From: Thomas Gramstad <thomas@math.uio.no>
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: The Bem test
Date: 7 Jan 1993 19:20:47 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
Reply-To: thomas@math.uio.no
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

Basically the Bem Sex Role Inventory illustrates that
gender ('psychological sex', biologically determined)
is an arbitrary cultural invention.  I'll append the
Bem Sex Role Inventory at the end of this message. It
has been posted on the net before.

I can dig up Bem's original article and post the reference
if noone else does it.

Today Sandra Bem is at Cornell University.  She teaches
this course:

Psych 277 Psychology of Sex Roles (Also Women's Studies 277)
Spring -- 3 credits -- Limited to 300 students

Here's a description of the course:

This course addresses the very broad question of how an
individual's gender and sexuality are constructed.  Although
some attention is given to biological perspectives, the
course emphasizes the social-psychological processes by which
the culture transforms male and female newborns into
"masculine" and "feminine" adults.  In addition to being
quite interdiscplinary, the course is also oriented to
questioning the "naturalness" of not only masculinity and
femininity themselves, but exclusive heterosexuality as well.
Among some of the specialized topics discussed are
psychological androgyny, equalitarian relationships,
gender-liberated child rearing, the male-centeredness of the
work world, female sexuality, sexual harassment, and
homophobia.

--------------------------

The Bem Sex-Role Inventory

The BSRI is the product of Sandra Lipsitz Bem, who has been interested
in researching sex roles since the early '70's. (For a recent paper
published by her, see (Bem, 1985)).  At the time she started, it was
seen as a flaky topic, but today it is taken a lot more seriously.
While this retransmission may qualify as a copyright violation,
(though it might not, under Canadian copyright laws), I have only the
deepest respect for Dr. Bem and the work she is doing, and I reproduce
this only because I think she would like more people to think about
how sex roles affect them personally, and this is a good tool for
doing just that.  I don't intend to hurt anybody, and I've seen the
BSRI published in enough places (or parts thereof) that I'm certain
she has a "take it and use it" attitude.

If Dr. Bem is out there in net.land (or anyone around her), please
tell me if I've missed the mark.

                                -- Peter Sellmer


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Instructions: On the next screen, you will see a list of personality
characteristics.  What you do is rate how much these apply to you on a
7 point scale.  Generally speaking, first impressions are the most
accurate for things like these, so shoot from the hip! An example of
the scoring:

sly
score 1 if you are NEVER OR ALMOST NEVER sly
score 2 if you are USUALLY NOT sly
score 3 if you are SOMETIMES BUT INFREQUENTLY sly
score 4 if you are OCCASIONALLY sly
score 5 if you are OFTEN sly
score 6 if you are USUALLY sly
score 7 if you are ALWAYS OR ALMOST ALWAYS sly

Just out of curiosity, rate each item as to how applicable it is
to a really desirable MOTAS (we're talking SO grade with NO hesitation)


  1       2        3          4         5      6       7   
Never  Usually Sometimes Occasionally Often Usually Always
True   Not True   True      True      True   True   True


self-reliant            reliable                       warm
yielding                analytical                     solemn	
helpful                 sympathetic                    willing to take a stand
defends own beliefs     jealous                        tender
cheerful                has leadership abilities       friendly
moody                   sensitive to other's needs     aggressive
independent             truthful                       gullible
shy                     willing to take risks          inefficient
conscientious           understanding                  acts as a leader
athletic                secretive                      childlike
affectionate            makes decisions easily         adaptable
theatrical              compassionate                  individualistic
assertive               sincere                        doesn't use profanity
flatterable             self-sufficient                unsystematic
happy                   eager to soothe hurt feelings  competitive
strong personality      conceited                      loves children
loyal                   dominant                       tactful
unpredictable           soft-spoken                    ambitious
forceful                likable                        gentle
feminine                masculine                      conventional


This post is still huge, but the midterm (Psych Research Methods) went
OK.  I think there are some useful (as in real-life practical) reasons
for doing this quiz, so I'll post part 2 a little later.  I have some
notions about the way the scores will tend to fall out, so I'd be very
interested in people mailing me theirs and good SO material's.  I'll
summarize and post, of course, without naming names.

-- Peter Sellmer (peter@watcsc.uwaterloo.ca or
                  psellmer@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca)





SCORING:
Here is the same list of attributes, except each has an indicator
(m/f/n) beside it:

self-reliant -m          reliable -n                   warm -f
yielding -f              analytical -m                 solemn -n
helpful -n               sympathetic -f                willing to take -m
defends own beliefs -m   jealous -n                    tender -f
cheerful -f              has leadership abilities -m   friendly -n
moody -n                 sensitive to other's needs -f aggressive -m
independent -m           truthful -n                   gullible -f
shy -f                   willing to take risks -m      inefficient -n
conscientious -n         understanding -f              acts as a leader -m
athletic -m              secretive -n                  childlike -f
affectionate -f          makes decisions easily -m     adaptable -n
theatrical -n            compassionate -f              individualistic -m
assertive -m             sincere -n                    doesn't use profanity -f
flatterable -f           self-sufficient -m            unsystematic -n
happy -n                 eager to soothe hurt -f       competitive -m
strong personality -m    conceited -n                  loves children -f
loyal -f                 dominant -m                   tactful -n
unpredictable -n         soft-spoken -f                ambitious -m
forceful -m              likable -n                    gentle -f
feminine -f              masculine -m                  conventional -n

Now, the thing to note about the above scheme is that they were all
selected by a large (N ~ 1500) sample of college students to be more
desirable for the sex listed.  That is, this measures how much they
line up with our sex role ideas.

The actual score is calculated by averaging the scores for male and
female attributes, respectively.  This gives a male score and a female
score.  Subtract the male score from the female score to get the
androgyny score.

The androgyny score can range from -6 (extremely masculine) to +6
(extremely feminine).  Watch the sign on this one! :-) Most people
tend to score -1 <= AS <= +1, for which a detailed scheme is:

+1 < AS :  Feminine
+0.5 < AS < +1 : near-feminine
-0.5 < AS < +0.5 : androgynous
-0.5 > AS > -1 : near-masculine
-1 < AS : Masculine



Discussion, or That's nice, but what does it mean?

Well, the whole thing tries to get a handle on how close we fit to
common sex-role perceptions, while circumventing the idea that somehow
men and women are "opposite" sexes.  ( I dunno, I think we ought to
call them dual sexes or something like that ).  Anyway, the whole
thing runs on how we consider some behaviors as more fitting for one
sex or another.  There are some interesting stats from groups tested
by Dr. Bem:

               Males  (N=444)              Females (N=279)
%feminine             5%                         29%
%near-feminine        5%                         18%
%androgynous         44%                         39%
%near-masculine      16%                          8%
%masculine           30%                          7%

Two things strike me about these numbers: 1) the curves are pretty
much the same for both sexes, and 2) the sex-role label only sticks to
about half the people!  In psych terms, this labelling of behaviors
by gender just doesn't cut it as far as construct validity goes.  With
about half the population supporting these notions, it's pretty clear
why they are so resistant to change.  They sort-of work about half the
time, and we use stereotypes (which are cognitive rules-of-thumb /
default settings) all the time.  We cannot eliminate stereotyping as a
cognitive process, but we sure as hell can edit the contents of our
stereotypes!

I want to get some feedback from some net.folk before I talk about my
hunches on what the scores out there are like.

just quote me the citation (Foobar, 197x), and I'll e-mail you the
reference.
 
-- Peter Sellmer (peter@watcsc.uwaterloo.ca or
                  psellmer@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca)


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