Take the Bem Sex-Role Inventory

You can take the Bem Sex-Role Inventory online - with instant scoring (write down your numbers when the pop-up results screen comes up, it doesn't save them for you). This was one of the most widely used gender scales (and may still be). A 25-year re-evaluation suggested it needs to be revised - not sure if it was or not - seemed pretty sex-role traditional to me.

Here is a brief summary on interpreting your results (more is available at their website):

Find out your sex type by consulting the following chart.

Masculinity greater than 4.9 and Femininity greater than 4.9 = Androgynous
Masculinity greater than 4.9 and Femininity less than 4.9 = Male sex-typed
Masculinity less than 4.9 and Femininity greater than 4.9 = Female sex-typed
Masculinity less than 4.9 and Femininity less than 4.9 - Undifferentiated

The publisher of The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) describes the purpose of the test in this way:

"The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) provides independent assessments of masculinity and femininity in terms of the respondent’s self-reported possession of socially desirable, stereotypically masculine and feminine personality characteristics. This can also be seen as a measurement of the extent to which respondents spontaneously sort self-relevant information into distinct masculine and feminine categories. The self administering 60-item questionnaire measures masculinity, femininity, androgyny, and undifferentiated, using the Masculinity and Femininity scales." - http://www.mindgarden.com/products/bemss.htm

Bem’s conception of gender typing placed a high value on individuals demonstrating flexibility in their ability to embody the positive values of both genders, as is llustrated in the following quote.

"The concept of psychological androgyny implies that it is possible for an individual to be both compassionate and assertive, both expressive and instrumental, both feminine and masculine, depending upon the situational appropriateness of these various modalities. And it further implies that an individual may even blend these complementary modalities in a single act, such as the ability to fire an employee, if the circumstances warrant it, but with sensitivity for the human emotion that such an act inevitably produces."

The corollary of this positive view of androgyny would hold that being sex-typed or undifferentiated (having neither characteristics valued for men or women) would be less adaptive or advantageous for the individual. One interpretation of strong sex-typing is that highly sex-typed individuals have constrained the possibilities for their development by accepting society’s determination of what the might become.

My sense is that this is, at best, a very crude inventory. It's binary (male-type or female-type), but if you score high on both elements you are then androgynous, or if you score low on both you are undifferentiated. Not much sensitivity or sophistication.

Anyway, here are my scores, making me androgynous apparently.

72.222 out of 100 on masculine
60.833 out of 100 on feminine
49.167 out of 100 on androgynous

Tags: men, women, gender identity, gender scales, masculinity, femininity, Bem Sex-Role Inventory, male sex-type, female sex-type, androgynous, undifferentiated, psychology, gender studies