跨文化交际中的masculinityfemininity

An Analysis of Masculinity and Femininity from the Cross-cultural Communication Perspective

Masculinity and femininity are two important terms in cross-cultural

communication. They illustrate the distinctions between different nations’

characteristics and personalities. And these two distinct traits may even exist in

every communication between nations or in every aspects of our social life. This

paper mainly focuses on masculinity and femininity from the following aspects,

namely, the geographical distribution of masculinity and femininity, the general

features and contrasts of them, their influence on modern world and I will draw a

conclusion at the end of the paper.

Firstly, the geographical distribution of masculinity and femininity.

Masculinity and femininity are dominating differently from country to country.

Some countries, like Germany, Britain, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Austria, and Argentina

etc belong to typical Masculinity. The so-called feminine includes all the

Scandinavian countries, such as Portugal, Spain and several Pan-American nations.

Most countries in North Europe are Femininity, such as Sweden, Norway, Finland

and Denmark.

The typical trait of different nations may be caused by historical reasons and

which later on prevail and dominates people’s mind once after. Take Britain and

Finland as separate examples to show masculinity and femininity. Britain is a

masculinity empire, in history it launched many large-scale wars towards other

countries, and it was also called “the empire of the sun never set” to show its mighty

power on military. Britain’s colonies scattered all over the world, such as India,

Latin America, Australia and parts of China. Therefore it is typical of aggressive and

invasive nature. In contrast, Finland was invaded by many other nations in history

and was colonized by Sweden, Russia. After the Second World War, Finland

belonging to the defeated sides was forced to accept the Marshall plan. It can hardly

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defend itself and one obvious character of Finland is unaggressive. And this may be

a good reason to show why Britain is masculine while Finland is feminine.

From the cross-cultural communication perspective, this background

knowledge helps us to better understand masculinity and femininity. The nations

which are masculine often have a masculine world view, and vice versa. Thus,

people from the two different cultural backgrounds would have some completely

distinct behaviors and outlooks of the world. When people from the two typical

cultures encounter they may feel confused or even can not understand each other

correctly, then misunderstandings emerge. If they know more about the two different

traits of the people in the two cultural backgrounds, their communication with each

other may be going on smoothly.

Secondly, the general features and contrasts of masculinity and femininity.

Masculinity and femininity are contrary to each other. They are like the north

and south poles of earth, or the positive or negative poles of a battery. Masculinity is

the extent to which the dominant values in a society are male oriented and is

associated with such behaviors as ambition, differentiated sex roles, achievement,

the acquisition of money, and signs of manliness. As for femininity, it is a trait stress

caring and nurturing behaviors. Generally speaking, masculinity means toughness

and femininity means tenderness and they differ in more than one way.

Masculinity focuses on the degree of society reinforces, the traditional

masculinity is always connected with male achievement, control, and power. In high

masculinity cultures, male dominate a significant portion of the society and power

structure, with females being controlled by male domination. Therefore men are

expected to hold the primary jobs and women are expected to remain at home and

raise families. People in high masculinity cultures tend to believe that matters of

comfort, social privilege, access to power and influence, status and prestige, and

ability to consume are related to ability and that with enough opportunity any

individual who wants these benefits of society can have them. High masculinity

societies tend to reward financial and material achievements with preferential social

prestige and status, and to attribute strong character and spiritual values to such high

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achievers. In masculine culture, power means the right to make others do what you

want them to do. Masculine people like to show off by being the biggest, best, and

fastest.

In contrast, a country of low masculinity culture has a low level of

differentiation and discrimination between genders. In such culture, females are

treated equally as males in all aspects of the society. Love and tenderness are for

men and women alike. Children need love, and parents spend much time with them.

In femininity countries, women are more prominent in management and professional

fields. Organizations accommodate women’s needs for maternity leave and childcare,

and working environments tend to be less assertive and stressful. Feminine culture

expects both males and female to be cooperative and nurturing in their relationships.

They are supposed to be sensitive to the needs of the disadvantaged and are quick to

offer help to those who need it. While the dark masculine desire is the desire to take

a woman savagely, lovingly and with no inhibitions whatsoever, one of the deepest

feminine desires is to be able to relax and surrender, knowing that the masculine is

taking care of everything.

From the cross-cultural communication perspective, people from different

cultural background should have the masculinity and femininity awareness. The

following lines I will illustrate these two distinct ideologies in people’s mind in

details from three aspects, namely, personal, family and social. First, in personal

aspect, masculinity means ambition, achievement and material success; people have

different expectations for men and women, they think that men are tough and women

are not tough; they also think that men should be assertive and ambitious, women

should not be ambitious but should teach children to be tough. As for femininity, it is

associated with caring for people and cooperation; there are few differences in

people’s expectations for men and women and they think that both men and women

should be tender; there is also another trait, that is, no one should be too assertive or

ambitious; everybody should be modest. Second, in family aspect, masculinity

means fathers deal with facts and mothers deal with feelings; as for their children,

they hold that girls cry while boys don’t and that boys should fight back when

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attacked but girls shouldn’t fight. In femininity cultures, both fathers and mothers

deal with facts and feelings; both boys and girls are allowed to cry but neither should

fight. Third, in social aspect, masculinity countries reward the strong and they

considers the big and fast to be beautiful; they resolve conflicts by showing strength

and fighting them out if necessary; they considers that managers should be

resourceful, decisive and assertive; and the countries are making effort to achieve

economic development and progress. On the other hand, femininity countrieshave

sympathy for the weak and they considers the small and slow to be beautiful; they

resolve conflicts by compromise and negotiation; in their mind, managers should be

resourceful and use intuition and strive for consensus; the femininity countries are

protecting the environment and preserving what already exists while making the

economic progress.

Therefore, when people from masculine and feminine cultures come across

with each other, misunderstandings or misconceptions may happen unless they are

aware of the cultural difference. In this way, people know each other’s idea and tend

to understand each other’s way of thinking and modes of action. Otherwise, there

will be conflicts, uneasiness or embarrassment between the two parties.

Thirdly, the influence of the masculinity and femininity on modern world.

With the acceleration of globalization in modern world, communication

between people of distinct cultural background happens every now and then. The

clear cut between masculinity and femininity seems to be obscure, and all the

countries in the world seem to be diversified. Conversations are going on ignorantly

while people are having interaction with each other without knowing whether it’s a

good thing or bad. From the cross-cultural communication perspective, it has both

advantages and disadvantages.

On the one hand, obscured distinction between masculinity and femininity can

promote the fusion of the nations with different ideologies and establish a more

harmonious world. Masculinity can promote nation’s independence and innovation,

and femininity can strengthen the stability and harmony of a country. Moreover,

femininity can give the females a new opportunity to identify their position in the

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society, liberate women’s creativity and to some degree it give women more rights

that once peculiar owned only by men.

On the other hand, it has certain degree of disadvantages. Masculinity and

femininity are two special and dominant traits all over the world, and when two

people in the same country but with totally different cultural backgrounds come

across with each other, they will find it even harder to communicate with each other

showing understand and respect to the other side while keeping their own values and

beliefs. In this way, personalities they carried are disappearing, something we called

national personality is vanishing, and the values and world view tend to be common.

This applies best with America, which is called melting pot because of its great

migrations every year. So there may be conflicts between them, and if they are cater

to the other’s culture, their own may be lost.

Finally, the conclusion.

Masculinity and femininity is the gender identity expressed in social and culture

aspect and different countries have different degrees of masculine tendency, which is

caused by complicated reasons such as history, even within a country it may be

different in different times of history. Masculinity and femininity are not innate but

based upon social and cultural conditions. However, it is very hard to judge which

one is superior to another because both of them is reasonable and they make this

world diversified. Having this culture awareness in mind, people will communicate

better with those coming from other cultures, especially when people have a clear

understanding of the general features and contrasts of masculinity and femininity.

Then, these two typical traits have a penetrating influence in a country’s customs and

tradition, they are like the two sides of a coin. But to achieve a successful and ever-lasting communication between two persons, corporations and finally two nations,

the knowledge of masculinity and femininity are just the tip of the iceberg, it needs

more background information and a lot of critical factors to conduct a perfect cross-cultural communication.

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内容总结

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