gender script

Meaning: A gender script works like a script for a play. It is a shared, learned outline of what each gender is expected to do in a familiar situation: who initiates, what is said, and how emotion is shown. People absorb scripts through socialization by family, peers, schools and media, and enforce them informally with approval, teasing or disapproval. Scripts differ across cultures and historical periods, which supports the social constructionist view that gender expectations are made by society rather than fixed by biology. Individuals can follow, adapt or reject a script, so it guides behavior without determining it.

On the MCAT: A passage may describe a dating or workplace pattern, such as men expected to initiate and women expected to respond, and ask you to name it as a gender script, norm or role. Other questions ask which agent of socialization transmits it, how a symbolic interactionist would interpret the repeated pattern, or why the pattern might change across cultures or generations.

Common confusion: Students mix up a gender script with gender identity and sex. Sex is biological, gender identity is a person's internal sense of their gender, and a script is an external social expectation for behavior in a situation. A gender role is the broader set of expected behaviors; the script is the situation-specific sequence that carries out that role.