Sandra Bem

I think that's a, a really interesting question, and one of the things that we wanted to look at in this research is understand what characteristics men and women associated with.

So we used something called the Bem Sex Role Inventory, which was originally developed in the 1970s by Sandra Bem.

And participants were asked to what extent traits that are culturally stereotyped as masculine, like taking risks or being a leader-

Mm

... on whether we should redefine [laughs] masculinity.

Well, if, uh, yeah, yeah.

No, if we go back to why, uh, Sandra Bem, uh, asked this question about traits, it was to say these are t- these rigid thoughts that we have about what masculinity and femininity are, are really quite destructive and not very, uh, good for society.

So her r- uh, whole, whole purpose in asking these, about these traits was to say, maybe we need to be and to promote more flexible ideas about what it is to be masculine and feminine.