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It is a condition in which the characteristics of both sexes are clearly expressed in a single individual.
In biology, androgyny refers to individuals with fully developed sexual organs of both sexes, also called hermaphrodites .
The body constitution and other physical characteristics of these individuals are a mixture of normal male and female characteristics.
In psychology, androgyny refers to individuals with strong personality traits associated with both sexes, combining toughness and sweetness, assertiveness, and parenting behavior, as the situation demands.
Androgynous individuals are more likely to engage in transversal behaviors than those who maintain traditional sexual roles.
The rise of feminism and the influence of the women’s rights movement made certain aspects of androgynous behavior more socially attractive than in the past.
Androgynous figures occurred frequently in Greek mythology, often incorporating a mix of desirable male and female characteristics. The blind seer Tiresias, a figure of great wisdom, was sometimes depicted as a hermaphrodite.
The meaning of androgyny
The word ‘androgyny’ comes from the Greek word ‘andro’ which means man and ‘ginia’ which means woman. Androgyny is, therefore, the meaning of having both male and female characteristics.
Androgyny applies to people who do not want to be seen / identified by their gender. But what is gender identity and is there any link between it and androgyny?
Gender identity is not about your physical body, but when someone identifies as male or female. It can also be seen as someone who sees himself as male and female or neither sex, which is also known as ‘genderqueer’.
The idea of gender identity is closely related to the role that a particular gender “plays” according to society. For example, many of us grew up thinking it was the role of a woman to cook dinner for her family while the man provides the food.
For example, many of us grew up thinking that it was the role of a woman to cook dinner for her family while the man provides the food. But how many of us have grown up with a single mother?
The role of women has changed in recent years, with more mothers providing for the family. In some homes, both parents go to work and provide.
So environmental factors (an absent parent or the economy, respectfully) within society caused a shift in gender roles.
Gender roles are highly influenced by society; for example, there are some cultures that explain how each gender should behave. Women are expected to be sensitive and passive, while men are expected to be assertive and protective. But we are slowly beginning to see these expectations change.
It seems that there are no established gender roles for androgynous people, which makes this idea of gender identity unclear when talking about androgyny.
Physical appearance
There are some androgynous people who are comfortable with the way they already look, but there are others who are not as comfortable or happy with their looks because according to them their outward appearance is not what they really feel they are on the inside.
In other words, they do not feel that gender does not match the body. This is called Gender Dysphoria, where the person experiences a certain disconnect from the gender they currently are.
This is the reason why some androgynous people have a strong desire to change their sex to better match the gender identity that they feel they should be. We call this process being a transsexual .
Relationship of masculinity, femininity and androgyny with self-esteem
Proponents of androgyny suggest that the development of male and female characteristics in an individual may point the way to the development of a healthy personality.
However, traditional masculinity-femininity approaches claim that strong same-sex typing is the way to achieve this goal. Two hundred and thirty-seven subjects completed three androgyny instruments, two “traditional” masculinity-femininity instruments, and two self-esteem measures.
The subjects were then classified separately into one of the five categories of sexual function from Bern (1974) and one of the four categories of Spence, Helmreich and Stapp (1975) for each of the five instruments of sexual function.
For both genders, both measures of self-esteem, both sex role classification methods, and all sex role instruments, self-esteem generally increased from female to male categories, with male individuals higher in self-esteem than androgynous in almost all the cases.
For both sexes, masculinity also revealed significantly positive correlations with self-esteem; correlations with femininity were nominal or slightly negative.
Regression analyzes corroborated these findings and indicated that the traditional measures tested for masculinity added little to the predictive power of the masculinity scales of the androgyny instruments.
However, self-esteem was predicted equally well from the femininity scales of traditional and androgynous measures.
Can androgynous people be a combination of both, male and female?
There are some who can use a combination of male and female characteristics. For example, in fashion, where one day they can wear a matrix dance dress and then wear men’s clothing when they go out with friends.
This doesn’t necessarily have to do with their sexuality, but it may have everything to do with how they want to express themselves; that have both masculine and feminine characteristics and we should not include them in either of the two gender identities. There is no “right” way to be androgynous.
We must be careful to box people in. Just because we don’t understand why they are dressed differently from us, or that they don’t “speak” the way a man or woman should speak, does not mean that there is something wrong with them.
We are free to be who we want, this includes how we want to dress, who we want to date, and how we want to present ourselves to the world. No one has the right to tell you how it should look, and no one has the right to tell people what it should look like.
Adaptability
In general, bright or creative people tend to be androgynous. Androgynous people are more adaptable. They behave appropriately for the given situation, regardless of whether the behavior is male or female.
For example, when subjected to group pressure, androgynous women are more assertive and independent than feminine women.
Similarly, androgynous men are more maternal than masculine men. Androgynous men are more comfortable holding, touching, and playing with babies. They are better able to show empathy and offer support to others.
Stereotypical masculine men generally do not respond in these situations. Rigid and stereotyped sex roles seriously restrict behavior.
Masculine men have great difficulty expressing warmth, joy, and concern. They believe that expressing “feminine” features will make them appear “queer” or deny their “macho” image.
Similarly, feminine women have trouble being independent and assertive, even when independence and assertiveness are needed.
In contrast, by choosing from a wider range of behaviors, truly androgynous people can modify their responses according to their needs and the needs of the situation.
Androgynous people are believed to be freer, more adaptable, and healthier emotionally than those who restrict their behavior to traditional sex roles.
Some may not agree with them. Still, men can be cute without losing their “macho.” Similarly, women can defend their rights without losing their femininity.
Essentially, the behavior of any person can be determined by their individual humanity or the demands of the situation, not simply by the restrictive roles of masculinity or femininity.
Types of androgyny
Intersex is not the same as behavioral or psychological androgyny. Behavioral androgyny refers to participation in activities, accepting roles, and adopting attitudes that are generally associated with the opposite sex.
Psychological androgyny refers to ambiguous or conflicting feelings about one’s gender or sexual identity.
Androgynes may not associate with being male or female and often tailor their appearance to reflect their intersex. People who are androgynous can act out, dress up, accessorize (such as wearing jewelry, hats, and makeup), and comb their hair so their gender is not clear.
A person who is androgynous can be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual. They may be sexually attracted to members of both sexes, sexually attracted to both sexes, or not have sex.
Some people who are androgynous adopt a high-profile culture that can be referred to as genderqueer. Androgynous culture occurs all over the world and is especially recognized in the entertainment industry (eg music, fashion).
Artists often adopt the androgyny of behavior to appear gender neutral and appeal to both men and women. They may present an androgynous appearance and embrace an androgynous culture in public and while performing (eg, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Prince, etc.).
Background and history
Psychologists have measured masculinity and femininity, along with other important personality traits, since the early 1900s. These first tests were developed by identifying elements that reflected the differences in the responses of men and women.
For example, the original Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory masculinity-femininity scale included items that male participants endorsed as descriptive of their personality attributes.
At the time, psychologists shared the Western cultural assumption that mentally healthy men were male and mentally healthy women were female. Therefore, male participants were expected to have higher masculinity scores than female participants.
These early tests measured masculinity-femininity as a single dimension, with masculinity at one end of a continuum and femininity at the other end of the continuum. Therefore, the highest participants would score in masculinity, while the lowest would score in femininity.
Similarly, the higher the participants scored on femininity, the lower the scores on masculinity. It was impossible to score high on both masculinity and femininity.
In the 1970s, many psychologists criticized these traditional tests. This critique paralleled a shift in Western cultural assumptions about men, women, and the traditional socialization of the sex role.
During that time, Sandra Lipsitz Bem designed a new psychological test, the Bem Sex Roles Inventory (BSRI). Bem’s Sex Roles Inventory was designed to address some of the criticisms of traditional masculinity-femininity tests.
Rather than articles selected on the basis of gender differences in participant responses, Bem’s Sex Roles Inventory contains items that male and female participants rated as desirable for American men and women.
The masculinity scale consists of items that were rated as slightly more socially desirable for men (eg aggressive and ambitious). The femininity scale consists of items that were rated as slightly more socially desirable for women (eg, affectionate and cheerful).
Additionally, Bem’s Sex Role Inventory assesses masculinity and femininity as separate and independent dimensions.
Male and female participants can score high in masculinity and low in femininity (traditional masculinity), low in masculinity and high in femininity (traditional femininity), high in masculinity and femininity (androgynous) and low in masculinity and femininity (undifferentiated).
These last two groups were impossible to identify with the first psychological tests.
Sex role flexibility and mental health
Research on androgyny has addressed two questions based on Western cultural assumptions about socialization to traditional sex roles: psychological adjustment and mental health.
One line of research has tested the hypothesis that the socialization of men and women to traditional male or female sex roles would lead to rigidity and restricted behavior in many social situations.
Because androgynous people have both masculine and feminine attributes, they must have the flexibility to adapt to situations that require masculine or feminine behaviors.
A series of studies, for example, found that androgynous men and women were more affectionate towards a baby than masculine men and women. Furthermore, androgynous men performed better in another experimental situation that required independence than women and feminine men.
In another study, male men and female women were more likely to choose an experimental activity that was appropriate for their sex (for example, greasing squeaky hinges on a metal box vs. mixing infant formula and preparing a bottle) than men androgynous.
Additionally, male men and female women reported feeling worse after engaging in inappropriate sexual activity than androgynous men.
Other studies have addressed the relationship of androgyny, psychological adjustment, and mental health. While some studies have found that androgynous people have higher self-esteem than traditional male or female people, the results of other studies are conflicting or mixed.
An extensive review of published studies in the area concluded that male androgynous men and women scored higher on various mental health indices than female men and women.
However, statistical analyzes indicated that it is the masculinity component of androgyny that is related to mental health rather than the unique combination of masculinity and femininity.
The researchers attribute these findings to the psychological benefits that masculine men and women enjoy in a culture that encourages assertiveness, competence, and independence.
Actual state
Psychological tests like Bem’s Sex Role Inventory are a major improvement over tests built in the early 1900s. However, critics claim that because masculinity and femininity consist of a multitude of dimensions, these tests are inadequate.
Other critics claim that tests like Bem’s Sex Role Inventory measure two important dimensions that are characteristic of sex roles across cultures:
- The elements of masculinity measure instrumental attributes (representing agency and independence).
- The elements of femininity measure expressive attributes (representing care and warmth).
Finally, Bem has changed his point of view on psychological androgyny. She believes that male or female people think about the world from a gender perspective, while androgynous men and women do not.
