Masculinity and Femininity: A Factor Analytic Study

The concepts of typical masculinity and typical femininity (i.e., stereotypes), and also ideal masculinity and ideal femininity, were rated by 40 male and 40 female college students. The judgments were made by means of the Concept Meaning Measure, a semantic differential of masculinity and femininity, which was constructed on the basis of six hypothesized factors. Factor analysis of the results yielded two major factors, potency and social behavior, in each of the four concepts. The analysis of the stereotypes also resulted in five additional factors—activity, emotion, form, tactility, with another one, a residual, for masculinity and one, dependability, for femininity. The ideal concepts had six additional factors which were not as clearly delineated and suggest a more complex relationship than exists in the stereotypes. The obtained factors, in general, matched the factors which had been hypothesized, but the outstanding quality of the two major factors had not been predicted. The correspondence of the hypothesized and obtained factors was much more satisfactory for the stereotypes than for the ideal concepts. The relative importance of the various factors and the implications concerning social change were discussed.