Revision Sex and Gender

Sex Identity:
This refers to whether you are biologically male of
female.
Males have the chromosomes XY and females have
XX
The male hormone is testosterone
The female hormone is oestrogen

Gender Identity:
This is a psychological term
Gender refers to whether a person feels masculine
or feminine
Gender can be identified through a persons feelings,
attitudes and behavior
Girls may show feminine gender behavior by playing with dolls for
example

For most people there is a match between their sex and gender identities but this
is not always the case

Gender identity can be affected by culture in Britain we have two genders
masculine and feminine, but the Mohave Indians recognize 4 identities,
traditional males and females and males who live as women and women who
live as males

Explanations for Gender Development

The Psychodynamic explanation of Gender Development:

According to Freud, boys and girls develop in the same way until they reach the
third stage of development known as the phallic stage which is between the ages
of 3 and 5. At this stage their gender identification takes place. In boys it is
known as the Oedipus Complex and in girls it is the Electra Complex

The Oedipus Complex
The Oedipus Complex comes from the boy's natural love for his mother. The
libido focuses on the genital area, and so this natural love becomes sexual. Freud
held that the father then stands in the way of the boy's feelings, because of the
father's relationship with the mother, so the boy feels aggression towards the
father, and love for the mother. All this is at an unconscious level.
Freud also felt that, as parents tell a son off for masturbating, this causes anxiety
and fear. A boy at this age will notice that women don't have a penis, and the fear
is focused on castration fear, as the boy fears his father will castrate him.
Castration fear is stronger than the desire to possess the mother, so the desire is
repressed.

Freud thought that unconsciously the boy wishes to kill his father in order to
possess and marry his mother. This conflict has to be resolved by the ego to
satisfy the demands of the id, and the love and fear can be reconciled if the boy
identifies with his father, as if 'becoming' the father. In this way, the castration
fear is removed, and the boy can in some way possess the mother as he wishes
to. The boy, therefore, does what his father does, and in absorbing his father's
morals and values, the boy develops the superego. The boy learns to be male by
identifying with his father and 'becoming' him.

The Electra Complex
In a similar way, girls learn their gender behaviour by identifying with their
mothers, but Freud was more vague about the conflict for girls, which is called
the Electra Complex. Freud thought that, at around the same age, girls find out
that women have no penis. This is penis envy, which is similar to the castration
fear experienced by boys. The girl identifies with her mother, takes on her
morals and values and learns her gender role in that way, because she can then
possess her father. However, Freud thought that this process is never complete,
and is not resolved as the Oedipus Complex is resolved for boys. Freud believed
that a girl always remains a little fixated in the phallic stage, though she does
pass into the latency period once she has identified with her mother, and she
develops the superego in the phallic stage, as a boy does.

Key Study:

NAME: Freud, Little Hans (1909)
AIM: To investigate Little Hans phobia of horses
METHOD: Hans father and Freud communicated
by letter about Hans phobia. Hans father asked
Hans about the phobia and reported back to Freud about the conversations they
had.
RESULTS: Freud claimed that Hans was scared of horses because he was going
through the Oedipus Complex. He had displaced his fear of his father on horses.
The white horse with a black muzzle that he was most scared of was like his
father (who was white with a moustache). His fear of being bitten by a horse
represented his fear of his father castrating him if he found out about his desire
towards his mother.
CONCLUSION: This study supports Freuds idea about the Oedipus Complex
EVALUATION:
The study cannot be generalized. It is possible that Little Hans was going
through the Oedipus Complex, but this does not mean that all boys go
through this
Hans father was a supporter of Freud and it is possible that he twisted
the information to support Freuds ideas and please him
The study gathered qualitative data which is more valid as the
information is detailed and in depth




Gender Development in a lone-parent household

According to Freud, if a child is brought up in a lone-parent household
they will not go through the Oedipus Complex and will therefore have a
poorly developed gender identity. Freud claimed that boys who did not
have their fathers would not be masculine and would be homosexual.
Rekers (1974) mentioned the case of Carl who was 8 years old and had no
father figure. He had a feminine voice and liked to wear dresses and play
with girls.
Rekers and Moray (1990) found that there was a relationship between
gender disturbance in boys and a lack of a stable father figure
Other psychologists such as Golombok found there was no relationship
between lack of a father figure and gender development

Evaluation of the Psychodynamic Explanation of Gender Development

Freuds ideas are difficult to test as they are based on the unconscious
mind which we cannot gain access to
The rise in the number of children has not seen a similar rise in the
homosexual population or in people who are gender disturbed as Freud
suggested would happen
There is little evidence to support the idea of the Oedipus or Electra
complex. Case studies like Little Hans cannot be generalized.

The Social Learning theory of Gender Development:

We learn our gendered behavior by observing role models this is known
as vicarious learning
Role models are likely to be people who are
o The same sex
o High status e.g. parents or celebrities
o If we see them being rewarded for their behavior e.g. a girl
watches her mother put on makeup and her father compliments
the mother this is known as vicarious reinforcement
The child will then imitate the behavior that they see the role model
perform

Key Study:

NAME: Perry and Bussey (1979)
AIM: To see if children imitate the behavior of same sex role models
METHOD: Children were shown films of role models that were carrying out
activities unfamiliar to the children. In one condition all of the male role models
did one activity and the females did the other. In the other condition half of the
males and half of the females did one activity whereas the other half did the
other activity.
RESULTS: In the first condition the children imitated what the same-sex role
model had done. In the second condition there was no difference in the activities
that the girls and boys chose.
CONCLUSION: When children are in an unfamiliar situation they will observe the
behavior of a same-sex role model as this gives them information about what is
appropriate for their sex.
EVALUATION:
The study is reliable as all extraneous variables are controlled so the
researchers could be confident that it was the gender of the role model
that effected the choice of activity for the child
As the study was an independent groups design, the difference in the two
conditions could have been because of participant variables and not
because of the manipulation of the independent variable

Media and Gender Development:

Macklin and Kolbe (1984) claimed that
children want to imitate characters on
TV because they are often physically
attractive
Television often shows males and
females in stereotyped ways e.g.
women as housewives and secretaries
and men as mechanics and police officers
Williams (1986) showed in their study that children in Canada shown TV
for the first time became more sex stereotyped in their attitudes and
behavior than they had been previously

Evaluation of the social learning theory of gender development:
The theory is well supported by research lots of studies show that
children copy the behavior of same sex role models
It does not explain why children brought up in lone parent families
without a same sex role model do not have difficulty in their gender
development
It does not explain how there can be differences within one family for
example how one brother can behave more masculine than the other
The approach ignores biological differences between males and females

The Gender Schema Theory of Gender Development:

A schema is a mental building block of knowledge it is strengthened or
changed as we learn information from the world around you
A gender schema is a block of knowledge that contains information about
each gender it contains information about behaviours, clothes and roles
for males and females
Gender schemas are often made up of gender stereotypes believing that
all males and females are similar, for example that all secretaries are
women
Martin and Halverson (1981) believed that gender schemas develop with
age. When we are about two years old we recognize that we are male or
female and identify if others around us are male or female
Children then take in information about the sexes from the world around
them
When they are young their ideas are quite rigid and stereotyped but as
they get older they gain more knowledge about the world and their ideas
become less stereotyped


Key Study:

NAME: Martin (1989)
AIM: To show that childrens understanding of gender less stereotyped as they
get older
METHOD: Children heard stories about the toys that male and female characters
enjoyed playing with. Some of the characters were described as liking gender
stereotyped activities and others were described as liking non-gender
stereotyped activities. The children were then asked to predict what other toys
the characters would like to play with
RESULTS: The younger children only used the sex
of the character to choose what toy they would
like whereas the older children relied on
information from the story e.g. if a girl liked
playing with more masculine toys they would
choose a more masculine toy from them
CONCLUSION: Older children have a more flexible view of children than younger
children do
EVALUATION:
The younger children may have had more difficulty understanding the
story and this may have been why they used the information about the
sex of the person to determine toy choice
Lots of studies support the idea that as children become older they
usually become less sex stereotyped

Individual Differences in Gender Development:

Some children as they get older are still very gender stereotyped in their
thinking. They ignore information that does not fit in with their schemas
and concentrate on information that does
Levy and Carter showed children pictures of two toys to play with,
sometimes the two toys were masculine and sometimes they were
feminine. Other times they were shown one masculine and one feminine
toy. The highly gender schematicised children chose quickly when there
was one masculine and one feminine toy but took longer when both toys
were masculine or feminine whereas the less gender schematicised
children took the same amount of time on both sets of toys as their choice
was based on personal preference and not whether the toy was
stereotypically male or female

Evaluation of the Gender Schema Theory of Gender Development

It is well supported with evidence from research and is the most highly
regarded explanation of gender development
It does not explain why some children are more gender schematicised
than others
It does not explain why gender development happens at age two