With the emergence of a new generation of strong and empowered female student leaders on college campuses, a special type of female leader, the Alpha Female, has developed. This study examines the essence of having an Alpha Female identity for 13 undergraduate women at a Midwestern university. Extensive interviews were conducted; transcripts were…

This paper attempts to trace the historical and societal development of sex roles as related to women in today's society. Discussions include the role of the female in tribal societies, the development of monogamous marriage, and the societal influences which identify a woman primarily as a housewife and mother from the 16th-20th centuries.…

This 1989 American Association of Suicidology presidential address focuses on statistics of 3.6 male suicide completions for each female completion, exploring hypothesis that different socialization and the concomitant differential expectations of males and females are responsible for the increased likelihood of suicide among males. (NB)

Article provided a brief look at the history and development of sex roles in an attempt to understand how that role definition developed and why it is only now being seriously challenged. (Author/RK)

Survival analysis computes functions for occurrence or non-occurrence of an event over a time period for a particular group of subjects. This study compared survival analyses to traditional ANOVAs and Chi-square analyses on a data set of imitation scores of 18-month-old toddlers. The 48 subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental…

Using data from a random sample of currently married adults (N=316), log-linear techniques were used to examine five aspects of household division of labor between husbands and wives as these relate to sex of respondent, labor-force status of the wife, and other independent variables. (Author)

This article examines some persistent paradoxes in the definition of the male role, and proposes a distinction between traditional and modern male roles. Four current perspectives on the problem of the male role are distinguished. (Author/AM)

This project investigated attitudes of entering freshmen college women in an attempt to learn whether traditional sex-role ideologies were still predominant, and what the career and educational aspiration levels of these young women were. The variables most concerning the authors were career salience, educational and career aspirations, opinions…

Reviews recent studies of change in gender-stereotyped behavior or attitudes in children. Suggests factors in susceptibility to counterstereotyping attempts including: (1) developmental level, (2) relationship between sex role cognitions and behavior, (3) degree of consistency in gender-stereotyped behavior, and (4) the role of individual…

Demonstrates how high or low levels of adult structuring of activities during free play activities can induce sex-typed social behavior by preschool children. Examines the effects of naturally occurring variations in children's play on sex-typed social behaviors. (SA)

The author discusses and reviews child-rearing literature prevalent in many modern home libraries. In 53 volumes on various aspects of child-rearing, there is a noticeable lack of discussion on who should bear the direct responsibility for raising children, with only two books covering the topic. About half the books do not have any discussion at…

Major points of this paper are: (a) that the goals of femininity and competence are not necessarily the same, and (b) that little is known about how to rear females to be competent, partly because competence, especially intellectual competence, has never been considered an important goal for females. (Author/AM)

In research on sex role attitudes, career choices, and considered appropriateness of men and women participating in 14 sex-stereotyped occupations, children demonstrated nonstereotypic attitudes toward the 14 occupations, chose traditional careers (those dominated by the subject's sex) for themselves, and gave stereotypic reasons for preferring…

This study identified the process by which sex-typing occurs within the field of medicine. It concludes that acceptance within a profession depends upon establishing a role identity and occupying an organizational space that leads to acquisition of skills, attitudes, and knowledge necessary for professional role occupancy. (Author/KC)

Returning women were slightly more egalitarian on attitudes toward sex-specific activities and the women's movement. They were significantly more traditional in attitudes toward fundamental differences between sex roles. Results suggest that women returning to school enhance support for feminist beliefs. (Author/BEF)