Opposites detract

Polarised sex stereotypes were entrenched in the 1960s but a pair of researchers were about to go against the grain.

- Marc Wilson

In the late 1960s, hospital-based researchers in Massachusetts conducted a study asking mental health clinicians to describe what they considered the characteristics of a psychologically healthy man, a psychologically healthy woman, and a psychologically healthy adult "sex unspecified". The clinicians had to do this by rating each on a set of bipolar attributes (eg, "very passive" vs "very active", or "tactful" vs "blunt") that they thought were sex-stereotypical. For example, they deemed it desirable for a man to be "very active", and desirable for a woman to be "tactful".

The punch line was as predictable as it was depressing: the clinicians described the psychologically healthy man more positively overall than the woman, and described the psychologically healthy "sex unspecified" adult using the attributes most commonly associated with the healthy man. It was, for these practitioners, psychologically healthier to be a man.

"Well, duh," you might say. "I've seen Mad Men; the 1960s were designed to make women nuts." And maybe you're right.