Culturally-specific perceptions of age-related changes in femininity and masculinity in South Korea and Canada

There are widespread cultural assumptions that femininity and masculinity are innate, unchanging, and binary. But does everyone share this belief, and how might culture matter? Across two studies (Total N = 523), we asked Canadian and South Korean university students to rate how feminine and masculine a person is perceived to be across a lifespan. Both groups expected femininity and masculinity to shift. There were also culturally-specific beliefs: For South Korean participants, women’s femininity and men’s masculinity were believed to sharply decrease after their peak at 20–30s, and women’s masculinity and men’s femininity were seen to increase during the same period, as if they were reaching balance. Interestingly, Canadian participants expected little change in women’s masculinity and men’s femininity, but expected women’s femininity and men’s masculinity to increase from birth to their 20s and decrease afterwards, though to a much lesser extent than South Koreans. This study suggests that people’s beliefs about femininity and masculinity changes are dynamic and co-constructed by sociocultural contexts, rather than there being one universalised view as often assumed. Our findings also shed light on how varying gender perceptions might have implications for gender and sexual norms in Canada and South Korea.