Multicultural And Social Issues In Psychology
PART 1- Does an individual’s membership in a diverse population define his or her personality, or does the personality determine the diverse populations to which the person will belong?
PART 2- What is the significance of diversity when everyone is diverse in some way?
PART 3- Review this week’s course materials and learning activities, and reflect on your learning so far this week. Respond to one or more of the following prompts in one to two paragraphs:
- Provide citation and reference to the material(s) you discuss. Describe what you found interesting regarding this topic, and why.
- Describe how you will apply that learning in your daily life, including your work life.
- Describe what may be unclear to you, and what you would like to learn.
PART 4-
Option 1: Diversity Identity Self-Evaluation Paper
Read the University of Phoenix Material: Diversity Case Study located on the student website. The case study serves as an example of the diversity within self-identity.
Write a 700- to 1,050-word self-evaluation paper about your diversity identity.
Include the following information in your self-evaluation:
· A minimum of five diverse groups you belong to
· Significance of belonging to the diverse groups
· Assumptions others may make about you based on the diverse groups you belong to
· How these assumptions affect your own self-identity.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
Option 1: Diversity Identity Self-EvaluatRead the University of Phoenix Material: Diversity Case Study located on the student website. The case study serves as an example of the diversity within self-identity.
CHAPTER 11 Women Across Cultures
Hilary Lips and Katie Lawson
Women’s lives differ, sometimes drastically, across cultures. Yet there are themes in their difficulties and challenges, in their strengths and successes, that link women’s experiences across cultural boundaries. In diverse cultures, women face, for example, an emphasis on molding their bodies to fit cultural standards of physical appearance and beauty, an expectation that they will carry the major burdens of childrearing, and ascribed status that is lower than men’s. Yet women in different cultures deal differently with such issues. This chapter examines some of the important commonalities and differences across cultures in women’s lives. Included in our narrative are issues linked to physical bodies, motherhood and family, work and pay, violence, power and leadership, and feminist activism. A theme that links all these issues is the gendering of power. Women and men control different amounts and types of the resources upon which power is based; such differences in access to resources help shape gender differences in behavior in each of these realms.
Physical Bodies
Worldwide, women face enormous pressure to adhere to strict standards of physical beauty—in part because a beautiful body is one resource a woman can use to gain status, solidify relationships, and attract other resources. Due to the body dissatisfaction that often results from this pressure to be beautiful, women go to great lengths to mold their bodies to conform to cultural standards. In parts of Africa and Thailand, girls as young as age 3 begin to wear rings around their necks in an attempt to make them appear longer, in order to attract an affluent husband as an adult. Over the years, additional rings (weighing up to 12 pounds) are added to the neck. The rings push down the collarbone and ribs to create the illusion of a neck up to 10 to 12 inches longer (Mydans, 2001). In the United States, nearly 91% of the 11.7 million cosmetic surgeries were performed on women in 2007 (American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 2008). These surgeries include breast and buttocks implants, collagen lip injections, and liposuction (Gangestad & Scheyd, 2005).
Although women worldwide are often dissatisfied with their bodies, the type of dissatisfaction depends on the culture. Women in Western cultures often strive for thinness (which is associated with control, wealth, and happiness), while individuals in non-Western, poorer cultures often associate thinness with poverty, disease, and malnutrition, and thus admire larger women. Although traditionally more affluent cultures prefer thin women while poorer cultures prefer larger women, the gap between these cultural preferences has been shrinking due to the “Westernization” of many cultures (Grogan, 2008). Cultures not only differ on weight preferences, but also on desirable size for particular areas of the body. Women between the ages of 18 and 24 in Canada report more dissatisfaction and concern for the weight of their lower torso (abdomen, hips, thighs, and legs) whereas women in India report more concern for the weight of their upper torso (face, neck, shoulders, and chest) (Gupta, Chaturvedi, Chandarana, & Johnson, 2001).
Theories
Research focuses on two main theories for women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies. Sociocultural theories suggest that cultures influence body dissatisfaction through the media, family, peers, and other sources (Becker, Burwell, Gilman, Herzog, & Hamburg, 2002). According to this approach, women compare themselves to ideals presented by these sources to make judgments about their own body size. Upward social comparisons (comparisons made with other individuals who have a body closer to the cultural ideal) lead to more body dissatisfaction in women. Therefore, in cultures where women are constantly exposed to images of very thin women (e.g., the United States), women make numerous upward social comparisons daily, thus increasing body dissatisfaction (Leahey, Crowther, & Mickelson, 2007). The sociocultural theory is supported by the observation that “Westernization” appears to be correlated with the increasing preference of non-Western cultures for thin women (Grogan, 2008).
Feminist theories, on the other hand, suggest that women’s cultural roles play a large part in body dissatisfaction. According to these theories, male power is a key issue in body dissatisfaction; body standards are used as tools for oppressing women. Unachievable body ideals, along with drastic amounts of pressure from society to attain the perfect body, can lead women to focus on these superficial aspects, rather than more important issues such as their own competencies. Therefore, in cultures where there is rapidly increasing equality in women’s roles, feminist theories predict more body dissatisfaction in women (because there is more pressure for the perfect body as a backlash against women’s advances). This interpretation is supported by research showing that Korean women (who are living in an area with increasingly equal gender roles) reported more body dissatisfaction than women in the United States and China (Jung & Forbes, 2007).
Consequences of body dissatisfaction
Body dissatisfaction in women is often associated with depression and lower levels of self-esteem (e.g., Paxton, Eisenberg, & Neumark-Sztainer, 2006). It also leads to actions with sometimes dire consequences for women’s physical health. After years of wearing rings to elongate their necks, women in rural areas of Africa and Thailand lose the ability to hold up their heads with their own neck muscles if the rings are taken off (e.g., to punish the women for adultery). Even in countries with very sophisticated medical technology, cosmetic surgery can lead to deformed bodies, infection, or even death. Researchers also worry about the mental consequences of cosmetic surgery due to the fact that some patients have shown adjustment problems, anger toward surgeons, and isolation after surgery (Dittmann, 2005).
Body dissatisfaction can also lead to eating disorders (e.g., anorexia, bulimia), which have profound health effects on women. The Renfrew Center Foundation (2002) estimated that 70 million individuals worldwide have eating disorders, with 24 million of those in the U.S. Eating disorders are associated with mental health problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance abuse) and a number of physical health problems, including low blood pressure, anemia, osteoporosis, hair and bone loss, kidney failure, heart attacks, and even death (National Institute of Mental Health, 2008).
Motherhood and Family
One reason women have traditionally been defined so strongly by their physical bodies is that the biological processes of reproduction—menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation—are so obvious in women. Historically, many cultures have surrounded these processes with myths and elaborate rituals and taboos, underscoring the importance (and dangers) of childbearing. For example, some Native American cultures regarded menstruating women as so powerful that they must stay away from men preparing for battle, lest their power interfere with the warriors’ power (Allen, 1986). Indeed, the onset of menstruation, with its implication that pregnancy is now a possibility, is the trigger for new behavioral restrictions on young women in many cultures—from veiling in countries such as Saudi Arabia (Sasson, 1992) to increased parental control and admonitions about sexuality in North America (Lee, 1994).
Although constructed from a biological link between mother and child, motherhood is a profoundly cultural role and process. As Sudarkasa (2004) notes,
Even the act of childbirth itself varies according to culturally prescribed rules and expectations … we are all aware that the typical contemporary Western mode of childbirth, where a woman lies on her back, with her legs spread apart is by no means the “natural” or relatively comfortable position for delivery. In parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world, the more traditional women still give birth from a kneeling position. (Introduction section, para. 4)
Clearly, this physical process of labor and delivery is shaped to some extent by cultural norms.
Aligned with the focus on reproduction is the notion, common to most cultures, that motherhood, and the domestic responsibilities that go with it, is a primary role for women—and that women are better suited to such work than men. Around the world, women devote vast amounts of their time to the bearing and rearing of children. One 10-country study showed that mothers spent from 5.2 to 10.7 hours daily on childcare, whereas fathers spent from 0.1 to 0.9 hours (Owen, 1995), and a more recent overview of time use studies carried out in 20 countries between 1965 and 2003 shows that men spent an average of only 14 minutes per day on childcare, thus leaving most of that work to women (Hook, 2006). Furthermore, women’s family caring activities are not limited to children; women all over the world do most of the caring work for family members who are ill, disabled, or elderly (Forssén, Carlstedt, & Mörtberg, 2005).
Motherhood is understood to be a major aspect of women’s identity (Wilson, 2007). In many cultures, a woman without children is considered a failure—perhaps not even a real woman. However, just producing children is not enough to succeed at this role. Depending on the culture, mothers may be held to high standards in terms of the ways they are expected to feel and behave toward their children. In North America and other Western cultures, motherhood is supposed to involve trying to live up to an ideal of love and self-sacrifice (Wilson, 2007) and conforming to an ideology of “intensive mothering”—an approach to mothering that is highly child-centered, labor-intensive, expensive, emotionally absorbing, and reliably puts the child’s needs before the mother’s (Hays, 1996). This ideology of motherhood appears to fit into a broader ideology that women are supposed to care for others— that they must be sensitive and responsive to the needs of others, even when they themselves are exhausted, stressed, and ill (Forssén et al., 2005). Women who fail to live up to this ideology may suffer guilt, anxiety, and a loss of self-esteem.
