To purchase, return to Bridging the Gender Gap homepage We absorb what society considers appropriate behavior through the natural process of socialization, accepting and internalizing cultural ideals without questioning them. Fortunately, our culture has begun to acknowledge and discuss how gender socialization has impacted women and men. That modification involves changing how women and men feel, think, and behave.
Awareness is the key to successfully making such complex changes.
Groups focusing on gender role issues help participants become aware of the cultural expectations that shape male and female gender role prescripts as well as their corresponding effects on attitudes and behavior. For example, participants learn how society encourages women to repress their need for achievement and men to inhibit their need to express emotions. By providing participants with new information, insights, and models, the group process enables participants to change their perception of society's gender roles and begin to change the behavior shaped by those prescripts. This Book Most Effectively, which begins on page 159.