Gender Roles and Body Image

A study of college students' body images, published in the journal Sex Roles showed that men and women were both more likely to have negative body images if they believed in traditional gender roles than if they believed in less traditional ones.

The study confirms that gender roles are normative not only in behaviors, such as men feeling the need to work to support their families and feeling uncomfortable about staying home to care for children, but also in physical images. Thus, men who believe they are supposed to be more masculine are more likely to be troubled by Gynecomastia (enlarged male breast tissue) than those who do not feel it necessary to live up to traditional images of masculinity.

Similarly, women are more likely to be troubled by small breasts and seek breast augmentation if they believe that a woman's place is in the home, caring for children and serving her husband's needs.

One wonders if the contrary is true, and whether the increase in plastic surgery procedures over the last decade will foster a return to more traditional gender roles?