Transcript Document 7218218

Becoming A Woman/becoming
A Man: Gender Identity And
Gender Roles
Variations In Development: Intersexed
Individuals
Gender And Sex As Social Constructs
Gender Identity “Disorder”
Psychological Theories Of Gender
Identity Development
Gender Roles
• Gender identity is the inward experience of your
gender role, and gender role is the outward
expression of your gender identity.
• “Masculinity” and “femininity” were once viewed
as bipolar.
• Gender role stereotypes are oversimplified, rigid
beliefs that all members of a particular sex have
distinct behavioral, psychological, and emotional
characteristics.
• An androgynous person is capable of integrating
both traditionally masculine characteristics and
traditionally feminine characteristics into his or
her gender role.
• He or she can be both assertive and
compassionate, logical and emotional, depending
on what is most appropriate for a particular
situation.
The Role of Hormones
• Testosterone must be produced at a critical stage
of embryonic development in order for an XY
combination to result in a baby with male
anatomy.
• If there is no Y chromosome, the primitive gonads
will eventually develop into ovaries. Unless there
is a high level of testosterone at a critical stage of
prenatal development, nature has programmed
everyone for female development.
Sexual Differentiation of the Brain
• Are men’s brains different from women’s brains,
and if so, could this account for differences in
behavior?
• The hypothalamus was different in male and
female rats. The difference was not noticeable at
birth, but became apparent shortly thereafter as a
result of differences in testosterone levels.
Chromosome Variations
• These biological men have both masculine
characteristics, because of the Y chromosome, and
feminine characteristics, because of the XX
chromosome combination.
• They tend to be tall with long arms and have poor
muscular development, enlarged breasts and hips,
a small penis with shrunken testes, and low sexual
desire.
• Turner’s syndrome is a condition in which there is
only one X chromosome. It occurs in about 1 in
every 2,000 to 3,000 live births.
• Because women with Turner’s syndrome are
missing a chromosome, the ovaries never develop
properly; and in the absence of ovarian hormones,
they also do not menstruate or develop breasts at
puberty.
Hormonal Variations
• Hermaphrodites are usually genetic females, and
even though a uterus is almost always present,
they often have an ovary and Fallopian tube on
one side and a testicle and a vas deferens and/or
epididymis on the other.
• pseudohermaphroditism, in which a person with
an XX or XY chromosome pattern is born with the
proper set of gonads, but whose external genitalia
are either ambiguous or that of the other sex.
• In women, the most common cause is known as
adrenogenital syndrome (AGS), also known as
congenital adrenal hyperplasia, in which the
adrenal glands secrete too much masculinizing
hormone during fetal development.
• The internal organs are normal, but the genitals are
masculinized, so that even physicians sometimes
mistake these individual for boys at birth.
• This condition occurs in about 1 in 20,000 births.
• pseudohermaphroditism in men is known as
androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which the
testicles secrete normal amounts of testosterone
but the body tissues do not respond to it.
• As a result, a clitoris, a short vagina, and labia
develop, but the internal female structures fail to
develop because the testicles still secrete Mulerian
duct-inhibiting substance.
• This happens in about 1 in 20,000 births.
Gender And Sex As Social
Constructs
• The concept of gender was adopted “to distinguish
culturally specific characteristics associated with
masculinity and femininity from biological
features.”
Gender Identity “Disorder”
• People with gender dysphoria feel that they
are “trapped in the wrong anatomic body.”
• Adults with this condition are generally referred to
as transsexuals, and children with the condition
are diagnosed as having gender identity disorder
of childhood.
• The criteria for gender identity disorder are
– (a) behaviors that indicate identification with
the opposite gender and
– (b) behaviors that indicate discomfort with
one’s own anatomy and gender roles.
• Homosexuals have gender identities that agree
with their anatomical sex just as often as
heterosexuals.
• Most male-to-female transsexuals, for example,
are attracted to men because they wish to be
desired and loved as a woman by a heterosexual
man.
• Transsexuality is also not the same as
transvestism.
• A transvestite dresses in the clothing of the
opposite sex in order to achieve sexual arousal.
• However, a transvestite does not want to change
his or her biological sex and does not experience
gender dysphoria.
• In contrast, transsexuals cross-dress as a means of
psychologically with their appearance, not for
sexual arousal.
• To correct this disorder, medicine offers sex
“reassignment” surgery, so that an individual’s
anatomy and gender identity are in accord with
society’s expectations.
Social Learning Theory
• An important type of learning that may be
involved in acquiring gender roles is that of
operant conditioning, which is based on the
principle that an individual’s behavior is modified
by the consequences of the behavior.
• For example, a boy may be praised by a parent for
“acting like a man” and not crying after he falls
down; he may be yelled at or punished for putting
on his mother’s lipstick.
• He is learning a gender identity and a gender role,
and he will associate good things with “masculine
behavior” and negative things with “feminine
behavior.”
• According to social learning theorists, another
way children lean gender stereotyped behavior is
by imitating models of people of their own sex.
• For example, children love to imitate their parents
and learn what mom and dad do simply by
watching their parents.
Cognitive-Developmental Theory
• Cognitive theory views infants as “information
seekers.” Rather than talking about an “oral stage
of psychosexual development” to explain why
crawling infants put things into their mouths,
cognitive theory claims that this is done because
infants can “know” things and acquire information
about the world this way.
• Social learning theory states that gender
understanding occurs because of the learning
process.
• Cognitive theory states that a need to understand
one’s gender causes a child to want to learn.
Theories of Gender Role
• The sociocultural model says that the
psychological differences between men and
women are a social construction.
• The theory “begins with the postulate that in
humans, males and females are born neutral with
respect to sex-dimorphic behavior
predispositions.”
• Androgynous individuals are viewed by these
researchers as being healthy because of their
flexibility, demonstrating instrumental or
expressive orientations as the situation demands.
Gender-Role Development During
Childhood
• Cognitive theory, shows that young children have
difficulty understanding complex concepts.
• Their early learning often consists of dual
categories, such as “good and bad” or “big and
small.” It is not surprising, then, that young
children’s ideas about gender roles reflect
concrete, simple ideas, dividing behaviors or traits
into either “masculine” or “feminine.”
• In our society, there are gender-role stereotypes.
• Stereotypes, are oversimplified preconceived
beliefs that supposedly apply to anyone in a given
group.
• People who assume “traditional” gender roles
behave differently toward their children. In these
families, mothers act as the caregivers, while the
fathers act as playmates to their infants.
• Children organize their world according to gender
starting at age 2 or 3.
• Gender roles are usually learned first in the home,
but when children reach school age peers and
teachers become powerful reinforcers of the
process of socialization and gender-role
development.
Gender-Role Development in
Children Raised in Single-Parent
Households
• Children who are raised in single-parent
households are more likely than those raised in
“intact” households to become androgynous. This
is true not only for boys but for girls as well.
Role Of The Media
• Men are much more likely to be shown as the
authoritative central figure, while women
generally assume dependent roles. Even the
settings are stereotypical. Men are often shown in
outdoor leisure activities, while women are most
likely to be shown at home.
Gender-Role Development in
Adulthood
• Among adults today, gender roles are in transition.
Women have not only entered the work force in
larger numbers, but have gained entry into careers
and attained access to higher-level positions
previously dominated by men.
• When husbands do participate in domestic chores,
women are happier with them, but men with
traditional stereotyped attitudes are likely to
evaluate their marriages negatively if “forced” into
egalitarian roles.
Gender Roles and Sexual
Relations
• Many studies have found that men are more
interested in the purely physical aspects of sex
than are women. Women, on the other hand, are
more likely than men to value love and a nurturing
relationship.
Sociocultural Theories of GenderRole Development
• Cancian argues that love became feminized during
the 1800s, when the United States was becoming
industrialized. Early American society did not
have different gender roles for the expression of
love, nurturance, or dependency.
• With increased industrialization, men began to
earn their livings away from home, and the
economic activities of men and women began to
split.
• Because the women maintained the home, the
qualities of nurturance, love, and devotion became
associated with being ignored or not considered to
be as important or meaningful as work done
outside the home.
• Women were dependent upon wage-earning
husbands, but this dependency was hidden by the
feminine gender role of women in the form of
being nurturant, emotional, passive, and physically
weak, though morally pure.
• Men reacted to the rise of the women’s movement
in one of three ways.
• The first way was an antifeminist response, with
an emphasis on the need to return the woman to
the home.
• A second reaction was a pro-man reaction, which
involved segregating boys and girls in separate
schools and other social institutions in order to
“preserve” boys’ masculinity from the corrupting
influence of feminism.
• The third reaction was pro-feminist. Some men
joined with feminists to promote equality among
the sexes.
• This perspective contends that the problem with
the male gender role is that men in our society are
confronted by contradictory demands and
expectations from their early socialization process
and their adult life experience.
• In order for men to move away from traditional
gender-role behavior, it has been noted that men
not only need to feel such change is desirable and
beneficial as far as improving the quality of their
lives, but they also need to receive support from
their spouses, from other men, and in the
workplace.