Unit 8 - 厦门大学外文学院

prone: having a tendency; inclined
• be prone to: be likely to; be liable to (esp. sth. bad or harmful) • “To err is human” means everyone is prone to make mistakes. • Although they are always at the center of things, they tend to be loners and are prone to stress when life becomes difficult.
• A role in a play is a part for an actor; it includes certain scripted actions, ways of walking, talking, expressing feelings, and so forth. A sex role is a part that an individual plays as a social actor — the patterns of feeling and behavior deemed appropriate or inappropriate because of her or his gender. The “script” comes from social expectations about masculine and feminine nature: men should be brave, strong, ambitious, and aggressive, while keeping their feelings under control: women should be gentle, nurturant, passive, dependent, and expressive of their feelings.
Unit 8
Sex Roles
Man for the field and woman for the hearth; Man for the sword and the needle she; Man with the head and woman with the heart; Man to command and woman to obey; All else confusion. — ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON • Many, if not all, of the personality traits which we have called masculine or femi-nine are as lightly linked to sex as are the clothing, the manners, and the form of headdress that a society at any given period assigns to either sex. — MARGARET MEAD • How is it that this world has always belonged to the men? -- SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
What does the paragraph do?
• A role in a play is a part for an actor; it includes certain sc来自百度文库ipted actions, ways of walking, talking, expressing feelings, and so forth. • A sex role is a part that an individual plays as a social actor — the patterns of feeling and behavior deemed appropriate or inappropriate because of her or his gender. • The “script” comes from social expectations about masculine and feminine nature: men should be brave, strong, ambitious, and aggressive, while keeping their feelings under control: women should be gentle, nurturant, passive, dependent, and expressive of their feelings. • It defines a sex role.
harshly: severely, cruelly, or unkindly
• His theory was criticized harshly by his colleagues. • History is apt to judge harshly those who sacrifice tomorrow for today.
deem: think of sth. in a particular way; consider
• They deemed that he was no longer capable of managing the business. • They were told to take whatever action they deemed necessary.
Which is the topic sentence of the paragraph?
• Sex roles, then, are part of our concept of ourselves, our gender identity.
P3
• Sex roles are of great interest to psychologists, sociologists, and other social scientists. Psychologists focus primarily on “inner” personality traits and stereotypes associated with femininity and masculinity, while sociologists emphasize patterns of “outer” behavior or interaction in society. For example, a sociologist studying the paid labor force of the United States would note that most truck drivers are male while most nurses are female. Family sociologists have studied the inclination of judges in child custody cases to assume that mothers are innately better at parenting than fathers.
Questions
• What do you think is the proper male or female relation? • What do you know about feminist view about male-female relation in this world?
P1
norm : n. 标准 规范 标准,规范
• Criminal behavior seem to be the norm in this neighborhood. 犯罪行为似乎是这一带的正常现象。 • Holding the view that the ego is the center, object, and norm of all experience. 自我中心的认为自我是所有的中心、对象和经验 的标准的 • Synonyms: standard norm criterion
custody : the right to take care of a child, given to one of their parents when they have divorced • It is usually the mother who is awarded custody. • Allen is fighting a bitter custody battle over his three children.
inclination: a preference or tendency; a feeling that makes a person want to do sth • You always follow your own inclinations instead of considering other people’s feelings. I have no inclination to follow my mother into accountancy
P2
• Sex roles are based on social norms the agreedupon standards of acceptable behavior within a society. These norms — such as the norms that men should keep their feelings under control and women should be passive — influence our judgments not only of others but also of ourselves. Thus, if you are male and prone to tears during highly emotional moments or female and likely to dominate classroom discussions and arguments, you may judge yourself harshly because you have internalized traditional sex-role assumptions. Sex roles, then, are part of our concept of ourselves, our gender identity.
stereotype : a belief or idea of what a particular type of person or things is like (often unfair or untrue) • Regional stereotypes have been part of America since its founding: Westerners are trendy, Mid-westerners are dull, Northeasterners are brainy, and Southerners are lazy. • When I saw the big smiles in the faces of the German students, the stereotype of Germans (rigid, somewhat humorless and obsessed with order and formality) melted.