Understanding Gender:

Social and Cultural Constructions

 Even if biology were destiny, the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud

argued, the process by which biological males and females become gendered
men and women does not happen naturally nor inevitably. Gender identity, he
argued, is an achievement – the outcome of a struggle for boys to separate from
their mothers and identify with their fathers, and of a parallel and complementary
struggle for girls to reconcile themselves to their sexual inadequacy and therefore
maintain their identification with their mothers.

 In this chapter we give a brief overview of the ways of thinking about psychology
and gender that have been developed in recent decades. We begin by
sketching the most common ways of conceptualizing gender in psychology. We
then discuss some feminist critiques of these ways of understanding gender.
Then we turn to current feminist thinking about femininity and masculinity, the
production of gender in daily life, gender asymmetries in power, and
intersectionality.

 When strictly referring to the biological categories of male and female we

typically use the term “sex,” and when referring more broadly to social
constructions of masculinity and femininity, such as stereotypes and roles, we
typically use the term “gender.” This rule, however, is not hard and fast. For
example, we sometimes use “gender” when referring to people’s social
classification of others as male or female because once an individual is
categorized by sex, a variety of assumptions about gender (i.e., masculinity or
femininity) automatically come into play. As a result, we frequently use “sex” and
“gender” interchangeably when referring to the simple categorization of these two
groups
Biological and Cultural Explanations

 Most cultural or social theorists view gender as a social construction, a

product of cultural ideals about femininity and masculinity. Gender, of course,
builds on the biological categories of female and male, but social constructionists
tend to believe that biological sex differences affect only a limited number of
physical traits (e.g., size, genitalia, and facial hair) and that psychological
differences between the sexes are culturally created.
 Biological essentialism is anathema to social constructionists, who point out that
variation within each sex on any specific characteristic remains much greater
than the average difference between the sexes (Hyde, 2005). From this
perspective, differences between men and women trace back to culture more
than nature. These differences nevertheless become “real” because social forces
compel men and women to enact or “perform” gender (and not because sex
differences are deeply embedded in people’s genetic codes).
The Cultural Approach

The most prominent cultural theories and research on the psychology of gender
emphasize gender socialization, the process by which girls and boys learn feminine
and masculine identities (e.g., see C. L. Martin & Ruble, 2004). From infancy on, how
people are treated depends on their sex. Nonetheless, socialization is not a passive
process. Rather, as children learn gendered expectations, they also begin actively to
“perform gender,” trying to live up to society’s predetermined gender ideals and
stereotypes (processes we explore in detail in subsequent chapters). Thus, cultural
theorists are social constructionists; they assume that cultural beliefs create most, if not
all, observed sex differences in behavior as people act out cultural scripts assigned to
their gender.

Social learning theory (Mischel, 1966) represents one influential cultural

explanation of gender differences. Social learning theorists focus on modeling or
observational learning, which refers to acquiring behaviors by observing how similar
others, such as same-sex others, behave. Consistent with the social learning
perspective, many studies demonstrate that children learn what it means to be male or
female through observation. For instance, children are more likely to imitate the
behavior of a person of the same sex as opposed to the other sex (Bussey & Bandura,
1999).

Gender schemas represent habits of mind that persist through adulthood. For
instance, one might assume solely on the basis of their gender that a man probably
prefers watching football over shopping, whereas a woman would likely prefer
shopping
The Evolutionary Approach

Based on Darwinian theory, the evolutionary approach emphasizes biologically based

sex differences, not only in physical characteristics but in psychological traits, mental
processes, and behavior (e.g., Buss, 2003). Like cultural theorists, evolutionary
psychologists are concerned with the origins of gender differences, but their focus is on
more distal, biological causes. Both schools of thought argue that past events continue
to influence people today, but evolutionary theorists stress long-ago species adaptation,
whereas cultural theorists focus on more proximate social forces. Moreover,
evolutionary theorists uniquely rely on comparing people to animals because some of
the basics of hetero- sexual reproduction, which are theorized to have created
psychological and behavioral sex differences, ought to have had similar evolutionary
influences across species.

Social Role Theory

Social role theory (Eagly, 1987) focuses on two social structural aspects of gender
relations: a gendered division of labor and gender-based hierarchy (in which men
generally have more status and power than women). The theory suggests that these
structural factors determine the content of socially shared beliefs about men and women
as well as observed gender differences in personality, skills, and behavior. We illustrate
social role theory’s insights, organized according to the advantages of social structural
theories listed previously.

The Origins and Content of Gender Stereotypes and Sex Differences

Social role theory observes that roles generate specific demands for individuals to
exhibit particular traits and behaviors. For example, women’s long-standing child-rearing
role requires nurturing traits and behaviors. The cultural assignment of women to a
child-rearing role is rooted in reproductive biology, which ties women to bearing and
nourishing infants. Social role theory suggests that such role segregation produces
stereotyped expectations; for example, because of women’s link to child rearing, people
associate women with communal traits (e.g., helpful, nurturing, and kind). Similarly,
social role theory attributes stereotypes of men as more assertive, competitive, and
aggressive (i.e., more agentic) to their nondomestic work roles, which tend to require
physical bravery and leadership skills.

GENDER AND CULTURE IN PSYCHOLOGY

 Even if biology were destiny, the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud

argued, the process by which biological males and females become gendered
men and women does not happen naturally nor inevitably. Gender identity, he
argued, is an achievement – the outcome of a struggle for boys to separate from
their mothers and identify with their fathers, and of a parallel and complementary
struggle for girls to reconcile themselves to their sexual inadequacy and therefore
maintain their identification with their mothers.
.
The Psychology of Gender
Psychology
 The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

What is Psychology of Gender?

Gender
Three dimensions
 Body
 Identity, and
 Social
 Gender (Three Dimensions)

Body
 concerns our physical body, how we experience it, how society genders bodies,
and the way in which others interact with us based on our body
 Gender (Three Dimensions)
Gender Identity
 our internal perception and expression of who we are as a person. It includes
naming our gender, though this gender category may not match the sex we are
assigned at birth
 Gender (Three Dimensions)
 Language best communicates our internal experience. As language evolves, a
person’s name for their gender may also evolve. This does not mean their
gender has changed, but rather that the words for it are shifting.
 Gender (Three Dimensions)

Social Gender

 the manner in which we present our gender in the world

 how other people, society, and culture affect our concept of gender

Language of Gender

 Agender – When someone does not identify with a gender

 Cisgender – When a person’s gender identity matches their assigned sex at
birth
 FtM – When a person is assigned a female sex at birth but whose gender identity
is boy/man
 Language of Gender
 Gender dysphoria – When a person is unhappy or dissatisfied with their gender
and can occur in relation to any dimension of gender. The person may
experience mild discomfort to unbearable distress.
 Genderfluid – When a person’s gender changes over time; they view gender as
dynamic and changing
 Language of Gender
 Gender role – All the activities, functions, and behaviors that are expected of
males and females by society
 Genderqueer – Anyone who does not identify with conventional gender
identities, roles, expectations, or expression
 Language of Gender
 MtF – When a person is assigned a male sex at birth but whose gender identity
is girl/woman
 Non–binary – When a gender identity is not exclusively masculine or feminine
 Transgender – When a person’s gender identity differs from their assigned sex
 Language of Gender
 Gender equality – the absence of discrimination on the basis of a person’s sex
in opportunities, the allocation of resources and benefits, or access to services
 Gender equity – the fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and
responsibilities between women and men

Gender Congruence

 Sense of harmony in one’s own gender

 Gender Congruence
Transition

 When a person moves from the traditional binary view of gender to transgender,
agender, or non-binary, and find congruence in their gender
 Evolution – the person himself

Gender Congruence sought in various ways

 Social - Changing one’s clothes, hairstyle, and name and/or pronouns

 Hormonal - Using hormone blockers or hormone therapy to bring about physical,
mental, and/or emotional alignment
 Surgical - When gender-related physical traits are added, removed, or modified
 Legal - Changing one’s birth certificate or driver’s license

A typical Gender Development

Gender Identity Disorder

 is a psychiatric classification for those who experience gender dysphoria but are
not intersex individuals

Gender Dysphoria
 refers to an individual’s sense of feeling uncomfortable/inappropriate with their
sex and the gender assigned to them

Cognitive Explanations of Gender Development

 Kohlberg’s Theory (1966)

1. GENDER LABELLING. Aged 2-3 infants label themselves and others as a boy or
girl based on outward appearances such as hairstyle or dress.

 Kohlberg’s Theory (1966)

2. GENDER STABILITY. Around 4 years children recognize that gender is stable
over time, but they do not recognize that gender is consistent across situations

 Kohlberg’s Theory (1966)

3. GENDER CONSISTENCY. Around the age of 6 children come to realize that
gender is consistent across situations
 Gender Schema Theory (MARTIN AND HALVERSON, 1981)
Argues that basic gender identity acquired at the gender labelling stage (aged 2)
is sufficient for an infant to take an interest in and begin identifying with their
gender
 core of the theory is the notion of ‘schema’

 Gender Schema Theory (MARTIN AND HALVERSON, 1981)

Gender schemas
 play an important role in organizing and structuring the infant’s thoughts about
information such as what behaviors or emotional responses are appropriate for
males/females

Gender Schema Theory (MARTIN AND HALVERSON, 1981)

Schema
 a mental representation that guides the processing of information and
experiences

Psychodynamic Explanations of Gender Development

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

Oedipus Complex
 Boys wish to be the sole object of their mother’s attention and experience
immature sexual desire for her

Electra Complex
 The girl’s immature sexual desires then focus on the father

Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura)

 The main way that gender behaviors are learned is through the process
of observational learning
Models
 parents, characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group and teachers
at school
 First, the child is more likely to imitate behavior modelled by people the same sex
as it is.
 Second, the people around the child will respond to the behavior it imitates with
either reinforcement or punishment
 Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when
deciding whether or not to copy someone’s actions. This is known as vicarious
reinforcement.
 Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when
deciding whether or not to copy someone’s actions. This is known as vicarious
reinforcement.

THE GENDERED FAMILY

Marriage is defined as a legally recognized social contract between two people, traditionally based on a
sexual relationship and implying a permanence of the union. (Note: such definition will be used for this
subject). In practicing cultural relativism, we should also consider variations, such as whether a legal
union is required (think of “common law” marriage and its equivalents), or whether more than two people
can be involved (consider polygamy). Other variations on the definition of marriage might include whether
spouses are of opposite sexes or the same sex and how one of the traditional expectations of marriage
(to produce children) is understood today.
The question of what constitutes a family is a prime area of debate in family sociology, as well as in
politics and religion. Social conservatives tend to define the family in terms of structure with each family
member filling a certain role (like father, mother, or child). Sociologists, on the other hand, tend to define
family more in terms of the manner in which members relate to one another than on a strict configuration
of status roles. Here, we’ll define family as a socially recognized group (usually joined by blood,
marriage, cohabitation, or adoption) that forms an emotional connection and serves as an economic unit
of society. Sociologists identify different types of families based on how one enters into them. A family of
orientation refers to the family into which a person is born. A family of procreation describes one that is
formed through marriage. These distinctions have cultural significance related to issues of lineage.

Marriage Patterns

With single parenting and cohabitation (when a couple shares a residence but not a marriage)
becoming more acceptable in recent years, people may be less motivated to get married. In a recent
survey, 39 percent of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether marriage is becoming obsolete
(Pew Research Center 2010). The institution of marriage is likely to continue, but some previous patterns
of marriage will become outdated as new patterns emerge. In this context, cohabitation contributes to the
phenomenon of people getting married for the first time at a later age than was typical in earlier
generations (Glezer 1991). Furthermore, marriage will continue to be delayed as more people place
education and career ahead of “settling down.”

People in the United States typically equate marriage with monogamy, when someone is married
to only one person at a time. In many countries and cultures around the world, however, having one
spouse is not the only form of marriage. In a majority of cultures (78 percent), polygamy, or being
married to more than one person at a time, is accepted (Murdock 1967), with most polygamous societies
existing in northern Africa and east Asia (Altman and Ginat 1996). Instances of polygamy are almost
exclusively in the form of polygyny. Polygyny refers to a man being married to more than one woman at
the same time. The reverse, when a woman is married to more than one man at the same time, is
called polyandry. It is far less common and only occurs in about 1 percent of the world’s cultures (Altman
and Ginat 1996). The reasons for the overwhelming prevalence of polygamous societies are varied but
they often include issues of population growth, religious ideologies, and social status.

In the United States, polygamy is considered by most to be socially unacceptable and it is illegal.
The act of entering into marriage while still married to another person is referred to as bigamy and is
considered a felony in most states. Polygamy in the United States is often associated with those of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, although in 1890 the church officially renounced polygamy.
Fundamentalist Mormons, such as those in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints (a separate and distinct organization), on the other hand, still hold tightly to the historic beliefs and
practices and allow polygamy in their sect.
Residency and Lines of Descent

When considering one’s lineage, most people in the United States look to both their father’s and
mother’s sides. Both paternal and maternal ancestors are considered part of one’s family. This pattern of
tracing kinship is called bilateral descent. Note that kinship, or one’s traceable ancestry, can be based
on blood or marriage or adoption. Sixty percent of societies, mostly modernized nations, follow a bilateral
descent pattern. Unilateral descent (the tracing of kinship through one parent only) is practiced in the
other 40 percent of the world’s societies, with high concentration in pastoral cultures (O’Neal 2006).

There are three types of unilateral descent: patrilineal, which follows the father’s line
only; matrilineal, which follows the mother’s side only; and ambilineal, which follows either the father’s
only or the mother’s side only, depending on the situation. In partrilineal societies, such as those in rural
China and India, only males carry on the family surname. This gives males the prestige of permanent
family membership while females are seen as only temporary members (Harrell 2001). U.S. society
assumes some aspects of partrilineal decent. For instance, most children assume their father’s last name
even if the mother retains her birth name.

Tracing one’s line of descent to one parent rather than the other can be relevant to the issue of
residence. In many cultures, newly married couples move in with, or near to, family members. In
a patrilocal residence system it is customary for the wife to live with (or near) her husband’s blood
relatives (or family of orientation). Patrilocal systems can be traced back thousands of years. In a DNA
analysis of 4,600-year-old bones found in Germany, scientists found indicators of patrilocal living
arrangements (Haak et al 2008). Patrilocal residence is thought to be disadvantageous to women
because it makes them outsiders in the home and community; it also keeps them disconnected from their
own blood relatives. In China, where patrilocal and patrilineal customs are common, the written symbols
for maternal grandmother (wáipá) are separately translated to mean “outsider” and “women” (Cohen
2011).

Similarly, in matrilocal residence systems, where it is customary for the husband to live with his
wife’s blood relatives (or her family of orientation), the husband can feel disconnected and can be labeled
as an outsider. The Minangkabau people, a matrilocal society that is indigenous to the highlands of West
Sumatra in Indonesia, believe that home is the place of women and they give men little power in issues
relating to the home or family (Joseph and Najmabadi 2003). Most societies that use patrilocal and
patrilineal systems are patriarchal, but very few societies that use matrilocal and matrilineal systems are
matriarchal, as family life is often considered an important part of the culture for women, regardless of
their power relative to men.

Stages of Family Life

As we’ve established, the concept of family has changed greatly in recent decades. Historically, it
was often thought that many families evolved through a series of predictable stages. Developmental or
“stage” theories used to play a prominent role in family sociology (Strong and DeVault 1992). Today,
however, these models have been criticized for their linear and conventional assumptions as well as for
their failure to capture the diversity of family forms. While reviewing some of these once-popular theories,
it is important to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

The set of predictable steps and patterns families experience over time is referred to as
the family life cycle. One of the first designs of the family life cycle was developed by Paul Glick in 1955.
In Glick’s original design, he asserted that most people will grow up, establish families, rear and launch
their children, experience an “empty nest” period, and come to the end of their lives. This cycle will then
continue with each subsequent generation (Glick 1989). Glick’s colleague, Evelyn Duvall, elaborated on
the family life cycle by developing these classic stages of family (Strong and DeVault 1992):
Stage Family Type Children

1 Marriage Family Childless

2 Procreation Family Children ages 0 to 2.5

3 Preschooler Family Children ages 2.5 to 6

4 School-age Family Children ages 6–13

5 Teenage Family Children ages 13–20

6 Launching Family Children begin to leave home

7 Empty Nest Family “Empty nest”; adult children have left home
***Stage Theory This table shows one example of how a “stage” theory might categorize the
phases a family goes through.

The family life cycle was used to explain the different processes that occur in families over time.
Sociologists view each stage as having its own structure with different challenges, achievements, and
accomplishments that transition the family from one stage to the next. For example, the problems and
challenges that a family experiences in Stage 1 as a married couple with no children are likely much
different than those experienced in Stage 5 as a married couple with teenagers. The success of a family
can be measured by how well they adapt to these challenges and transition into each stage. While
sociologists use the family life cycle to study the dynamics of family over time, consumer and marketing
researchers have used it to determine what goods and services families need as they progress through
each stage (Murphy and Staples 1979).

As early “stage” theories have been criticized for generalizing family life and not accounting for
differences in gender, ethnicity, culture, and lifestyle, less rigid models of the family life cycle have been
developed. One example is the family life course, which recognizes the events that occur in the lives of
families but views them as parting terms of a fluid course rather than in consecutive stages (Strong and
DeVault 1992). This type of model accounts for changes in family development, such as the fact that in
today’s society, childbearing does not always occur with marriage. It also sheds light on other shifts in the
way family life is practiced. Society’s modern understanding of family rejects rigid “stage” theories and is
more accepting of new, fluid models.

Five Homemaking-Moneymaking Stances (author)

Stance One: Reversing. The term reversing is used to indicate the performance of gender non-
traditional homemaking and moneymaking tasks. Reversing in this context means to exchange duties
though not necessarily to alter or transform their meanings and associated identities or eligibilities. Simply
put, the sex of the person performing the task is reversed but its meaning stays intact. The commonsense
notion of role reversal applies most straightforwardly to the husband’s and wife’s performances of
unconventional duties without the reconfiguration of identities. The unequal eligibilities to perform
homemaking and moneymaking roles persist based on traditionally determined societal gender
alignments. As a result, the attempt to live according to pre-set duties and roles while still maintaining
traditionally gendered personal identities and self-understandings was associated with a range of related
tensions that rendered a transitory at best.
Stance Two: Conflicting. The term conflict is used as couples articulate contradictory meanings
for the performance of unconventional work and family tasks, identities, and eligibilities. The conflicting
approach simultaneously reflects both openness and discontent with the division of task responsibilities.
This presuppose many facets of traditional feminine and masculine roles and subject positions associated
with homemaking and moneymaking even as couples work together to negotiate alternative
arrangements. The conflicts reflect inequities and asymmetrical eligibilities historically associated with
gendered labor at home. It also involves conflicted self-images derived from not being able to do what
one had hoped to do or perceives one is supposed to do with one’s time and talents as a traditionally
gendered person/mother/father.

Stance Three: Collaborating. This highlights an approach to work and family that recognizes
existing gender prescriptions while, at the same time, expresses a desire to transcend these very same
gendered work and family meanings. By collaborating, couples articulate an approach to work and life
that both holds onto and let go of conventional gendered meanings and practices. It involves
acknowledging traditional feminine and masculine roles and subject positions associated with
homemaking and moneymaking while negotiating collaboratively their own arrangements. Couples
portray themselves as a team, emphasizing their equality and respect for their own choices and
responsibilities. Such language seemed self-consciously to shape and reflect the couple’s co-created
discursive space, activities, and understandings of the risks and benefits of their ongoing choices.

Stance Four: Improvising. This articulates an approach to work and family life that attempts to
improvise meaning without taking gender as the primary frame for tasks, identities, or eligibilities. The
improvising stance disavows gendered assumptions and senses of self, at times replacing these
assumptions with the language of personal preference or personality. Couples challenge, and at time
times actively disavowing, traditional feminine and masculine roles and subject positions associated with
homemaking and moneymaking by mutually negotiating and performing alternative arrangements.

Stance Five: Sharing. The final stance centers on sharing as constructed through the language of
co-providing and co-caring. This reflects a consciousness for both creating new meanings and living work
and family file differently. It demonstrate considerable marital fluidity and responsiveness to each other’s
lived contingencies in organizing employment and childcare activities. Both individuals participate in
wage-earning and care-providing and considered each other no less primary in either respect.
ACTIVITY 1
THE GENDERED CLASSROOM
School – The place for contemplation of reality. Teachers’ task is to show this reality to students who are
naturally eager about them.
Education – A social system/unit consisting the roles and norms that ensure the transmission of
knowledge, values, and patterns of behavior from one generation to next. The primary function is to move
people in the mainstream of society.
Intellectual purpose
To teach cognitive skills (i.e. reading, writing, mathematics)
Political Purpose
To inculcate allegiance to the existing political order (patriotism)
To teach student the basic law of society
Social purpose
To socialize children into various roles, behavior, and values of society. The key ingredient in the
stability of any society.
Economical Purpose
To prepare students for their later occupational roles
Formal education – Describes the learning of academic facts and concepts through formal curriculum.
Informal education – Describes learning about cultural values, norms, and expected behaviors by
participating in a society. This type of learning occurs both through formal educational system and at
home.
Manifested functions
 Social control
 Socialization placement
 Transmitting culture
 Promoting social and political integration
 Cultural innovation
Latent functions
 Courtship
 Social network
 Group work
 Generation gap

TRADITIONAL EDUCATION FOR MANHOOD

In America, education has been reserved for upper-class boys and men since the eighteenth
century. Some co-education critics have thought that it would have disastrous consequences on both
sexes to put women and men together. It is important to educate men and women separately, since "the
minds of men and women are radically different." Some were worried that it would 'emasculate' the
college curriculum by educating women and men together, watering it down by forcing to be included
subjects and temperaments to be excluded, slowing down the pace, or otherwise reducing standards that
would allow women to keep up. Of course, there were also generally supportive of women's education,
such as Durant, who went so far as to argue that "revolt" is the real sense of women's education
-"against the slavery in which women are held by society's customs—the broken health, the aimless lives,
the subordinate position, the helpless dependence, the dishonesty and shams of so-called education."
Therefore, the physical vulnerability of women and helpless dependence were the results of gender
inequality, not their nature. Its male opponents were not deterred by official policies supporting co-
education. In 1900, if women could raise enough money to create new dormitories and buildings, the
University of Rochester vowed to open the door to women. In order to conquer the final monetary barrier,
which they did after Susan B. Anthony sold her life insurance policy, women attempted to enter the
classrooms, male students responded by stamping their feet, physically blocking classroom doors, and
jeering at the women whenever they appeared on campus.

Gender inequality means that just at the moment when girls lose their voice, boys find one-but it
is the inauthentic voice of bravado, of constant posturing, of foolish risk taking and gratuitous violence.
According to psychologist William Pollack, boys learn that they are supposed to be in power and thus
begin to act like it. "Although girls' voices have been disempowered, boys' voices are strident and full of
bravado,” he observes. But their voices are disconnected from their genuine feelings.” Thus, he argues,
the way we bring boys up leads them to put on a "mask of masculinity,” a posture, a front.

How to fight gender stereotypes at home

Dozens of experiments show that adults—even the ones who swear up and down that they’re
gender-blind when it comes to kids—actually view children’s behaviour through gender-tinted glasses.
When told that a group of infants they’re observing are boys, for example, adults will describe them more
often as angry or distressed. When informed that they’re girls, adults will describe the same babies as
happy and socially engaged. One study asked parents to estimate how steep of a slope their 11-month-
old infants could crawl down: Moms of sons got it right within one degree, while those who have
daughters underestimated their kid’s ability by nine degrees—even though there are no differences in
infant boys’ and girls’ motor skills.
Can parents take off those gender-tinted glasses? Not necessarily: Gender isn’t something we
can simply opt out of. But we can make an effort to notice, and adjust, some of our all-too automatic
responses to gender. Here are some ways to do it.
 Encourage physical adventurousness with girls. Play rough-and-tumble and tickling games. Let your
baby daughter climb to the top of the stairs or the slide. See how far she can get before you offer help.
Try to stifle the constant parental urge to call out, “Be careful!” Try replacing the warning with, “Look at
you go!”
 Engage emotionally and verbally with boys. Make eye contact, cuddle, sing, talk about feelings, read
books. Find books and toys that appeal to boys but also have great emotional content, says Eliot.
KINSHIP, MARRIAGE AND THE HOUSEHOLD

KINSHIP – refers to human relationship, that is, A person’s relationship by blood or

marriage to another person or others.
It creates a network of social relationship that are basic and essential in the lives
of most humans in most societies.
a. KINSHIP BY BLOOD - Kinship patterns basically include people related either by
descent or by marriage.
Kinship by blood - refers to relationship by descent, that is, the relationship that
arises in one’s group of origin (descent group) or that which refers to genetic
relatedness.
Kinds of Kinship by Blood:
CONSANGUINITY – relationship by blood or by descent of the same ancestor, and
is related to genealogy – a line of descent directly traceable from an ancestor.
PATRILINEAL – kinships is reckoned through his or her father’s line of descent.
MATRILINEAL – kinship is seen through his or her mother’s line of descent.
Bilateral – most common form of descent pattern that traces kinship both from the
mother’s and the father’s line of descent.
b. KINSHIP BY MARRIAGE
Marriage – a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses
that establishes rights and obligations between them.
Affinity – the kinship by marriage or the human relation through marriage.
Endogamy – the social rule which states the a partner must be selected from a
person’s own social group.
Exogamy – the rule which proclaims that a partner must be chosen from a
group different from one’s own.
MONOGAMY AND POLYGAMY
Monogamy – refers to the marriage of one woman to one man at a time.
Serial monogamy – if remarriage is allowed following divorce or death of a partner.
Polygamy – is the custom of having more than one legal spouse at the same
time.
Types of POLYGAMY
POLYGYNY – if a man is married to ore than one wife at a time.
POLYANDRY – when it is woman who is married to more than one spouse
(husband) at a time.

POST-MARITAL RESIDENCY RULES

Refer to the conventional rules or patterns of behavior concerning the place
a married couple live after marriage.
Type of post-marital residency
1. Patrilocal – the married couple’s normal residence is with or near the husband’s
patrilineal kinsmen.
2. Matrilocal – the married couple’s normal residence is with or near the wife’s
patrilineal kinsmen.
3. Avunculocal – the married couple’s normal residence is with or near the
maternal uncle (mother’s brother) or the husband’s other male matrilineal
kinsmen.
4. Bilocal – the couple establishes its residence optionally with or near the parents
of either spouse.
5. Ambilocal – the married couple shifts
periodically from residence with husband’s groups to residence with wife’s group.
6. Neolocal – the couple’s normal residence is
apart from the relatives of both spouses.
7. Duolocal – the couple has no common household as the husband and the
wife remain in their respective natal groups.
8. Matri-Patrilocal – the newlyweds initially live
with the wife’s group for a short period of time, usually for one year or until the
birth of the first child. Afterward, the couple’s residence is shifted permanently to
the husband’s group.
c. KINSHIP BY RITUAL
In some societies, kinship relationships extend to people an individual has
religious, economic, or political relationship with or other kinds of social ties such as
friendship.
COMPADRAZGO – Godparenthood
d. FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD
Family refers to a group of people living together and functioning as a single
household, usually consisting of parents and their children.
NUCLEAR FAMILY- or Elementary Family it is a family group consisting of a
pair of adults, and theiroffspring, regardless of the number, as nuclear family may
have any number of children. Also called as conjugal family.
EXTENDED FAMILY- Is that which extends beyond the immediate family, the
basic example of which is a married couple and his children
that live with either the husband or the wife’s parents.
RECONSTITUTED FAMILY-Is that which is formed by the joining of two adults
through marriage, cohabitation, or civil partnership, in which either one or both of
the adults have a child or children from a previous relationship kiving in their home.
TRANSNATIONAL FAMILY- are those which “adopt separate living arrangement in
two or more countries but retain close links with their homeland” and also called
separated families.
e. POLITICSAL KINSHIP – kinship relations may extend to people an individual or a
family has political affiliation with.
POLITICAL DYNASTY – may refer to the system of succession of political leaders
from the same family or clan that maintains power for may generations.
POLITICAL ALLIANCE – as political parties may be formed by the joining of
forces of political families, political alliances may be created by the collaboration
among some political parties.
Gender Roles in the Family
Communicating in family
Parent-child communication
Children’s communication
Couple communication
Parent-child Communication
Parents influence gender identity before the child is born
Primary function is to teach and maintain culture norms
Gender norm and roles
Gendered role scripts
Demand to abide by a specific role

Child Communication
Siblings influence gender
Parents tend to give children gender specific toys
Children gender/sex themselves