An Analysis of Masculinity and Femininity from the Cross-cultural Communication Perspective
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Masculinity and femininity are two important terms in cross-cultural communication. They illustrate the distinctions between different nations’ characteristics and personalities. And these two distinct traits may even exist in every communication between nations or in every aspects of our social life. This paper mainly focuses on masculinity and femininity from the following aspects, namely, the geographical distribution of masculinity and femininity, the general features and contrasts of them, their influence on modern world and I will draw a conclusion at the end of the paper.
Firstly, the geographical distribution of masculinity and femininity.
Masculinity and femininity are dominating differently from country to country. Some countries, like Germany, Britain, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Austria, and Argentina etc belong to typical Masculinity. The so-called feminine includes all the Scandinavian countries, such as Portugal, Spain and several Pan-American nations. Most countries in North Europe are Fe
mininity, such as Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.
The typical trait of different nations may be caused by historical reasons and which later on prevail and dominates people’s mind once after. Take Britain and Finland as separate examples to show masculinity and femininity. Britain is a masculinity empire, in history it launched many large-scale wars towards other countries, and it was also called “the empire of the sun never set” to show its mighty power on military. Britain’s colonies scattered all over the world, such as India, Latin America, Australia and parts of China. Therefore it is typical of aggressive and invasive nature. In contrast, Finland was invaded by many other nations in history and was colonized by Sweden, Russia. After the Second World War, Finland belonging to the defeated sides was forced to accept the Marshall plan. It can hardly defend itself and one obvious character of Finland is unaggressive. And this may be a good reason to show why Britain is masculine while Finland is feminine.
From the cross-cultural communication perspective, this background knowledge helps us
to better understand masculinity and femininity. The nations which are masculine often have a masculine world view, and vice versa. Thus, people from the two different cultural backgrounds would have some completely distinct behaviors and outlooks of the world. When people from the two typical cultures encounter they may feel confused or even can not understand each other correctly, then misunderstandings emerge. If they know more about the two different traits of the people in the two cultural backgrounds, their communication with each other may be going on smoothly.
Secondly, the general features and contrasts of masculinity and femininity.
Masculinity and femininity are contrary to each other. They are like the north and south poles of earth, or the positive or negative poles of a battery. Masculinity is the extent to which the dominant values in a society are male oriented and is associated with such behaviors as ambition, differentiated sex roles, achievement, the acquisition of money, and signs of manliness. As for femininity, it is a trait stress caring and nurturing behaviors. Generally speaking, masculinity means toughness and femininity means tenderness and they differ in more than one way.
Masculinity focuses on the degree of society reinforces, the traditional masculinity is always connected with male achievement, control, and power. In high masculinity cultures, male dominate a significant portion of the society and power structure, with females being controlled by male domination. Therefore men are expected to hold the primary jobs and women are expected to remain at home and raise families. People in high masculinity cultures tend to believe that matters of comfort, social privilege, access to power and influence, status and prestige, and ability to consume are related to ability and that with enough opportunity any individual who wants these benefits of society can have them. High masculinity societies tend to reward financial and material achievements with preferential social prestige and status, and to attribute strong character and spiritual values to such high achievers. In masculine culture, power means the right to make others do what you want them to do. Masculine people like to show off by being the biggest, best, and fastest.
In contrast, a country of low masculinity culture has a low level of differentiation and discrimination between genders. In such culture, females are treated equally as males in
all aspects of the society. Love and tenderness are for men and women alike. Children need love, and parents spend much time with them. In femininity countries, women are more prominent in management and professional fields. Organizations accommodate women’s needs for maternity leave and childcare, and working environments tend to be less assertive and stressful. Feminine culture expects both males and female to be cooperative and nurturing in their relationships. They are supposed to be sensitive to the needs of the disadvantaged and are quick to offer help to those who need it. While the dark masculine desire is the desire to take a woman savagely, lovingly and with no inhibitions whatsoever, one of the deepest feminine desires is to be able to relax and surrender, knowing that the masculine is taking care of everything.

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