Sex Roles
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Synonyms
Definition
Sex roles refer to culturally shared expectations about the typical (descriptive norms) and appropriate (prescriptive norms) or inappropriate (proscriptive norms) characteristics, behaviors, and occupations of a person based on their presumed or actual sex/gender. These expectations are most commonly based on a binary, complementary, naturalizing, and essentializing understanding of masculinity and femininity.
Introduction
In virtually every society, it is assumed that people can be unambiguously classified in one of two sexes, namely male and female. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), sex is “[a] multidimensional construct based on a cluster of anatomical and physiological traits (sex traits)…which include: external genitalia, secondary sex...
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Authors and Affiliations
Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany
Sarah Buhl, Jennifer L. Führer & Frank Asbrock
Authors
- Sarah Buhl
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- Jennifer L. Führer
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- Frank Asbrock
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Corresponding author
Correspondence to Sarah Buhl .
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Editors and Affiliations
Department of Psychology, Oakland University, ROCHESTER, MN, USA
Todd K. Shackelford
Section Editor information
Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA
Todd K. Shackelford
Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA
Gavin Vance
Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester Hills, MI, USA
Madeleine K. Meehan
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Buhl, S., Führer, J.L., Asbrock, F. (2023). Sex Roles. In: Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08956-5_2133-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08956-5_2133-1
Received: 18 November 2022
Accepted: 02 December 2022
Published: 04 May 2023
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08956-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08956-5
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