Nathaniel Yohannes, Masculinity vs. Femininity

Hofstede's cultural dimensions can help us understand both masculinity and femininity behaviors. Masculinity and femininity are two different behaviors that society divides with different roles. Males usually take on the more dominant roles while females take on more nuturing or caring roles. Hofstede explained that cultures with high masucline traits tend to value supremacy, wealth, and succesful occupience, while cultures with high feminime traits tend to overlap on values like relationships, supportiveness, and quality of life. Which means if one culture values masculine traits then both genders in that region would follow the cultural values, same applies with feminime cultures. The dimension of culture is applied by the factors based on Hofstede's data. One factor is geography, his studies shows that for some reason masculine cultures are more likely in warmer climates than colder climates. Which can be seen in countries like Japan, Venezuela, and Mexico where they were on the near-top of the list in Hofstede's rankings of fifty countries and three regions on masculinity. Another factor is birth rates, where in feminime cultures females have more say in how many children she wants. Where on the other end men have more say on determining the family size in masculinity valued regions. Homosexuals can also assume roles as the opposite sex, which mean females can also take masculine roles or vice-versa. On Hofstede's rankings, the US was placed ranked 15th. It can be seen here in this country that it isn't uncommon for females here to achieve male-oriented goals, one example is females being in the armed forces. That's one good example on how over time females began to intergrate in the armed forces. Overrall, it's good to have a balance in society on male and female roles, because at the end it just makes up a better enviorment for everyone.