Gender and Sexual Development

Gender Development

  • what is the difference between sex and gender?

  • What does gender development involve?

  • What influences gender development?

  • How does context play a role in this?

Sex and Gender Matters

  • Crucial part of identity

  • Gender reveals parties

  • Required to communicate in many languages

    • social roles, pronouns, titles

Gener Development

Gender identity: A personal conception of oneself as male or female and as having characteristics and interests that are gender based

Gender Role: The outward manifestations of personality that reflect the gender identity

  • distinctive behaviors exhibited by typical males and females

  • may be incongruous for some individuals

Gender typing: children acquire that values, motives, and behaviors of their gender

Gender-stereotypes: the beliefs that members of an entire culture hold about attitudes and behaviors that are appropriate for each sex

Cognitive social learning theory

  • children acquire gender information through direct guidance and encouragement from parents to children

  • young children develop schemas about gender development

    • young children rely more on these than older children

  • Children use physical and behavioral cues to categorize themselves as male or female

    • find it rewarding to behave in a gender appropriate manner

Phases of understanding Gender

  1. acquires basis gender identity- recognize they are a boy or a girl

  2. Gender stability - males remain male and females remain female

  3. Gender constancy - superficial changes in appearance or activity do not alter gender

Gender Role Standards and Stereotypes

Stereotypically orientated towards controlling and manipulating the environment

  • females are stereotypically more passive

  • western cultures views

  • varies by culture and is acceptable and normal in some cultures

Native American - alternate identities

  • Two spirits

  • equivalent to non-binary

    • Hijras from India

    • Sulawesi from Bugis culture

    • Indonesia has five gender groups

  • Not seem as shameful in some cultures (more stigmatized in western cultures)

    • worried about rejection with alternate expressions with gender identity

    • not a sign of mental illness

Role of culture and gender

  • Gender identities are limited or forced on us by society

  • limitations of social roles

    • males- taken into wat and fighting, recruited as young children

    • females- married young, sold into sex trades

  • people are not given a chance to adapt to another identity

Intersex

  • the sex chromosomes do not develop tests or ovaries accordingly or there is a chromosomal abnormality that makes the chromones and sex are different

It was common practice to reassign to female in intersex or unclear cases at birth, and they often did not tell the parents when this happened

  • often resulted in poor psychological adjustment if reassigned after the first few years

  • normal psychosexual development if reassigned earlier

Transgender Identities

  • increasing number

  • not limited to the idea that it is solid after 3 years (gender is variable)

  • early on mental health issues emerge when the child is raised as the opposite gender they identify as