, at a very young age, she knew herself to be a female.
Due to her female gender identity, her family stopped asking her to “act like a boy,” and
began to support her living a female gender by referring to her by the female pronoun, she,
and buying toys culturally reserved for girls.
Gender Is Learned
• Gender socialization is the cultural training through which we all learn gender norms and
expectations.
• The gender socialization practices begin at birth with the choice of name, clothing, and nursery
decorations.
GENDER ROLES
• Gender roles are the shared societal expectations for conduct and behaviors that are deemed
appropriate for girls or women and boys or men.
o Being told that big boys don’t cry or that actions are not ladylike are examples of societal
expectations for each gender.
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• By the age of 6, girls were less likely than boys to believe that girls were “really, really smart” (Bian,
Leslie, & Cimpian, 2017).
• Researchers stated that across “all study sites, boys are encouraged to be tough, strong, and brave and
to demonstrate heterosexual prowess. Girls are taught to be nice, polite, and submissive and to
accentuate their physical beauty while maintaining their modesty” (Chandra-Mouli et al., 2017).
GENDER AND COMMUNICATION
Many of us have inaccurate beliefs about men’s and women’s communication. In fact, there are few real
verbal communication differences between men and women. On the other hand, men and women show
consistent differences in nonverbal communication, which are a result of differing social expectations.
GENDER AND VERBAL COMMUNICATION
• Beliefs about gender and verbal communication are common.
GENDER AND NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
• Scientific research on gender differences in nonverbal communication—the transmission of
meaning through nonspoken physical and behavioral cues—suggests several consistent differences,
unlike with verbal communication.
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• Women tend to be more facially expressive than men (Hall, Carter, & Horgan, 2000) and often use
micro movements in their faces to communicate their emotions.
MOVING BEYOND GENDER STEREOTYPES
People who perceive wider gender differences between men and women are also more likely to hold
negative, sexist attitudes—especially toward women. As we strive to communicate competently with
people of all gender identities, one crucial step is to rethink our ideas about polarized gender.
Belief in polarized gender fuels the perception that others are different from us, and this artificially
widens the gulf between us. To build bridges of connection between people of varying genders, we need
to begin by challenging the idea of polarized gender. We offer the following suggestions:
1. Reflect on the ways that you construct gender in your life. Examine your artifacts and purchases,
considering not just the artifact, but also how it was advertised. Do your choices say anything about
gender roles? What would happen if you made changes in this aspect of your life?
2. Reflect on the media you consume or choose not to consume, including music, print, and social
media. Examine how gender is portrayed. Consider exploring different media literacy or advocacy
3. Reflect on the words you use and contemplate how they may impact others who may have different
gender identities and beliefs.
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WHAT IS CULTURE?
Whether you realize it or not, your culture affects your communication all the time. More than just your
race or ethnicity, cultural traits like age, physical abilities, social class, and even your values and beliefs
influence how you view yourself as well as how you perceive others.
• Cultural diversity is rapidly increasing in the United States. As of July 1, 2015, more than half the
nation’s children (50.2 percent of babies born) are nonwhite—including Latino, Asian, and African
American, and mixed-raced children (Pew Research Center, 2016).
CULTURE DEFINED
• Culture is an established, coherent set of beliefs, attitudes, values, and practices shared by a large
group of people (Keesing, 1974). Culture includes many types of influences such as your nationality,
ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities, and even age.
Culture Is Learned
Culture Is Communicated
• Each culture has its own practices regarding how to communicate. When you communicate with
someone from a different culture, this is called intercultural communication.
Culture Is Layered
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Culture Is Lived
• Culture affects everything about how you live your life. It influences the neighborhoods you live in;
the means of transportation you use; and the way you think, dress, talk, and even eat. Its impact runs
so deep that it is often taken for granted. At the same time, culture is often a great source of personal
pride.
CO-CULTURES
• Co-cultural communication theory asserts that the people who have more power within a society
determine the dominant culture, because they decide the prevailing views, values, and traditions of
the society.
• Co-cultures are members of a society who don’t conform to the dominant culture in terms of
language, values, lifestyle, or even physical appearance. They have their own cultures that coexist
within a dominant cultural sphere.
• Co-cultures develop and use numerous communication practices that help them interact with people
in the culturally dominant group. Co-cultural communication is when someone from a co-cultural
identity communicates with someone from a dominant group.
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o Suppressing reactions when members of the dominant culture make offensive comments
o Trying to excel in all aspects of their professional and personal lives to counteract negative
stereotypes about their co-culture
PREJUDICE
• Stereotypes are a way to categorize people into a social group and then evaluate them based on
information you have related to this group. They play a big part in the formation of impressions
during the perception process.
• The Stereotype Content Model proposes that prejudice centers on two judgments made about
others—how warm and friendly they are and how competent they are—leading to two possible kinds
of prejudice:
Benevolent Prejudice
• Occurs when people think of a particular group as inferior but also friendly and competent.
Hostile Prejudice
• Happens when people have negative attitudes toward a group of individuals whom they see as
unfriendly and incompetent.
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• The supposed incompetence is considered intrinsic to the people: “They’re naturally lazy,” “They’re
all crazy zealots,” or “They’re mean and violent.”
Overcoming Prejudice
• Prejudice, no matter what form, is destructive and unethical.
• If you think you have prejudiced beliefs, your communication skills can help you confront them and
permanently give them up by doing the following:
o Use the perception-checking and empathy guidelines discussed in Chapter 2 to help you evaluate
and change your own beliefs.
o Learn about the cultures and groups you have prejudiced beliefs about.
• If you’ve been on the receiving end of prejudice, try not to generalize your experience with that one
person (or persons) to all members of the same group.
o The behavior of a few doesn’t reflect all members of that group.
CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION
Your cultural background differs from other people’s in many ways. One way those differences are
expressed is through your communication—such as how you deal with power structures, share emotions,
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DIMENSIONS OF DIFFERENCE
• Cultural differences and the perceptions associated with them can be profound. Five of the most
commonly experienced cultural dimensions are: (1) individualism versus collectivism; (2) high- and
low-context; (3) uncertainty avoidance; (4) emotional displays; and (5) power distance.
Individualistic versus Collectivistic Cultures
• In individualist cultures, people tend to do the following:
• Praise individual achievement as the highest good.
• Examples of individualist countries include the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Sweden.
• In collectivist cultures, people tend to:
o Emphasize group identity and the sense of belonging to groups or “collectives” that look after
you in exchange for your loyalty.
• Examples of collectivist countries include Guatemala, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Japan.
High- and Low-Context
• High-context cultures use relatively vague and ambiguous language and even silence to convey
important meanings.
o People often talk indirectly (using hints or suggestions) because they presume that members of
their in group will know what they’re trying to say.
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• Low-context cultures tend not to presume that others share their beliefs, attitudes, and values.
o People strive to be informative, clear, and direct in their communication. People work to make
important information obvious, rather than hinting or implying.
Uncertainty Avoidance
• Uncertainty avoidance addresses how cultures vary in how much they tolerate and accept
unpredictability.
• High-uncertainty-avoidance cultures place a lot of value on control, define rigid rules and
conventions to guide all beliefs and behaviors, and often feel uncomfortable with unusual or
innovative ideas.
o People want structure in their organizations, institutions, relationships, and everyday lives.
• Low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures place more emphasis on “letting the future happen,” without
trying to control it.
o People care less about rules, tolerate diverse viewpoints and beliefs, and welcome innovation and
change.
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Emotion Displays
• Display rules are the cultural norms that exist regarding how people should and shouldn’t express
emotion; they provide guidelines for when, where, and how to manage emotion displays
appropriately.
o Display rules govern very specific aspects of nonverbal communication, such as how broadly you
should smile or whether or not you should scowl when angry.
o One cannot presume that all people from the same culture necessarily share the same
expectations. As much as possible, adjust your expression of emotion to match the style of the
individuals with whom you’re interacting.
Power Distance
• Power distance is the degree to which people in a particular culture view the unequal distribution of
• In high-power-distance cultures, people of different social and professional status have different
levels of power and give privileged treatment and extreme respect to those in high-status positions.
• In low-power-distance cultures, people in high-status positions try to minimize the differences
between themselves and lower-status persons.
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o People of lesser status interact with people of greater status in informal ways and treat them as
equals.
COMMUNICATION ACCOMMODATION
• Communication accommodation theory states that one of the most important things you can do is
adapt to another person’s communication preference.
o Assess verbal communication habits and expectations.
o Assess nonverbal habits and expectations.
CREATING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
Even when you understand what culture is, how co-cultures work, and the ways cultures influence
communication, you can still have trouble communicating with people from different backgrounds. To
work toward competence, be mindful of the differences discussed so far, actively seek to understand other
cultures, and adapt your communication as needed.
• Intercultural competence is the ability to communicate appropriately, effectively, and ethically with
people from diverse backgrounds.