1
Hofstede, Geert: Cultures and Organizations. Software of the mind. Intercultural
Cooperation and its Importance for Survival. London: Harper Collins Publishers
1991. Hoofdstuk 4. P. 79-108.
(p. 79)
4 He, she, and (s)he
As a young Dutch engineer I once applied for a junior management job with an American
engineering company which had recently settled in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of
Belgium. I felt wellqualified: with a degree from the senior technical university of the
country, good grades, a record of active participation in student associations, and three years'
experience as an engineer with a well-known, although somewhat sleepy Dutch company. I
had written a short letter indicating my interest and providing some vital personal data. I was
invited to appear in person, and after a long train ride I sat facing the American plant
manager. I behaved politely and modestly, as I knew an applicant should, and waited for the
other man to ask the usual questions which would enable him to find out how qualified I was.
To my surprise he asked very few of the things that I thought should be discussed. Instead he
wanted to know some highly detailed facts about my experience in tooi design, using English
words I did not know, and the relevance of which escaped me. Those were the things I could
learn within a week once I worked there. After half an hour of painful misunderstandings he
said 'Sorry--we need a first class man.' And I was out in the street.
Assertiveness versus modesty
Years later I was the interviewer and I saw both Dutch and American applicants. Then I
understood what had gone wrong in that earlier case. American applicants, to Dutch eyes,
oversell themselves. Their CVs are worded in superlatives, mentioning every degree, grade,
award, and membership to demonstrate their outstanding qualities. During the interview they
try to behave assertively, promising things they are very unlikely to realize--like learning the
local language in a few months.
Dutch applicants in American eyes undersell themselves. They write modest and usually short
CVs, counting on the interviewer to find out by asking how good they really are. They expect
an interest in their social and extra-curricular activities during their studies. They are very
careful not to be seen
(p. 80)
as braggarts and not to make promises they are not absolutely sure they can fulfil.
American interviewers know how to interpret American CVs and interviews and they tend to
discount the information provided. Dutch interviewers, accustomed to Dutch applicants, tend
to upgrade the information. The scenario for cross-cultural misunderstanding is quite clear. To
an uninitiated American interviewer an uninitiated Dutch applicant comes across as a sucker.
To an uninitiated Dutch interviewer an uninitiated American applicant comes across as a
braggart.
2
Dutch and American societies are reasonably similar on the dimensions of power distance and
individualism described in Chapters 2 and 3 but they differ considerably on a third dimension
which opposes among other things the desirability of assertive behavior against the
desirability of modest behavior. I will label it: masculinity versus femininity.1
Genders and gender roles
All human societies consist of men and women, usually in approximately equal numbers.
They are biologically distinct and their respective roles in biological procreation are absolute.
Other physical differences between women and men, not directly related to the bearing and
begetting of children, are not absolute but statistical. Men are on average taller and stronger,
but many women are taller and stronger than quite a few men. Women have on average
greater finger dexterity and, for example, faster metabolism which makes them recover faster
from fatigue but some men also excel in these respects.
The absolute and statistical biological differences between men and women are the same the
world over, but their social roles are only partly determined by the biological constraints.
Every society recognizes many behaviors, not immediately related to procreation, as more
suitable for females or more suitable for males; but which behaviors belong to which gender
differs from one society to another. Anthropologists having studied nonliterate, relatively
isolated societies stress the wide variety of social sex roles that seem to be possible (Mead,
1962). For the biological distinction this chapter will use the terms male and female; for the
social, culturally determined roles masculine and feminine. The latter terms are relative, not
absolute: a man can behave in a 'feminine' way and a woman in a 'masculine' way; this only
means they deviate from certain conventions in their society.
Which behaviors are considered 'feminine' or 'masculine' differs not only among traditional
but also among modern societies. This is most evident in the distribution of men and women
over certain professions. Women dominate as doctors in the former Soviet Union, as dentists
in Belgium, as shopkeepers in parts of West Africa. Men dominate as typists in Pakistan
(p. 81)
and form a sizeable share of nurses in the Netherlands. Female managers are virtually
nonexistent in Japan but frequent in the Philippines and Thailand.
In spite of the variety found there is a common trend among most societies, both traditional
and modern, as to the distribution of social sex roles. From now on this chapter will use the
more modern term gender roles. Men are supposed to be more concerned with achievements
outside the home-- hunting and fighting in traditional societies, the same but translated in
economic terms in modern societies. Men, in short, are supposed to be assertive, competitive,
and tough. Women are supposed to be more concerned with taking care of the home, of the
children, and of people in general; to take the tender roles. It is not difficult to see how this
role pattern is likely to have developed: women first bore the children and then usually
breastfed them, so at least during this period they had to stay close to the children. Men were
freer to move around, to the extent that they were not needed to protect women and children
against attacks by other men and animals.
Male achievement reinforces masculine assertiveness and competition; female care reinforces
feminine nurturance, a concern for relationships and for the living environment. Men, taller,
stronger, and free to get out, tend to dominate in social life outside the home: inside the home
3
a variety of role distributions between the genders is possible. The role pattern demonstrated
by the father and mother (and possibly other family members) has a profound impact on the
mental software of the small child who is programmed with it for life. Therefore it is not
surprising that one of the dimensions of national value systems is related to gender role
models offered by parents.
Masculinity-femininity as a dimension of societal culture
Chapter 3 referred to the set of 14 work goals in the IBM questionnaire: 'Try to think of those
factors which would be important to you in an ideal job; disregard the extent to which they
are contained in your present job.' The analysis of the answers to the 14 work goals items
produced two underlying dimensions. One was individualism versus collectivism: the
importance of 'personal time', 'freedom', and 'challenge' stood for individualism, the
importance of 'training', 'physical conditions', and 'use of skills' stood for collectivism.
The second dimension came to be labeled masculinity versus femininity. It was associated
most strongly with the importance attached to: for the 'masculine' pole:
1. Earnings Have an opportunity for high earnings.
2. Recognition Get the recognition you deserve when you do a good job.
(p. 82)
3. Advancement Have an opportunity for advancement to higher level jobs.
4. Challenge Have challenging work to do--work from which you can get a personal sense
of accomplishment.
For the opposite, 'feminine', pole:
5. Manager Have a good working relationship with your direct superior.
6. Cooperation Work with people who cooperate well with one another.
7. Living area Live in an area desirable to you and your family.
8. Employment security Have the security that you will be able to work for your company
as long as you want to.
Notice that 'challenge' was also associated with the individualism dimension (Chapter 3). The
other seven goals are only associated with masculinity or femininity.
The decisive reason for labeling the second 'work goals' dimension 'masculinity versus
femininity' is that this dimension is the only one on which the men and the women among the
IBM employees scored consistently differently (except, as will be shown, in countries at the
extreme feminine pole). Neither power distance nor individualism nor uncertainty avoidance
showed a systematic difference in answers between men and women. Only the present
dimension produced such a gender difference, with men attaching greater importance to, in
particular, the work goals (1) and (3) and women to (5) and (6). The importance of earnings
and advancement corresponds to the masculine, assertive, and competitive social role. The
importance of relations with the manager and with colleagues corresponds to the feminine,
caring, and social-environment oriented role.
As in the case of the individualism versus collectivism dimension, the eight items from the
IBM questionnaire do not totally cover the distinction between a masculine and a feminine
4
culture in society. They only represent the aspects of this dimension represented by questions
in the IBM research. Again, the correlations of the IBM country scores on masculinity with
non-IBM data about other characteristics of societies are needed in order to grasp what the
dimension encompasses.
Based on all the information about the distinctions between societies related to this
dimension, it can be defined as follows: masculinity pertains to societies in which social
gender roles are clearly distinct (i.e., men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on
material success whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with
the quality of life); femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles
(p.83)
overlap (i.e., both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the
quality of life).
A masculinity index (MAS) score was computed for each of the 50 countries and 3 regions in
the IBM data. Like the individualism index, MAS was based on factor scores for each country
which were automatically produced by the statistical procedure used (factor analysis). Scores
were achieved in a range from about 0 for the most feminine to about 100 for the most
masculine country by multiplying the factor scores by 20 and adding 50.2
MAS values were computed not only by country but also separately for men and women
within each country. Figure 4.1 shows in simplified form the relationship between masculinity
by gender and masculinity by country, and reveals that from the most 'feminine' (tender)
countries to the most 'masculine' (tough) ones the values of both men and women become
tougher but that the difference is larger for men than for women. In the most feminine
countries, Sweden and Norway as will soon be shown, there was no difference between the
scores of men and women, and both expressed equally tender, nurturing values. In the most
masculine countries, Japan and Austria, the men scored very tough but also the women scored
fairly tough; nevertheless the gap between men's values and women's values was largest for
these countries. From the most feminine to the most masculine country the range of MAS
scores for men is about 50 percent larger than the range for women. Women's values differ
less between countries than men's values do.
5
(p. 84)
The MAS scores for the 53 countries and regions (men and women combined) can be read
from Table 4.1.3
Like the scores for power distance and individualism, the masculinity scores
represent relative, not absolute, positions of countries. Unlike individualism, masculinity is
unrelated to a country's degree of economic development: we find both rich and poor
masculine and rich and poor feminine countries.
The USA scores 62 on the masculinity index (rank 15) and the Netherlands score 14 (rank
51), so the two countries which appeared in the story at the beginning of this chapter are
really far apart. The four most feminine countries (ranks 53 through 50) are Sweden, Norway,
the Netherlands, and Denmark; Finland comes close with rank 47. Some of the Latin
countries score strongly to moderately feminine: Costa Rica (rank 48/49), Chile (46), Portugal
(45), Guatemala (43), Uruguay (42), Salvador (40), Peru (37/38), Spain (37/38), France
(35/36), Panama (34). The other countries on the
(p. 85)
feminine side are Yugoslavia (48/49), Thailand (44), South Korea (41), East and West Africa
(ranks 39 and 30/31, respectively), Iran (35/36), Taiwan (32/33), Turkey (32/33), and
Indonesia (30/31).
6
The champions of masculinity are, first, Japan (rank 1) and some continental European
countries: Austria (2), Italy (4/5), Switzerland (4/5), and West-Germany (9/10). Also a
number of Latin American countries, mainly the larger countries around the Caribbean:
Venezuela (3), Mexico (6), Colombia (11/12), Equador (13/14) but, at some distance, also
Argentina (20/21). Moderately masculine scores are all Anglo countries: the Republic of
Ireland (7/8), Jamaica (7/8), Great Britain (9/10), South Africa (13/14), USA (15), Australia
(16), New Zealand (17), Canada (24). Finally the Philippines (11/12), Greece (18/19), Hong
Kong (18/19), India (20/21), Belgium (22), and the Arab-speaking countries (23).
Gender cultures
One of the levels of culture introduced in Chapter 1 is the gender level. Figure 4.1 clearly
illustrates that a particular part of our mental programs depends (in most countries) on
whether we were born as a girl or as a boy. Like nationality, gender is an involuntary
characteristic: we were not asked before being born, in which country and with what sex we
wanted to appear. Because of this the effect of both nationality and gender on our mental
programming is largely unconscious. Although both nationality and gender cultures are
learned, not inborn, we learned their consequences so early that we never knew anything else,
and we are usually unaware of other possibilities.
Figure 4.1 shows that, on average, men have been programmed with tougher values and
women with more tender values but that the gap between the sexes varies by country. Even in
countries at the feminine extreme of the MAS scale, like Sweden and Norway, men's values
and women's values need not be identical in all respects, only they do not differ along a
tough-tender dimension. Any country is likely to show cultural differences according to
gender. These are again statistical rather than absolute: there is an overlap between the values
of men and those of women so that any given value may be found both among men and
among women, only with different frequency.
Individual women can learn to function in a masculine way and individual men in a feminine
way. Where men are together a masculine culture is likely to dominate; where women are
together, a feminine culture. Calling these differences 'cultures' stresses their profound and
emotional nature. The feminine culture is alien to most men, as the masculine culture is alien
to most women. Exposure to another culture leads initially to culture shock, which is a
nonrational 'gut' feeling. We readily experience other cultures as
(p. 86)
wrong, ridiculous, or frightening, and such feelings can be detected between the genders
within the same society. The males in virtually all societies dominate in politics, in the
community, and at the workplace; so the subcultures of politics, community affairs, and work
are relatively masculine. The subcultures of the family and the school vary more from one
society to another. The differences among countries illustrated by Fig. 4.1 have mainly
resulted from different gender roles and socialization processes in the family and at school, as
described below.
Masculinity and femininity according to occupation
Power distance indices could be used for comparing countries as well as occupations;
individualism indices could only be computed for countries. A dimension of masculinity
versus femininity, like power distance, does appear when we compare occupations, so it
7
makes sense to call some occupations more 'masculine' and some more 'feminine' in terms of
the values of those who exercise them. Not surprisingly, the masculine occupations are the
ones usually filled by men, and the feminine occupations are the ones usually filled by
women. However, the differences in values associated with the occupations are not caused by
the gender of the occupants. Men from the IBM population in 'feminine' occupations held
more 'feminine' values than women in 'masculine' occupations.
Within IBM 38 occupations could be divided into 6 groups from the most 'masculine' to the
most 'feminine' as follows:
1. Salesmen (professional and nonprofessional)
2. Professional workers (engineers/scientists)
3. Skilled workers/technicians
4. Managers of all categories
5. Unskilled and semiskilled workers
6. Office workers
The salesmen (rarely saleswomen) in this case were paid on commission, in a strongly
competitive climate. Scientists, engineers, technicians, and skilled workers in IBM focus
mostly on individual technical performance which calls for masculine values. Managers deal
with both technical and human problems, in roles with both assertive and nurturing elements.
Unskilled and semiskilled workers have no strong achievements to boast but they usually
work in teams, so cooperation is important to them. Office workers also have few
achievements but their jobs tend to involve even more human contact, also with outsiders.
Masculinity and femininity in the family
The family is the place where most people received their first cultural programming. The
family contains two unequal but complementary role
(p. 87)
pairs: parent-child and husband-wife. The effects of different degrees of inequality in the
parent-child relationship were related to the dimension of power distance in Chapter 2. The
prevailing role distribution between husband and wife is reflected in a society's position on
the masculinity-femininity scale.
Figure 4.2 plots country PDI scores (from Table 2.1) against country MAS scores (from Table
4.1). In the right half of the diagram where PDI values are high, inequality between parents
and children is a societal norm. Children are supposed to be controlled by obedience. In the
left half, children are controlled by the examples set by parents. In the lower half of the
diagram where MAS scores are high, inequality between fathers' and mothers' roles (father
tough, mother less tough) is a societal norm. Men are supposed to deal with facts, women
with feelings. In the upper half both men and women are allowed to deal with the facts and
with the soft things in life.
Thus the lower right-hand quadrant (unequal and tough) stands for a norm of a dominant,
tough father and a submissive mother who, although also fairly tough, is at the same time the
refuge for consolation and tender
8
(p. 88)
feelings. In the Latin American countries in this quadrant the internationally understood term
'machismo' has been coined for the attitude expected of men. Less known is the corresponding
term 'marianismo' for women, a combination of near-saintliness, submissiveness, and sexual
frigidity.
The upper right-hand quadrant (unequal and tender) represents a societal norm of two
dominant parents, sharing the same concern for the quality of life and for relationships, both
providing at times authority and tenderness.
In the countries in the lower left-hand quadrant (equal and tough) the norm is for
nondominant parents to set an example in which father is tough and deals with facts and
mother is somewhat less tough and deals with feelings. The resulting role model is that boys
should assert themselves and girls should please and be pleased. Boys do not cry and should
fight back when attacked; girls may cry and do not fight.
Finally, in the upper left-hand quadrant (equal and tender) the norm is for mothers and fathers
not to dominate and for both to be concerned with relationships, with the quality of life, with
facts and feelings, setting an example of a relative equality of gender roles in the family
context.
The above typology has the weakness of all typologies that no real-life situation entirely fits
its descriptions. Also, what is the 'family' context depends strongly on the country's position
on the dimension collectivism-individualism. In a collectivist society, the 'family' is the
9
extended family, and the center of dominant authority could very well be the grandfather as
long as he is still alive, with the father as a model of obedience. Ultra-individualist societies
contain many one-parent families in which role models are incomplete, or in which outsiders
provide the missing roles. The typology serves to stress the importance of a society's role
distributions in the family with regard to the values that are transferred from one generation to
the next.
Gender-related values and behaviors are programmed into us in subtle ways and from a quite
early age. A comparative study (Otaki et al., 1986) of the behaviors of mothers and three-tofour-months-old
babies in Japan and the USA showed among other things that the Japanese
baby boys were significantly noisier than the Japanese girls while the reverse was true for the
US babies. It is extremely unlikely that a difference like this is inborn. It must be due to the
mother's conditioning of her child which differs according to the child's sex and to the
nationality of the mother. She encourages or soothes the child according to the expectations in
her society about the behavior of boys and of girls. Whoever has seen groups of travellers
from both countries will have noticed that adult Japanese men are also noisier than adult
Japanese women and that the reverse holds for adult Americans.
(p. 89)
The masculinity-femininity dimension does not just affect how families develop role
differences between boys and girls. Figure 4.1 shows that both men and women hold tougher
values in masculine countries and more tender values in feminine ones. In masculine
countries both boys and girls learn to be ambitious and competitive, although the ambition of
the girls may be directed towards the achievements of their brothers and later of their
husbands and sons. A common image from US motion pictures shows the girls as
cheerleaders for the football matches played by the boys. Popular movies are to modern
society what religious myths were to traditional ones: they express models for behavior.
In feminine countries both boys and girls learn to be nonambitious and modest. Assertive
behavior and attempts at excelling which are appreciated in masculine cultures are easily
ridiculed in feminine ones. Excellence is something one keeps to oneself. My own country,
the Netherlands, is a case in point; it is the third most feminine in Table 4.1. The Dutch
language expresses its feminine stance in an untranslatable expression `doe maar gewoon,
dan doe je al gek genoeg': something like `just behave like everybody else, you're ridiculous
enough anyway'. This attitude can be called 'leveling': pulling everyone back to a modest
average. The Dutch have been described by a visiting French writer as `un peuple jaloux qui a
un curieux penchant pour tout ce qui est terne': `a jealous people who are curiously attracted
by everything that is dull.' (Baena, 1968, pp. 13, 65).
In masculine cultures children learn to admire the strong; popular fictional heroes created in
the USA are 'Batman' and 'Rambo'. In feminine cultures children learn sympathy for the
underdog and the anti-hero. Small and friendly 'Rasmus Klump' (called Petzi in translations)
is a Danish comic hero; 'Ollie B. Bommel' (Mr Bumble), a clumsy and naive anti-hero, has
become a national personality among Dutch intellectuals.4
Whereas gender roles in the family strongly affect the values about appropriate behavior for
boys and for girls, they do not have immediate implications for the distribution of gender
roles in the wider society. As was argued earlier in this chapter, men, being on average taller
and stronger and free to get out, have traditionally dominated social life outside the home in
virtually all societies. Only exceptional and usually upper-class women had the means to
10
delegate their child-rearing activities to others and to step into a public role. If women entered
dominant positions in society at all this was mostly after the age of 45 when their mother
status changed into grandmother status. Unmarried women were, and still are, rare in
traditional societies and are often ostracized.
The much greater liberty of choice among social roles, beyond those of wife, mother, and
housekeeper, which women in many industrialized societies enjoy nowadays is a recent
phenomenon. Its impact on the distribution of
(p. 90)
gender roles outside the home is not yet fully felt. Therefore a country's position on the
masculinity-femininity scale need not be closely related to women's activities outside the
family sphere. Economic possibilities and necessities play a bigger role in this respect than
values.
Masculinity and femininity at school
A Dutch management consultant taught part of a course for Indonesian middle managers from
a public organization located all over the archipelago. In the discussion following one of his
presentations, a Javanese participant came up with a very lucid comment, and the teacher
praised him openly. The Javanese said 'You embarrass me. Among us, parents never praise
their children to their face.'5
This anecdote illustrates two things. Firstly, how strong, at least in Indonesia, is the transfer of
behavior models from the family to the school situation, the teacher being identified with the
father. Secondly, it expresses the virtue of modesty in the Javanese culture to an extent which
even surprised the Dutchman. Indonesia is a multi-ethnic country; one of those about which
Chapter 1 warned that national culture scores may be misleading. Indonesians agree that
especially on the dimension tough-tender, ethnic groups within the country vary considerably
with the Javanese taking an extreme position towards the tender side. The Dutch consultant
said that even some of the other Indonesians were surprised by the Javanese's feelings. A
Batak from the island of Sumatra said that he now understood why his Javanese boss never
praised him when he himself felt that praise should have been due. In fact, the incident
became the occasion for an all-out discussion within the group about inter-ethnic differences
in values, a topic which so far had never been brought into the open.
Each semester my university offers a program of European studies to students from the USA.
To some of the Americans I give the assignment to interview a number of Dutch students
about their goals in life. Invariably, the Americans are struck by the fact that the Dutch seem
to be much less concerned with grades than they are. Passing is considered enough; excelling
is not an openly pronounced goal. Experiences in teaching abroad and discussions with
teachers from different countries have led me to conclude that in the more feminine cultures
the average student is considered the norm, while in more masculine countries like the USA
the best students are the norm. Parents in these countries expect their children to try to match
the best. The 'best boy in class' in the Netherlands is a somewhat ridiculous figure.
This difference is noticeable in classroom behavior. In masculine cultures students try to
make themselves visible in class and compete openly with each other (unless collectivist
norms put a limit to this, see Chapter 3). In
11
(p. 91)
feminine cultures they do not want to appear too eager and mutual solidarity, although not
always practised, is seen as a goal.
Interviews with teachers suggest that in masculine countries job choices are strongly guided
by perceived career opportunities, while in feminine countries students' intrinsic interest in the
subject plays a bigger role.
Failing in school is a disaster in a masculine culture. In strongly masculine countries like
Japan and Germany the newspapers report each year about students who killed themselves
after failing an examination. In his book The Gospel According to the Harvard Business
School, Harvard MBA graduate Peter Cohen counts four suicides--one teacher, three
students--during his time at this elite American institution (Cohen, 1973). Failure in school in
a feminine culture is a relatively minor incident. Some young people in these cultures take
their lives too, but for reasons unrelated to performance--like social isolation.
Criteria for evaluating both teachers and students differ between masculine and feminine
cultures. On the masculine side teachers' brilliance and academic reputation and students'
academic performance are the dominant factors. On the feminine side teachers' friendliness
and social skills and students' social adaptation play a bigger role. Corporal punishment in
school for children of pre-pubertal age has been associated in Chapter 2 with the power
distance between the teacher and the students, but in some schools in masculine cultures with
small power distances--like the UK-- corporal punishment is considered beneficial for the
character development of boys, but less so for girls.
Finally, masculinity-femininity cultural differences affect the subjects chosen by male versus
female students at universities. For a range of countries data are available about the
distribution of the sexes in each of the following areas of study: education, law, social
sciences, engineering, and agriculture. Per country an 'index of segregation (of the sexes) in
higher education' has been computed. This index is statistically related to the country's
masculinity index, at least for the industrialized countries (in all poor countries, boys are
given priority in educational opportunities).6
In rich and masculine cultures men and women
are more segregated at universities than in rich and feminine ones.
One aspect of segregation in job choice is whether teachers themselves are women or men. In
masculine societies women mainly teach younger children and men teach at universities. In
feminine societies roles are more mixed and men also teach younger children. Paradoxically
therefore, in masculine societies children are exposed longer to female teachers. Their status,
however, is often low so that the female teachers will be anti-heroines rather than models for
behavior.
(p. 92)
Masculinity and femininity in the workplace
The Dutch manufacturing plant of a major US corporation had lost three Dutch general
managers in a period of 10 years. To the divisional vice-president in the US all these men had
come across as 'softies'. They hesitated to implement unpopular measures with their
personnel, claiming the resistance of their works council--a body elected by the employees
and required by Dutch law which the vice-president did not like anyway. After the third
12
general manager had left, the vice-president stepped in personally and nominated the plant
controller as his successor--ignoring strong warnings by the personnel manager. To the vicepresident
this controller was the only real 'man' in the plant management team. He had always
supported the need for drastic action, disregarding its popularity or unpopularity. In his
reports he had indicated the weak spots. He should be able to maintain the prerogatives of
management, without being sidetracked by this works council nonsense.
The new plant general manager proved the greatest disaster ever. Within six months he was
on sick leave and the plant in a state of chaos. Nobody in the plant was surprised. They had
known the controller as a congenial but weak personality, who had compensated for his
insecurity by using powerful language towards the American bosses. The assertiveness which
impressed the vice-president was recognized within the Dutch environment as bragging. As a
general manager he received no cooperation from anyone, tried to do everything himself, and
suffered a nervous breakdown in the shortest possible time. Thus, the plant lost both a good
controller and another general manager. Both the plant and the controller were victims of a
culturally induced error of judgment.
This story resembles the one with which this chapter opened. Dutch behavior is often
misjudged by Americans and vice versa. Besides the issue of assertiveness versus modesty
this second story highlights different ways of handling conflicts in the two countries. In the
USA as well as in other masculine cultures like the UK and the Republic of Ireland there is a
feeling that conflicts should be resolved by a good fight: 'Let the best man win.' The industrial
relations scene in these countries is marked by such fights. If possible, management tries to
avoid having to deal with labor unions at all, and labor union behavior justifies their
aversion.7
In feminine cultures like the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark there is a preference for
resolving conflicts by compromise and negotiation. The institutional contexts in which this
negotiation takes place differ by country. In the Netherlands a works council law makes joint
consultation between management and employee representatives compulsory for all but the
smallest work organizations. This law gives labor unions a role in submitting
(p. 93)
candidates for the councils and training them; besides, union representatives deal directly with
management representatives at the industry level in order to establish collective wage
agreements. In spite of the fact that only about 30 percent of Dutch employed persons are
unionized few business leaders would prefer a world without unions. They certainly cause
problems but they are indispensable for solutions. In France, which scored moderately
feminine in the IBM studies, there is occasionally a lot of verbal insult, both between
employers and labor and between bosses and subordinates, but behind this seeming conflict
there is a typically French 'sense of moderation', which enables parties to continue working
together while agreeing to disagree (see d'Iribarne, 1989, pp. 31, 60-61).
Another issue in which the contrast between masculine and feminine societies manifests itself
is the place of work in a person's life. A successful early twentieth century US inventor and
businessman, Charles F. Kettering, is reputed to have said:
`I often tell my people that I don't want any fellow who has a job working for me; what I want
is a fellow whom a job has. I want the job to get the fellow and not the fellow to get the job.
And I want that job to get hold of this young man so hard that no matter where he is the job
has got him for keeps. I want that job to have him in its clutches when he goes to bed at night,
13
and in the morning I want that same job to be sitting on the foot of his bed telling him it's time
to get up and go to work. And when a job gets a fellow that way, he's sure to amount to
something.'8
Kettering refers to a 'young man' and not to a 'young woman': his is a masculine ideal. It
would certainly not be popular in more feminine cultures; there such a young man would be
considered a workaholic. In a masculine society the ethos tends more toward 'live in order to
work', whereas in a feminine society the work ethos would rather be 'work in order to live'.
The family within a masculine society socializes children towards assertiveness, ambition,
and competition; organizations in masculine societies stress results, and want to reward it on
the basis of equity, i.e., to everyone according to performance. The family within a feminine
society socializes children towards modesty and solidarity, and organizations in such societies
are more likely to reward people on the basis of equality (as opposed to equity), i.e., to
everyone according to need. Men in masculine societies are expected to aspire to career
advancement; research showed remarkable unanimity in this respect among male US students.
For female US students career aspirations were not socially compulsory; some had them,
some not. The research showed a much wider range in women's answers than in men's
answers about the need to get ahead on their own (Hofstede, 1980, p. 51). In feminine
societies both men and women may or may not be ambitious and there should be no gender
difference in the ranges of the answers of both sexes about the need for a career.
(p. 94)
Many jobs in business demand few skills and cause a qualitative underemployment of people.
This has been recognized as a problem in industrialized masculine and feminine countries.
The solutions tried vary according to the type of culture. They have all been labeled as
'humanization of work' but what is considered a humanized job depends on one's model of
what it means to be human. In masculine cultures a humanized job should give more
opportunities for recognition, advancement, and challenge. This is the principle of 'job
enrichment' as defended, among others, by US psychologist Frederick Herzberg (1966). An
example is making workers on a simple production task also responsible for the setting up and
preventive maintenance of their machines, tasks which had previously been reserved for more
highly trained specialists. Job enrichment represents a 'masculinization' of unskilled and
semiskilled work which, as shown in one of the earlier sections of this chapter, has a
relatively 'feminine' occupation culture.
In feminine cultures a humanized job should give more opportunities for mutual help and
social contacts. Famous experiments were conducted in the 1970s by the Swedish car and
truck manufacturers Saab and Volvo with assembly by autonomous work groups. These
represent a confirmation of the social part of the job: its 'femininization'. In 1974 six US
Detroit automobile workers, four men and two women, were invited to work for three weeks
in a group assembly system in the Saab-Scania plant in Soedertalje, Sweden. The experiment
was covered by journalist Robert B. Goldmann who reported on the Americans' impressions.
All four men and one of the women said they continued to prefer the US work system.
'Lynette Stewart chose Detroit. In the Cadillac plant where she works, she is on her own and
can make her own challenge, while at Saab-Scania she has to consider people in front and
behind her' (Hofstede, 1980, p. 298; 1984, p. 209). Of course this was precisely the rationale
of the Swedes for having the group assembly system. A Swedish woman worker whom
Goldmann interviewed mentioned the interdependence between workers as one of the
system's advantages.
14
Masculine and feminine cultures create different management hero types. The masculine
manager is, of course, assertive, decisive, and 'aggressive' (only in masculine societies does
this word carry a positive connotation). He is a lonely decision-maker looking for facts rather
than a group discussion leader. It does not hurt if he is slightly macho. J.R. Ewing from the
TV show Dallas is, of course, a culture hero. The manager in a feminine culture is less
visible, intuitive rather than decisive, and accustomed to seeking consensus.9
Both, however,
should be resourceful--believed to be endowed with above average intelligence and drive. A
Dutchman who had worked with a prestigious consulting firm in the USA for several years
joined the top management team of a manufacturing company in the Netherlands. After a few
months he commented on the different function of meetings in his
(p. 95)
present job compared to his previous one. In the Dutch situation, meetings were places where
problems were discussed and common solutions were sought; they served for making
decisions. In the US situation as he had known it, meetings were opportunities for participants
to assert themselves; to show how good they were. Decisions were made by individuals
elsewhere.10
Based on their cultural characteristics, masculine versus feminine countries excel in different
types of industries. Industrially developed masculine cultures have a competitive advantage in
manufacturing, especially in large volume: doing things efficiently, well, and fast. They are
good at the production of big and heavy equipment and in bulk chemistry. Feminine cultures
have a relative advantage in service industries like consulting and transport, in manufacturing
according to customer specification, and in handling live matter such as high-yield agriculture
and biochemistry. There is an international division of labor in which countries are relatively
more successful in activities which fit their population's cultural preferences than in activities
which go against these. Japan is the world leader in high-quality consumer electronics;
Denmark and the Netherlands excel in services, in agricultural exports, and they harbor the
world's leading companies in biochemistry (enzymes and penicillin).
Although one might expect it, there is no relationship between the masculinity or femininity
of a society's culture and the distribution of employment over men and women. An immediate
relationship between a country's position on this dimension and the roles of men and women
exists only within the home. Outside, men have historically dominated, and only recently in
history have women in any number been sufficiently freed from other constraints to be able to
enter the worlds of work and politics as men's equals. Lower-class women have entered work
organizations before but only in low-status, low-paid jobs: not out of a need for selffulfilment
but out of a need for material survival of the family. Statistics therefore show no
relationship between a country's percentage of women working outside the home per se and
its degree of femininity. There is, however, a positive correlation between a country's
femininity score and the participation of women in higher-level technical and professional
jobs, as a percentage of all working women in a country) (Hofstede, 1980, pp. 292, 306; 1984,
p. 203).
All industrial societies over the past decades have shown a gradual increase in female
participation in the work force, including professional and management jobs. This
development has not been any faster in feminine rather than masculine cultures. The paradox
is that in view of the traditional male dominance in the world of work, women have to be very
ambitious to beat their male competitors for higher positions. The IBM study showed that
female managers, in comparison with a matched group of male managers,
15
(p. 96)
held more masculine values than the men (the same was not true for female versus male
professionals, however). Ambitious women are more frequently found in masculine rather
than feminine societies. In feminine societies the forces of resistance against women entering
higher jobs are weaker; on the other hand the candidates are less ambitious. These two
influences seem to neutralize each other so that women in feminine societies do not enter
higher jobs in much larger numbers than in masculine societies. A notable exception is
Finland: since the Second World War, which called virtually all men to the army, women
have taken leading roles in Finnish society.
Table 4.2 summarizes the key issues from the past sections on which masculine and feminine
societies were shown to differ.
Masculinity, femininity, and the state
National value patterns are present not only in the minds of ordinary citizens but, of course,
also in those of political leaders, who also grew up as children
(p. 97)
of their society. As a matter of fact people are usually elected or co-opted to political
leadership because they are supposed to stand for certain values dear to citizens.
16
Michael Hoppe, a German-American management educator, replicated the IBM study on a
population of political and institutional elites. Hoppe obtained scores on the questions used
among the IBM employees for the alumni of the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, an
institute in Austria which invites to its courses elites (leaders in politics, business, and labor)
from mainly European countries. The project supplied scores on the IBM dimensions for elite
samples from 19 countries, 18 of them also represented in the IBM studies. For three out of
the four dimensions (all except masculinity-femininity) the scores from the elite populations
across the 18 common countries were significantly correlated with the scores of the IBM
populations. For masculinity-femininity the correlation was significant across 17 countries,
except for the score of Sweden. The Swedish elites scored considerably more masculine than
those from the Netherlands and the other Nordic countries, while Swedish IBM employees
scored similar to those from Denmark, Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands. The reason is
either a split in Swedish society or, more probably, a particular selection of the Swedish
participants in Salzburg who were all from the employers' association (Hoppe, 1990).
Politicians translate values dominant in countries into political priorities. The latter are most
clearly visible in the composition of national government budgets. The masculinity-femininity
dimension affects priorities in the following areas:
1. Reward for the strong versus solidarity with the weak
2. Economic growth versus protection of the environment
3. Arms spending versus aid to poor countries
Masculine culture countries strive for a performance society; feminine countries for a welfare
society. In criticisms in the press from masculine countries like the USA and Great Britain
(MAS 62 and 66, respectively) versus feminine countries like Sweden and the Netherlands
(MAS 5 and 14, respectively), and vice versa, strong and very different value positions
appear. There is a common belief, in, for example, the USA, that economic problems in
Sweden and the Netherlands are due to high taxes while there is a belief in feminine European
countries that economic problems in the USA are due to too much tax relief for the rich. Tax
systems, however, do not just happen: they are created by politicians as a consequence of preexisting
value judgments. In Sweden it is considered important to establish a minimum
quality of life for everybody and the financial means to that end are collected from those who
have them. Even right-wing politicians in Sweden do not basically disagree with this policy,
only with the extent to
(p. 98)
which it can be realized. In the USA and in the UK, many people believe that the miserable
fate of the poor is their own fault, that if they would work harder they would not be poor, and
that the rich certainly should not pay to support them.
The difference between the two types of ethos does not date from the Thatcher era. Lord
Robert Baden Powell (1857-1941), the founder of the international Boy Scouts movement,
wrote a book for Rover Scouts (boys over age 16) called Rovering to Success. Its translation
into Dutch, dating from the 1920s, is called 'Zwervend op de weg naar levensgeluk': 'Roving
on the Road to Happiness.' To the Dutch translators 'success' was not a goal likely to appeal to
young men. The word in Dutch has a flavor of quackery. No youth leader would defend it as a
purpose in life.
17
Masculine cultures are less permissive than feminine ones. The European value systems study
which used public opinion polls in nine countries in 1981 has produced an index of
permissiveness, according to whether a number of debatable acts were justifiable: such as
joyriding, using soft drugs, accepting bribes, prostitution, divorce, and suicide. The national
permissiveness index is strongly correlated with femininity. Mother is more permissive than
father.11
'Small is beautiful' is a feminine value. Public opinion survey data from six European
countries showed that a preference for working in larger organizations was correlated with the
IBM MAS scores (Hofstede, 1980, pp. 186, 302; 1984, p. 198).
The report of the Club of Rome on the Limits to Growth, which appeared in 1972, has been
the first public recognition that continued economic growth and conservation of our living
environment are fundamentally conflicting objectives. The report has been attacked on details,
and for a time the issues it raised seemed less urgent. Its basic thesis, however, has never been
refuted, and in my view at least, it is irrefutable. Governments will have to make painful
choices and, apart from local geographic and ecological constraints, these choices will be
made according to the values dominant in a country. Governments in masculine cultures are
more likely to give priority to growth and be prepared to sacrifice the living environment for
this purpose. Governments in feminine cultures are more likely to choose the reverse priority.
The countries of the European Community show among themselves a range of MAS scores
from 70 (Italy) to 14 (Netherlands). Issues of growth versus conservation are already causing
considerable conflict within the EC. The establishment of an open internal market requires the
unification of regulations with regard to environmental protection. The environment will
become one of the major stumbling blocks for the EC.
18
Figure 4.3 plots the country scores on the two dimensions of masculinity-femininity (from
Table 4.1) and of individualism-collectivism (from Table 3.1) against each other. The upper
half of the diagram contains the collectivist, that is mostly the poor, countries; the lower half
the individualist, that is the rich, countries. Since the late 1950s development assistance
money has flown from the rich to the poor countries, that is from bottom to top in our
diagram. However, the percentage of the country's gross national product which the
governments of the rich countries have decided to allocate to helping the poor ones, varies
widely. In 1988, for example, Austria spent 0.24 percent of its GNP, while Norway spent 1.12
percent (World Development Report 1989, Table 19), nearly five times as much. This
enormous variation in the proportions spent is unrelated to the wealth of the donor countries
and also unrelated to their former colonial ties or present trade flows. The only explanation of
a high aid quote is a feminine national value system: the statistical correlation between aid in
percentage of GNP
(p. 100)
and a country's masculinity index score is strongly negative (high index, low aid quote).12
Also, with regard to development aid, many people in masculine countries feel that the fate of
the poor is in their own hands, that if they worked harder they would not be poor, and that the
rich countries certainly should not pay to support them.
Countries which spend little money on helping the poor in the world tend to spend more on
armaments: defense spending as a percentage of GNP is positively correlated with
masculinity. This even applies for the poor countries which receive help from others. 'Don't
give the boys their toys' is the slogan of a US woman anti-nuclear armament activist.
Mainstream US culture is fairly masculine. Recent data from the former Soviet Union seems
to indicate that mainstream Russian culture, at least, is rather feminine, but in the Soviet
Union decisions about arms investments were not taken by elected politicians but by co-opted
ones probably selected on masculine values. If the assumption that for both superpowers
masculine values prevail is correct, it helps to explain the irrational overkill in the arms race
between the two countries during the Cold War period: it is a mutual show of masculine
strength like the behavior of male deer in the rutting season.
Masculine countries tend to (try to) resolve international conflicts by fighting; feminine
countries by compromise and negotiation (the same distinction was made at the level of work
organizations). A striking example is the difference between the handling of the land crisis
and the handling of the Falkland crisis.
The land islands are a small archipelago halfway between Sweden and Finland; as part of
Finland they belonged to the Tsarist Russian empire. When Finland declared itself
independent from Russia in 1917 the majority of the 30 (XX) inhabitants of the islands
wanted to join Sweden which had ruled them before 1809. The Finns then arrested the leaders
of the pro-Swedish movement. After emotional negotiations in which the newly created
League of Nations participated, all parties, in 1921, agreed to a solution in which the islands
remained Finnish but with a large amount of regional autonomy.
The Falkland islands are also a small archipelago disputed by two nations: the United
Kingdom which has colonized the islands since 1833 and nearby Argentina which claims
rights on them since 1767 and has tried to get the United Nations to support its claim. The
Falklands are about eight times as large as the lands but with less than one-fifteenth of the
lands' number of inhabitants: about 18(X) poor sheep farmers. The Argentinian military
19
occupied the islands in April 1982 whereupon the British sent an expeditionary force which
chased off the occupiers, at the cost of (officially) 725
(p. 101)
Argentinian and 225 British lives and enormous financial expense. Besides, the economy of
the islands has been further damaged because it cannot develop without trade relations with
the Argentinian hinterland.
What explains the difference in approach and in results between these two remarkably similar
international disputes? Finland and Sweden are both feminine cultures; Argentina and the UK
are both masculine. The masculine symbolism in the Falkland crisis was evident in the
language used on both sides. Unfortunately, the sacrifices have resolved nothing. The Falklands
remain a disputed territory needing constant British subsidies and military presence; the
lands have become a prosperous part of Finland, attracting many Swedish tourists.
One would expect that in countries with a more feminine culture more women would be
elected to political office and occupy government posts. This is to some extent true although
not as much as reason would suggest. Just as at the workplace, a tradition of male dominance
resists the advance of women in more than token numbers to leading political positions. Yet it
seems that women advance somewhat more easily in politics than in work organizations. The
election processes used in politics react faster to changes in society than the co-optation
processes used in business; the latter have to wait for aged gentlemen to retire or die. This
presupposes, of course, that the composition of candidate lists for elections is not subject to
the same co-optation processes as the composition of boards of management. In some
countries candidate lists are a matter of co-optation.
Masculinity, femininity, and ideas
In human thinking the issue of the equality or inequality of the sexes is as old as religion,
ethics, and philosophy themselves. Genesis, the first book of the Judaeo-Christian Old
Testament (which was codified in the fifth century BC), contains two conflicting versions of
the creation of the sexes. The first, Genesis 1:27-8, states:
'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female
created he them. And God blessed them, and God said to them , "Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it".'
This text suggests equal partnership between the sexes. The second version, Genesis 2:8ff.
(which Old Testament experts suppose to have been derived from a different source
document) contains the story of the Garden of Eden, in which God first put 'the man' alone.
Then, in Genesis 2:18, it states: 'And the Lord God said "It is not good that the man should be
alone: I will make him a help meet for him".'13
Then follows the story of Woman made from
Adam's rib. This text gives clear priority to the male partner and defines the woman as 'a help
meet' (that is, appropriate) for him; it justifies a society in which there is male dominance.
(p. 102)
In ancient Greece, Plato, in the fourth century BC describes the sexes as equal in principle and
(apart from their role in procreation) only statistically different. In The Republic he offers a
design for an ideal state governed by an elite composed of men as well as women. Of course
in actual fact the Greek state was male dominated. So was the Roman state; but at least one
20
Roman writer, C. Musonius Rufus in the first century AD, defended the equality of the sexes
and, in particular, the study of philosophy by women and men alike.
Among countries with Christian majorities the percentage of Roman Catholics is correlated
with the country's masculinity index.14
The Roman Catholic church strongly maintains the
male prerogative to the priesthood. Plato and Rufus in antiquity came closer to modern
feminist positions than the Roman Catholic church does today.
The European value systems study referred to earlier contained a question 'How important is
God in your life?' to be answered on a 10-point scale. The mean scores obtained correlate
with the countries' masculinity indices: in masculine countries God is felt to be more
important. The Christian God is the Father; He is masculine. The importance of God as rated
by the respondents to the European value systems study and the country masculinity index are
both correlated with the claimed observance of the Ten Commandments, but most strongly
with the purely religious commandments (no other God, not abusing God's name, and
honoring the Sabbath). Masculinity is less correlated with the claimed observance of the
sexual commandments (no adultery, do not desire thy neighbor's wife) and least with the
claimed observance of the moral commandments (honoring parents, no killing, no stealing, no
false witnesses, do not desire thy neighbor's belongings). It is predominantly the emotional
meaning of God's name which is more strongly stressed in masculine cultures.
The European value systems study also revealed that women in all countries were more
religious than men, but that this applied in particular for women without paid jobs. If the role
of the woman changes from a housekeeper to a wage-earner, her attitude to religion moves
closer to the attitude of men.l5
The relationship between the strength of feminism in a country and the position of the
country's culture on the masculinity-femininity dimension is complex and ambiguous. Apart
from the lunatic fringe that wants to do away with men altogether there is a more 'masculine'
and a more 'feminine' form of feminism; the former predictably more frequent in masculine,
the latter more frequent in feminine, countries. The masculine form claims that women should
have the same possibilities as men have. In terms of Fig. 4.1 it wants to move the female line
up towards the male line; this could also be achieved by moving the entire society towards a
more masculine value position (more towards the right). The feminine form wants to change
(p. 103)
society, men included. In Fig. 4.1 this could be achieved by moving the male line downwards
towards the female line, or moving the entire society towards a more feminine value position
(more towards the left).
The second form, it seems to me, represents a more authentic women's liberation than the first
and an innovation over our present society it allows women to contribute their unique values
to society beyond the home--but then I come from a feminine country culture. Simply having
women work in the same numbers and jobs as men does not necessarily represent their
liberation. It could be a double slavery, at work and in the home. Modern Russian stories tell
about female engineers or construction workers who after a full working day stand in line at
the shops and do the cooking and housekeeping while the husbands watch television. A
typical theme in Soviet literature is that mother is overworked and has to be shipped off to a
sanatorium. I can see no women's lib which does not permit women to maintain their own
21
gender culture at work and in politics, but this means men's lib at the same time, because
gender roles are interdependent.
In May 1989 Zoya Krylova of the Soviet Women's Council spoke to a Women's Council
meeting at Delft, the Netherlands. The 150 Dutch women present created quite an uproar
when Krylova defended the woman's responsibility for the children's education, for shopping,
and for the
(p. 104)
household. The Dutch women claimed this to be as much a task for the husband and said the
wife should, if necessary, force the husband to take these responsibilities (De Volkskrant, May
10, 1989). The difference in opinion between the Russian and the Dutch women is remarkable
because in Russia many more women have full-time jobs than in the Netherlands. Russian
women's organizations have claimed more part-time jobs for women. But behind the two
points of view there are two different conceptions of gender roles in society.
Table 4.3 complements Table 4.2 by summarizing the key differences between feminine and
masculine societies from the last two sections.
The origins of masculinity-femininity differences
Anthropologist Margaret Mead found in New Guinea very different gender role distributions
among adjacent tribal groups. She showed that history and tradition allow the survival of a
considerable variety in gender roles. I have not found strong correlations with outside factors
which could explain why some countries have dominant masculine and others dominant
feminine culture. Feminine cultures are somewhat more likely in colder climates, suggesting
22
that an equal partnership between men and women improves the chances of survival and
population growth in these climates.
The concentration of feminine cultures in north-western Europe (Denmark, Finland,
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden) points to common historical factors. The elites in these
countries consisted to a large extent of traders and seafarers. In trading and sailing,
maintaining good interpersonal relationships and caring for the ships and merchandise are
essential virtues. The Viking period in the Scandinavian countries (AD 800-1000) also meant
that the women had to manage the villages while the men were away on their long trips; but
Vikings did not settle in the Netherlands for any length of time. The Hanseatic League (AD
1200-1500) covered all north-western European countries including the free cities of
Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck in Northern Germany and the Baltic states. The Hansa was a
free association of trading towns and, for the maintenance of such a system, values associated
with femininity were functional. Women played an important role in the Hansa:
'Although the wife did not share her husband's legal status, they usually formed a business
team. Even in merchant circles, the family was the smallest functional cell of society, where
the women and the children had a role to play. This meant that women had a certain degree of
emancipation, and their independence and business skills increased. Indeed, some women
managed to win the "battle for the trousers" even while their husbands were still alive.'16
Latin American countries differ considerably among themselves on the masculinityfemininity
scale. The small Central American countries--to the extent scores for them are
available from the IBM data--are feminine;
(p. 105)
Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Equador very masculine; Peru and Chile again more
feminine. One speculative explanation is that these differences reflect the inheritance of the
different Indian civilizations dominant prior to the Spanish conquest. Most of Mexico would
have inherited the tough Aztec culture, but the southern Mexican peninsula of Yucatan and
the adjacent Central American republics would have inherited from the much more sensitive
Maya culture. Peru and northern Chile would reflect the Inca inheritance, resembling the
Maya.
One of the interesting statistical associations of country masculinity scores is with population
growth. The relationship between MAS and the number of children per family (leading to
population growth) is negative for the wealthier countries and positive for the poorer
countries. In other words, femininity stands for larger families in wealthier countries and
smaller families in poorer countries. This may be a consequence rather than a cause of
feminine values. My interpretation of it is that in feminine cultures the mother has a stronger
say in the number of children she will bear and that she adapts this number to the available
resources: fewer if the country is poor, more if it is richer. In masculine countries the father
determines the family size, begetting (too) large families in poor countries and too small ones
in wealthy ones (Hofstede, 1980, p. 292; 1984, p. 203).
The future of differences in masculinity and femininity
At the level of countries no evidence at all exists for convergence on the masculinityfemininity
dimension. If at all, research comparing value shifts over a number of years shows
masculine countries to have become more masculine and feminine countries more feminine,
but this should not be generalized. More interesting is considering how universal
23
developments in population age structure, in technological developments, and in the state of
the environment might affect the values related to this dimension.
The relationship between masculinity and age is quite clear and seems to be universal. It
resembles Fig. 4.1 if we write 'older' at the left and 'younger' at the right. Young men (age
bracket 20-29) hold strongly masculine (assertive, tough) values. Young women (20-29) hold
moderately masculine values. Older men (50-59) hold pronouncedly feminine values and so
do older women (50-59). From age 25 to 55 both men and women lose their masculine values
but the men lose them much faster than the women so that at age 55 no more gender
difference in values is noticeable. There seems to be a straight relationship between masculine
values and sexual productivity (Hofstede, 1980, p. 367; 1984, p. 248).
This trend, which most of us will follow during our lifetime, fits with the observation that
young men and women foster more technical interests (which could be considered
masculine), and older men and women more
(p. 106)
social interests. In terms of values (but not necessarily in terms of energy and vitality), older
persons are better people managers than younger ones; younger persons are better technical
managers.
The demographic development in the industrialized world is towards lower birth rates, so
there will be relatively fewer young people.17
An ageing population will cause a shift towards
more feminine values. When birthrates fall, this implies that more women will be both
available for and needed in the work force (as there will be fewer young men). In many poor
countries birthrates are still very high but in the longer term even these countries will have to
follow the above pattern.
Technological and social developments enable even women with young children to
participate in society outside the home, along with men. Nowhere is this a fast and undisputed
process, but it looks irreversible. In virtually all industrialized countries the number of women
in higher level jobs will increase. As their number increases these women will be more able to
maintain their own feminine values. They will no longer have to acculture themselves to the
male majority. This increase in the number of women in positions in society hitherto held by
men should therefore also shift societies as a whole towards more feminine values.
Technology imposes change on work itself. The information revolution is still going on,
eliminating many old jobs and creating new ones. The future is bound to show a further
reduction of the jobs that can be sufficiently structured to be subject to automation. What will
remain are jobs that, by their very nature, cannot be automated. These are in the first place the
jobs that deal with the setting of human and social goals, with defining the purpose of life for
individuals and societies. These include all political and organizational top leadership
functions. In the second place they are the creative jobs, those concerned with inventing new
things and subjecting them to criteria of usefulness, beauty, and ethics. A third and very large
category of jobs that cannot be automated are those that deal with the unforeseeable: safety,
security, defense, maintenance. Finally, there is a large category of jobs whose essence is
human contact: supervision, entertainment, keeping people company, listening to them,
helping them materially and spiritually, motivating them to learn. In some of these
nonautomatable jobs, computers can be introduced as resources, but they can never take over
the job itself.
24
What strikes one about these nonautomatable jobs is that feminine values are as necessary in
performing them as are masculine ones (regardless of whether the job incumbents themselves
are women or men). For the last category, in which human contact is the core of the task,
feminine values are even superior. Tasks related with achievement can more easily be
automated than nurturing tasks. On balance, technological developments are
(p. 107)
more likely to support a need for feminine rather than for masculine values in society.
Finally, the environment poses very serious threats to the survival of mankind. If one species
after another of fungi, plants, and animals becomes extinct we should start to worry when it is
the turn of the species Homo sapiens. Whether we like it or not, we will all be forced to
become more conservation-conscious. This development encourages more feminine values
and reinforces the other shifts mentioned.
These forecasts may be seen as the wishful thinking of a citizen from a feminine culture
country. Possibly I have overlooked important factors which will reinforce a masculinization.
I hope not.
NOTES
1
Some reviewers, especially from business administration and from countries which in the IBM
data score masculine, have criticized my choice of these terms and called them a misnomer. I
believe that these critics hold a shallow view of the roots of human behavior. Sexes and sex roles
are one of the most profound facts of human existence. Managers in business are not exempt from
the effects of social norms about gender-related behavior. Other reviewers, while recognizing the
importance of gender roles, have criticized my calling the soft role feminine and the hard role
masculine. They do not like roles to be that way. My choice of the terms is based on what is in
virtually all societies, not on what anybody thinks should be.
2
The same applies here as in note 1 of Chapter 3. For computing MAS index values in later followup
studies an approximation formula has been composed in which the masculinity index value can
be computed by simple mathematics from four of the 'work goals' mean scores.
3
The percentage of women in the IBM survey population varied from 4.0 in Pakistan to 16.2 in
Finland. In Hofstede (1980, p. 279; 1984, p. 189), the MAS scores have been recalculated keeping
the percentage of women constant for all countries. The effect on the scores is minimal, also
because the percentage of women itself is correlated with the country's femininity.
4
The author is Marten Toonder. He started the series in the 1930s as a children's cartoon. Over a
period of 40 years the stress in his work has slowly shifted from the drawings to the text, and now
the adventures of Ollie B. Bommel and his young friend Tom Poes have become a gem in Dutch
adult literature.
5
Dr Jan A.C. de Kock van Leeuwen, personal communication.
6
(Hofstede, 1980, pp. 307-309; 1984, pp. 203-204) The data on segregation are derived from
Boulding et al. (1976).
7
Especially in the USA the relationships between labor unions and enterprises arc governed by
extensive contracts serving as peace treaties between both parties. The French researcher Philippe
d'Iribarne who compared a French, a US and a Dutch manufacturing plant describes these
contracts as a unique feature of the US industrial relations scene (d'Iribarne, 1989, p. 144).
8
From Coronet, September 1949, p. 72, quoted by William F. Whyte in Webber (1969, p. 31).
9
Philippe d'Iribarne considers the need for consensus the key characteristic of management in the
Dutch manufacturing plant he studied. See d'Iribarne (1989, p. 234ff).
25
(p. 108)
10
Personal communication.
11
(Stoetzel, 1983, p. 37). The Spearman rank correlation coefficient between the permissiveness
index and the masculinity index is 0.83, significant at the 0.01 level.
12
The Spearman rank correlation between MAS and average percentage aid over 1967-1976 is -0.81
(Hofstede, 1980, p. 308); between MAS and percentage aid in 1986, -0.82. Both are significant at
the 0.001 level.
13
The quotations are from the Authorized Version of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1954).
14
The first correlation is with uncertainty avoidance; see Chapter 5 and Hofstede (1980, pp. 209,
293; 1984, p. 204).
15
(Stoetzel, 1983, pp. 92, 98-101) The Spearman rank correlation coefficient between the ratings for
the importance of God and the masculinity index is 0.70, significant at the 0.05 level.
16
From H. Samsonowicz, 'Die Bedeutung des Grosshandels für die Entwicklung der polnischen
Kultur bis zum Beginn des 16. Jahrhunderts', in Studia Historiae Economica, 5 (1970), 92ff., cited
by Schildhauer (1985, p. 107).
17
From 1987 to 2000 the population of the high-income countries in the world is expected to grow
by about 7 percent, the middle- and low-income countries by 28 percent {World Development
Report 1989, Table 26).