Hello from Google!
In fields such as this, you’ll rarely find a consensus leading to a single
currently accepted theory, and this is the case with the subject of the
development of gender identity and societal expectations of genders.
In the area of gender development, the primary theories fall into sociological,
biological, and psychological, and various theories have fallen in and out of
favor over the years.
There have been quite a few studies of children with ambiguous genitalia or
genital accidents who have been raised with an assigned gender, but many of
these studies are flawed, either because the sample set was small (eg., Money,
J., (1975) Ablatio Penis: Normal Male Infant Sex-Reassigned as a Girl. Archives
of Sexual Behaviour, Vol 4, No. 1 pp65-71) or because the causes of the
ambiguity may mean the results don’t transfer to non-affected populations.
Those studies, however, tend to point to sociological and psychological bases
of gender identity, which many in the field believe is the strongest one- that
is, you identify as what you have been raised.
Deborah Blum argues in favor of a biological basis of gender identity- you are
what you are. She points out that either male and female are different, and
biology matters, or they are identical and biology doesn’t matter; and it is
clear that male and female are different.
Psychological theories tend to fall from Freud, even now, and psychoanalysis,
and say that gender identities come from inner psychic conflicts and mental
developmental stages.
Two good sites with these comparative theories are:
Theories about Construction of Gender Identities
http://www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/socialization.html
Discussion of theories of the development of gender identity
http://www.gender.org.uk/about/05devel/51adscss.htm
The latter site has additional pages of information on gender identity, social
expectations, and development of identity.
Hope that helps! |
Request for Answer Clarification by
lediva-ga
on
24 Apr 2002 14:47 PDT
I appreciate your answer, and especially its promptness.
But I'm not sure it answers the question, at least in the way I was hoping.
It's my fault for not phrasing the question more specifically... I was looking
for primarily psychological theories.
I've done some research which seems to indicate that there are two phases: the
first seeing gender as externally determined and fluid (wearing a dress = girl,
wearing pants = boy, etc.), the second being more in line with how society
views gender (you're born as gender X and you stay gender X regardless of
clothing).
I was hoping for some insight in that area. I'm not sure how accepted the above
theory is, or if anyone's done any work to support/debunk it. However, this may
fall into the realm of a second question.
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Clarification of Answer by
jaq-ga
on
28 Apr 2002 15:10 PDT
Here are some links of interest regarding psychosexual development:
Normal is primarily determined by abnormal, so this discussion on
gender identity disorders may be of interest:
Gender Identity Disorders in Children and Adolescents
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0402.htm
These lecture notes from a Human Sexuality class at John's Hopkins
School of Medicine has an interesting discussion on early gender
identity and the use to which children put their new understandings of
gender to use:
Developmental Foundations of Sexuality and Childhood Sexual Behaviors
http://oac.med.jhmi.edu/LectureLinks/LectureNotes/humsex/devfoundchildsex_pont.html
A series of quick notes on various psychoanalytic theories:
Psychoanalytic Perspectives
http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~atwel002/dev1.htm
Money was influential in the acceptance of the medical establishment
of fairly cavalier sexual reassignment of children with ambiguous
genitalia, and believes that children form their sense of gender from
external clues (the way they're dressed and treated):
"'it is no longer possible to attribute psychological maleness or
femaleness to chromosomal, gonadal or hormonal origins. . . . The
evidence of hermaphroditism lends support to a conception that,
psychologically, sexuality is undifferentiated at birth and that it
becomes differentiated as masculine or feminine in the course of the
various experiences of growing up.'In simple terms, Money was
advancing the view that all children form a sense of themselves as
male or female according to whether they are dressed in blue or pink,
given a masculine or feminine name, clothed in pants or dresses, given
guns or Barbies to play with."
The case of John/Joan
http://www.infocirc.org/rollsto2.htm
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