Thirty Years After the Discovery of Gender: Psychological Concepts and Measures of Masculinity

Sex Roles, Vol. 50, Nos. 1/2, January 2004 ( 2004)

Thirty Years After the Discovery of Gender: Psychological Concepts and Measures of Masculinity1

Andrew P. Smiler2,3

Study of the construct of masculinity has undergone substantial change since the feminist critique of gender in the 196070s. This review focuses on constancies and changes within empirical psychological theories and measurement because measures represent masculinity and their underlying assumptions are often obscured. After a brief historical introduction, 5 distinct movements are identied by their assumptions. These movements discuss masculinity as a unipolar construct, an ideology, a source of strain, a socially constructed entity, and, most recently, as a blend of these different movements. The lack of developmental accounts of masculinity and the positioning of masculinity as an acontextual, superordinate organizing element of individual lives are also addressed. Concluding comments address the lack of inuence by masculinity researchers on broader psychological thought.

KEY WORDS: masculinity; critique; measurement; gender; history.

During the 1970s psychological researchers made an important discovery: humans are gendered beings whose lives and experiences are (most likely) inuenced by their gender. Although this discovery was not novelgender-related theories and research had existed since the earliest days of psychology, particularly among those in the mental testing movement who sought to quantify gender differences (Morawski, 1985)a substantial amount of research was soon published that overturned the existing theoretical constructs and the measures upon which they were based (Herman, 1995; Pleck, 1987). This discovery and subsequent shift in thinking originated within the womens and gay rights movements (Connell, 1993; Lisak, 2000), and its results have been important for both women and men. For men, the

1Portions of this material were presented at the 2002 conference of the American Psychological Association and in the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity (SPSMM) Bulletin.

2Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire.

3To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 525 East University, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; e-mail: asmiler@ umich.edu.

1970s marked the beginning of the study of men as men and no longer as idealized, nongendered humans (Lisak, 2000; Thompson & Pleck, 1995).

During the last 30 years, the psychological study of men (in the United States) has focused primarily on identifying...