Exploring gender role socialization and gender role attitudes in emerging young adult cisgender women

ABSTRACT

Young adult cisgender women at a university were the focus of this research in order to gain further understanding of how cisgender women experience gender role socialization and develop gender role attitudes. This study used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to answer the following research questions (1) What is the experience of young adult cisgender women related to their childhood gender role socialization? (2) What is the experience of young adult cisgender women related to gender role attitudes? A total of seven participants completed video interviews with the researcher. Interviews were then transcribed, coded, and examined for meaning units and themes in order to answer the above questions. Two themes about the experience of gender socialization emerged mother's influence and "pretty privilege" while four themes emerged from the experience of gender role attitudes mother's influence, not wanting to be a stay-at-home mother, acceptance of women who choose not to have children, and experiences with gender bias. Analysis of the participants' descriptions of their lived experience revealed these themes, but future research should focus on the moderating experiences that contributed to the participants holding more egalitarian gender role attitudes in young adulthood despite being raised with primarily traditional gender role socialization. This gap precluded determining the structure of the experience of gender role socialization and gender role attitudes in this study. The potential impact of having conducted this research during the COVID-19 pandemic and clinical implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)