Gender Roles
In this section, the ideas of how you identify yourself and what sex you consider yourself to be are looked at in a magnified way. There are so many ways that people identify themselves of being. For example there is race, religious beliefs, and most prudent, gender. In society, the idea of gender has been made to be incredibly absolute in the sense that if you're born with either male or female sex organs, you should be considered the corresponding gender to each. This trend, however, is not always the case as there are situations where the person may feel they identify themselves as the opposite gender of what one might consider them as. Some people are born with both sets of sex organs internally, some may be homosexual, or bisexual, or even transgender. The point here is that there is so much more to the idea of gender and what it means to be a male or a female than is regularly perceived.
Gender Roles & Sex vs Gender:
It is important to understand the difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to the biological make up of the individual while gender refers to the social structured idea of what a male and female is. The two are often misconstrued and used in place of one in the wrong cases. The term gender roles refers to the activities that are associated with being a certain gender. Some example of some western gender roles would be that of women doing the cleaning, cooking, and child raising, while men go to work and do the lawn duty. Different cultures will have different roles for men and women and might even have men doing some of the more feminine roles compared to here in the U.S.
Theories of Gender Role Development:
Gender Roles & Sex vs Gender:
It is important to understand the difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to the biological make up of the individual while gender refers to the social structured idea of what a male and female is. The two are often misconstrued and used in place of one in the wrong cases. The term gender roles refers to the activities that are associated with being a certain gender. Some example of some western gender roles would be that of women doing the cleaning, cooking, and child raising, while men go to work and do the lawn duty. Different cultures will have different roles for men and women and might even have men doing some of the more feminine roles compared to here in the U.S.
Theories of Gender Role Development:
- Physical Development
All humans start as female and have one X chromosome; it is only when the X is joined with a Y chromosome that one becomes a male. This is the fundamental process of how our sex is determined in conception. Our sex organs are not crated until the SRY gene is activated and there are some cases where this gene could be abnormal or even missing. These abnormalities can cause cases where a child might have an ambiguous gender due to them having female organs with a male body, or a female body with internal male sex organs, or even a body that has both sets. One's brain also has a lot to do with what gender we associate ourselves with. Hormonal influxes can occur in adolescents and in the prenatal stage of development and can have major impacts on how we think we are suppose to act or feel as male or female. The debate over nature or nurture is brought up here as well, as the way we are raised has impact on how we come to consider to be our gender. All of these parts in our physical development could have significant effects on our gender role development.
- Social Learning Theory
In this theory devised by Albert Bandura, the way children learn from looking at how others act and how their models act is focused on as the develop their gender. For example boys might dress in the dads shoes while the girls put on dresses and do makeup for their dolls. These activities are learned vicariously from their parents as gender role modeling. This modeling has been studied to take place very early in life. Jerome Kagan developed stages in which infants and children develop their genders: Identifying the model, acting like the model, feeling what the model feels, and finally becoming the model. Even the way children play with their peers could help develop their genders. Children will often times prefer to play with others that are the same sex and learn from one another on how to act and play as girls and boys should.
- Cognitive Development Theory:
These theorists believe that individuals develop knowledge through interactions with our environment. Not only do we develop general knowledge, but also a sense of gender roles. As we see in Kohlberg's theory, there are three stages that help one determine their gender. The first is gender identity, where the child becomes aware that there is a difference between girls in boys as they discover their own genitals. The second step is gender stability and the child will understand that girls will always be girls and males will be males. Finally, in gender constancy, the child learns that their gender is constant even if they were to change their appearance.
- Gender Schema Theory
Sandra Lipsitz Bem agreed with Kohlberg's theory that dealt with schema development and asserted that assimilation and adaptation were important factors in developing gender roles. Using her Sex Role Inventory, she has found evidence that there are specific gender roles. This inventory contains 60 characteristics that individuals are told to rate themselves with from 1-7. Terms such as cheerful, helpful, and assertive are just some of these characteristics used that are considered either feminine or masculine traits. 20 neutral terms are also implemented and after the score is calculated at he end, the person will see just how masculine or feminine they are. The person taking the test could be considered masculine scoring high in masculine traits, feminine due to low masculine personality traits, androgynous( having high scores in both feminine and masculine traits), or undifferentiated( having low masculine and feminine traits)
- Psychoanalytic/ Identification Theory:
In this theory, identification is believed to be the main way in which children subconsciously develop behaviors related to gender roles. Going back to Freud's theory, he believed that gender role development began in the phallic stage and stemmed from the Oedipus Complex and Electra Complex. He asserted that the child will fall in love with the mother or father and will develop jealous towards the other parent who rivals them for attention. The child knows that the other parent is stronger, so it would be impossible to win the battle, so the child is forced to resolve the conflict by identifying with the parent of their gender. Erikson's theory inadvertently touches on the process of gender role development as he thought that boys and girls differ in not only organs, but also in roles that are unique to their experiences. He also touches on gender roles as he observes that adolescents will become aware of the expectations that society has on them and will work to conform to them in order to find their identity.
This knowledge relates to my history and how I developed by the fact that I developed my idea of gender through a lot of these theories. Maybe not all of these theories are perfect for explaining how people develop gender roles, but there are parts that could explain some of the ways. For example, I believe that society does have gender biased expectations for girls and boys and being exposed to these early in life, lead me to associate myself with being male. I did model myself to male figures, but not as much as a cild with both parents would. Being raised by a single mother, I may have developed some feminine traits over masculine traits, but nonetheless I knew what it meant to be a male.
I will be dealing with a multitude of people in the medical field and I may come across one that could be transexual, or one that has an ambiguous gender. Knowing that such things are possible will allow me to be more careful when I talk to patients and to be aware that some may not always react well with an assumption that just because they have certain sexual organs, that I might consider they have the same sense of gender.
- How this information related to my developmental history:
This knowledge relates to my history and how I developed by the fact that I developed my idea of gender through a lot of these theories. Maybe not all of these theories are perfect for explaining how people develop gender roles, but there are parts that could explain some of the ways. For example, I believe that society does have gender biased expectations for girls and boys and being exposed to these early in life, lead me to associate myself with being male. I did model myself to male figures, but not as much as a cild with both parents would. Being raised by a single mother, I may have developed some feminine traits over masculine traits, but nonetheless I knew what it meant to be a male.
- How this information will help me in my career:
I will be dealing with a multitude of people in the medical field and I may come across one that could be transexual, or one that has an ambiguous gender. Knowing that such things are possible will allow me to be more careful when I talk to patients and to be aware that some may not always react well with an assumption that just because they have certain sexual organs, that I might consider they have the same sense of gender.