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Clothing and Changing Sex Roles: Comparison of Qualitative and Quantitative Analyses
Author(s) -
Len Sharron J.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
home economics research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1552-3934
pISSN - 0046-7774
DOI - 10.1177/1077727x9001800306
Subject(s) - clothing , masculinity , femininity , psychology , exploratory research , social psychology , qualitative research , developmental psychology , gender studies , sociology , political science , social science , law , anthropology , psychoanalysis
The main objective of this exploratory study was to compare qualitative and quantitative data collection methods and results via an investigation of sex role changes and clothing. Clothing and other appearance variables from videotaped episodes of situation comedies aired from 1953 to 1988 were analyzed for mas culinity and femininity. The results of both analyses were remarkably similar. The increasing masculinity of working women's appearance as depicted in the sitcoms over time was found to be related to concomitantly changing sex roles, from highly differentiated roles in 1953–1957, when the least masculinity was found in women's appearance, to modestly differentiated roles in 1986—1988, when the most masculinity was found in women's appearance. Further, the clothing and appearance of working men and working women became less differentiated as sex roles became less differentiated. This was primarily due to the fact that wom en's appearance came to incorporate more, and men's appearance came to in corporate fewer, masculine elements. However, men's appearance did not come to incorporate more feminine elements.