The little girl obviously enjoyed watching her brother work out in his first self-defense class. Even at a time when physical fitness is so highly valued and self-defense is so important, women hesitate to get involved in the martial arts. Women are concerned about developing these characteristics to the exclusion of their feminine traits, therefore losing some of their femininity. The idea of masculine versus feminine traits may seem a bit old-fashioned, especially after so much talk about our society becoming nonsexist, but most people still have definite ideas about sex roles and sex role deviance.
Psychologists still use personality tests to determine masculinity or femininity.
Our society is nonsexist enough, however, for these scales to have been questioned for being discriminatory against women and for stereotyping both men and women. In the clinicians' view, healthy women were characterized as being submissive, noncompetitive, conceited about appearance, dependent, and excitable in minor crises as compared with men. . . The traits conceived of as normal for women are seen as inadequate for adult functioning in general. There are many facets to the problem, many ways to view sex role identification. In spite of society's intention to be nonsexist, most people feel there are set differences between men and women.