The article of Edwards and Jones, Putting My Man Face On, was very inspiring
to me. I found similarities in Chinese and American cultures with regard to the
expectations for men, such as “in control of emotions or unemotional, responsible,
the breadwinner, in a position of authority, rational, strong, successful,
tough” (Edwards & Jones, p.214-215). I remembered when I was a child I was
told not to cry when I fell to the ground and wounded myself because I was a
boy. However, I also noticed there are differences between the two cultures. As
Qin pointed out, “traditional Confucian culture, for example, places education,
morality, self-cultivation, and gentleness in men as highly valued qualities.
In the Chinese culture, physical strength is often negatively contrasted with
mental or intellectual capacities” (Qin, p.42). Therefore in Chinese colleges
and universities male students are expected to study hard and have good grades.
If they fail in their academic study they are discouraged to participate in
non-academic activities. As a matter of fact, intellectual development is of top
priority for both college male and female students in China. The study of Edwards
and Jones was conducted in one culture, the American culture, even though some
participants belonged to sub-cultural groups. But they did not study the gender
identity development across two different cultures. For immigrant students who
are faced with two different cultures at the same time, their gender identity development
becomes interesting to me. How do Chinese immigrant students cope with the
different expectations from Chinese and American culture? Qin conducted a
qualitative survey on seventy-two Chinese adolescent immigrants to find out how
they negotiate different expectations from their Chinese parents and American peers. In the findings,
…both
Chinese immigrant girls and boys in the sample experienced conflicts related to
gender roles at home and at school. At home, doing well in school was the most
important thing both for being a good Chinese girl and for being a good Chinese
boy.…At school, both girls and boys faced peer pressure to present themselves
somewhat differently. For girls, not being perceived as “traditional” or
“old-fashioned,” paying attention to appearance and vying for male attention
were important for peer acceptance or admiration. For boys, the pressure to
demonstrate their masculinity through involvement in sports, video games, or
other nonacademic related things was quite strong. The perceived nerdy image of
Chinese boys often led to peer bullying and harassment. (p. 57)
According to the
survey, “in negotiating these conflicted expectations and forming their ethnic
and gender identities, the majority of both girls and boys indicated that it
was important to be ‘yourself’” (p.57). However, their ways of “being yourself”
were different based on gender.
Girls
also tended to internalize the traditional Chinese notion of being a “good
Chinese girl” and the great majority resisted the image of being a “popular
girl” at school. In contrast, boys were more likely to feel more pressured from
peers to construct identities against a “nerdy Chinese boy” stereotype and
aimed to conform to “popular boy” images by participating in nonacademic
activities such as sports and videogames. (p.58)
The notion of “being
yourself” reminds me of the idea of self-authorship which I came across in many
articles about student development. I also noticed similar notion in the
article of Edwards and Jones. In their theory of college men’s gender identity
development, which describes “a developmental process of participants’ greater
understanding of themselves as men”, the developmental process “progresses
towards a more complex understanding of themselves in a social context and
moves from an externally defined self towards a more internally defined self”
(p.221). This “more internally defined self” to me is self-authorship. In my study
of development theories, I felt that gender identity development models share similarities
with other development models in that in most of the models individuals start
with being influenced by external forces and end up with developing internal
foundations, which is the symbol of self-authorship. However, in Qin’s study, the
Chinese adolescent participants had not reached self-authorship stage yet given
that the girls were more inclined to their parents’ expectations and the boys were
more inclined to their American peers’ expectations. I think this is because they
had not reached the stage of adulthood. They still accepted the views of the
significant others or authorities in their lives. Only that their significant
others or authorities were different.
In addition to my discussion of gender identity development across
different cultures, I would like to share an autobiographical
essay of a Chinese transgender. The story presents an example of the gender
identity development of transgender people, which could help us better
understand the related theories.
Reference
Qin, D. B. (2009). Being
"Good" or being "Popular": Gender and ethnic identity negotiations
of Chinese immigrant adolescents. Journal
of Adolescent Research, 24(1), 37-66. doi: 10.1177/0743558408326912
Jun, P. (2010). Transgender in China. Journal of LGBT Youth, 7, 346–358. doi:
10.1080/19361653.2010.512518
Hey Zheng,
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing in the comparison of gender identity development between American males and Chinese males. I think you bring up a really interesting point that one stark contrast is the way that mental and intellectual strength is emphasized for Chinese males, but not so much for American males. While in American culture it is probably agreed that physical strength is often negatively correlated with mental and intellectual strength, there is still heavy value placed on physical strength as it connects to male identity. While I strongly related to the piece by Edwards and Jones (2009) and their commentary on male identity development, your post made me realize that a discussion on academic identity as it relates to gender identity is missing. Certainly academics are valued considering all of the participants in the study are in college, but that is overlooked by the social elements that drive identity development. Reflecting on my own experiences, this rings true. While academics were certainly valued it was not part of what it meant to be a man. Growing up in a heavy sports culture, I was extremely aware of the social norms that existed and I was expected to conform to them. In middle school and high school it was much more important to be strong, tough, and unemotional than to be overly concerned with my academics. In fact it often got to the point where males in my class, including myself, would pretend to not know an answer or say our test score was lower than it actually was in order to fit in. Yet despite all of this, a lot of men who feel pressure to conform to this norm are successful academically. Perhaps my perspective as someone with several privileged identities demonstrates the power of cultural capital, as I was able to successful navigate to and through college despite focusing more attention on conforming to social norms that did not necessarily prioritize academic success.