Definition
Sandra Lipsitz Bem (1944–2014) was an American feminist psychologist.
Introduction
Sandra Bem, feminist psychologist, died in 2014, leaving a legacy of scholarship which challenged us to (re)conceptualize gender and consider how gender prescriptions impact our lives and relationships (Golden and McHugh 2015). Sandra Bem presented ideas that challenged established notions of gender and sexuality. For example, Sandra Bem (1974) challenged the traditional position that masculinity and femininity were bipolar opposites and that being sex typed (expressing characteristics thought to be consistent with one’s biological sex) is mentally healthy. She introduced a theory of androgyny in which masculinity and femininity are conceptualized and measured independently. In her theory, an individual who enacts high levels of positive masculine and feminine characteristics is androgynous. She also detailed the concepts of gender schemas and androcentrism and critiqued biological...
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References
Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155–162.
Bem, S. L. (1975). Sex role adaptability: One consequence of psychological androgyny. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 634–643.
Bem, S. L. (1977). On the utility of alternative procedures for assessing psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 45, 196–205.
Bem, S. L. (1979). The theory and measurement of androgyny: A reply to the Pedhazur-Tetenbaum and Locksley-Colten critiques. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1047–1054.
Bem, S. L. (1981a). Bem sex role inventory professional manual. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Bem, S. L. (1981b). Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review, 88, 354–364.
Bem, S. L. (1993). The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality. New haven: Yale University Press.
Bem, S. L. (1996). Transforming the debate on sexual inequality: From biological difference to institutionalized androcentrism. In J. C. Chrisler, C. Golden, & P. D. Rozee (Eds.), Lectures on the psychology of women (pp. 9–21). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Bem, S. L. (1998). An unconventional family. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bem, S. L., & Bem, D. J. (1970). Training the woman to know her place: The power of a nonconscious ideology. In S. Cox (Ed.), Female psychology: The emerging self (pp. 180–191). Chicago: SRA Associates.
Bem, S. L., & Bem, D. J. (1973). Does sex-biased job advertising “aid and abet” sex discrimination? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 3, 6–18. doi:10.1111/j 1559-1816.1973.tb01290.x.
Bem, S. L., & Lenney, E. (1976). Sex typing and the avoidance of cross-sex behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 48–54.
Bem, S. L., Martyna, W., & Watson, C. (1976). Sex typing and androgyny: Further explorations of the expressive domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 1016–1023. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.34.5.1016.
George, M. (2012). Profile Sandra Bem. In A. Rutherford (Ed.), Psychology’s feminist voices multimedia internet archive. Retrieved from http://www.feministvoices.com/sandrabem.
Golden, C., & McHugh, M. C. (2015). Sandra Bem (obituary). American Psychologist, 70, 280.
Golden, C. R., & McHugh, M. C. (2016). Sandra Bem: Challenging constructions of gender and sex. Sex Roles. Advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0674-2.
Hoffman, R. M., & Borders, L. D. (2001). Twenty-five years after the Bem sex-role inventory: A reassessment and new issues regarding classification variability. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 34, 39–55.
Keener, E., & Mehta, C. M. (Eds.). (2017a). The past, present, and future of masculinity, femininity and gender: Honoring feminist scholar Sandra L. Bem (1944–2014), Part 1. Sex Roles.
Keener, E., & Mehta, C. M. (Eds.). (2017b). The past, present, and future of masculinity, femininity and gender: Honoring feminist scholar Sandra L. Bem (1944–2014), Part 2. Sex Roles.
Starr, C. B., & Zurbriggen, E. L. (2016). Sandra Bem’s gender schema theory after 34 years: A review of its reach and impact. Sex Roles. Advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0591-4.
Whitley, B. E. (1984). Sex role orientation and psychological well being: Two meta analyses. Sex Roles, 12, 207–225.
Whitley, B. E. (1988). Masculinity, femininity and self esteem: A multitrait, multi method analysis. Sex Roles, 18, 419–431.
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McHugh, M.C., Golden, C. (2017). Bem, Sandra. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1209-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1209-1
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