How do women’s and men’s gendered self-views differ across cultures?

Overview

How do women’s and men’s gendered self-views differ across cultures? Different perspectives offer competing answers to this question. On one hand, social role theory argues that binary gender gaps in self-views should be larger in less egalitarian countries, reflecting these countries’ more pronounced vertical and horizontal gender segregation of occupational and social roles.

 On the other hand, evolutionary and self-construal theorists suggest gender gaps in gendered self-views should be larger in more egalitarian countries, reflecting the greater autonomy and flexible self-construction processes enjoyed in these countries. 

Here, using data from 62 countries, we test these competing hypotheses by examining how binary gender gaps in communal and agentic self-views vary with both objective and subjective country-level measures of egalitarianism.