The PAQ uses similar methodology to generate results that link identification with adjectives considered desirable in both genders with high self-esteem in subjects of either gender.
Generally, both instruments have been criticized because it is virtually impossible to ignore the influence of social learning on the degree to which individuals identify with gender-specific attributes. In effect, a diagnostic questionnaire may answer little else besides the identification of particular attributes associated positively with masculinity or femininity in the social culture in which subjects were socialized. More specifically, the PAQ has been criticized for equating identification with desirable male attributes with high self-esteem in "androgynous" females without considering the greater degree to which society reinforces self-esteem in conjunction with masculinity in the first place.
4. What are some areas of gender-role strain for men and women today?
In principle, gender-role strain arises whenever the individual encounters social situations in which the individual is incapable of living up to fundamental components of roles, behaviors, and responsibilities corresponding to established social expectations within a particular society. Typical examples of gender-role strains experienced...
Females may also experience despair from financial difficulties, but cultural attitudes and expectations about the male role as "breadwinner" intensify the importance of earning a living for males as a component of their masculinity.
Females in American culture may experience gender-role strain in conjunction with remaining single into late adulthood, emphasizing their professional development over plans to raise a family, or with prolonged so-called "serial dating" instead of getting married. Even in the first decade of the 21st century, these choices can be socially awkward for females and even trigger gender-role strain by virtue of internalized beliefs that women "should" get married and start families during their biological window of opportunity. Similarly, females who choose to date serially unless or until they meet a potential long-term mate may suffer self doubts and shame for being sexually intimate with "too many" partners in the meantime, even when they understand, in an intellectual level, that there is absolutely no logical basis for ascribing different moral judgment to the exact same behavior accepted (if not admired) in males of the same age.
