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Male/Female Is Not Enough: Adding Measures of Masculinity and Femininity to General Population Surveys

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Understanding Survey Methodology

Part of the book series: Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research ((FSSR,volume 4))

Abstract

Survey research’s sole reliance on binary measures of sex is out of line with contemporary sociological gender theory. By measuring only sex, surveys conflate sex with gender, ignoring variability in gender identification within sex categories and overlap in gender identification between sex categories. As a result, quantitative analyses may lead to statistical misrepresentations about how sex and gender organize social life. In this paper, we examine a gradational gender identification measure administered in a national probability sample mail survey. We assess item nonresponse and reliability, evaluating how gender identification is associated with a binary sex measure and with other demographic measures as well as whether it is subject to context effects due to question order. We also examine predictive validity for a number of outcomes that sociological gender theory and previous literature suggest should be related to gender beyond sex or in different ways for men and women. We find that respondents are able to answer the gender identification measure, that the item nonresponse rate is similar to that for the binary sex measure, and that the measure exhibits reasonable reliability and validity. Importantly, the measure adds explanatory value beyond sex when predicting several outcomes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Work on the case management of intersex babies reveals the extent to which sex categorization is a social process (Epstein 1990, cited in Lorber 1996; Kessler 1990).

  2. 2.

    “Gender identity” is sometimes used to refer to cisgender versus transgender (i.e., one’s sense of oneself of male or female regardless of sex), but in this paper we use it to refer to self-perceived masculinity/femininity.

  3. 3.

    Each had the same questions, but design features within questions differed.

  4. 4.

    Weighted estimates.

  5. 5.

    n = 998. Four cases were excluded because of missing questionnaire ID numbers, making it impossible to know experimental treatment and region (n = 998).

  6. 6.

    This is not to imply that all sexual minority males are feminine or that all sexual minority females are masculine. Gender identity ratings varied within these groups, from 10 to 21 for sexual minority men and from 1 to 13 for sexual minority women. In this survey, the most feminine men and masculine women were heterosexual, counter stereotypes.

  7. 7.

    Magliozzi, et al. did not report item nonresponse rates. Even so, the rates are not comparable across the two studies because of other design differences such as sample type and survey mode (web surveys typically have lower item nonresponse than mail – see Survey Practice 2012, volume 5, issue 2).

  8. 8.

    That Magliozzi, et al. included an instruction to “Please answer on both scales below” to prompt responses to both the feminine and masculine scales suggests respondents may not understand these concepts as separate in the way gender scholars do.

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  1. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE, Lincoln, USA

    Jolene D. Smyth & Kristen Olson

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  1. Jolene D. Smyth
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Correspondence to Jolene D. Smyth .

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA

    Philip S. Brenner

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Smyth, J.D., Olson, K. (2020). Male/Female Is Not Enough: Adding Measures of Masculinity and Femininity to General Population Surveys. In: Brenner, P.S. (eds) Understanding Survey Methodology. Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47256-6_11

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