| Abstract: | This paper examines female and male sex role orientation, with emphasis on the structural correlates of sex role attitudes. Based on a random sample of college students, the data on roles of both sexes along four dimensions of sex role orientation reveal that women more than men are nontraditional in sex role ideologies. Structural characteristics such as socio-economic status of parents, demographic and family composition predict more of the variation in the sex role orientation of men than of women. For women, the processes through which attitudes emerge may be related to exposure to nontraditional standards and values rather than related to the effect of their structural characteristics while men are influenced by structural characteristics. These data suggest a role sharing model for women, where opportunities and responsibilities between the sexes are shared, but for men, the data support a degree of sex role differentiation. |
