Chapter 2 - Sex and Gender Flashcards
What is sex?
- The biological term.
- Tells us if someone is MALE or FEMALE.
- The genitals are the deciding factor.
What is gender?
- The psychological term.
- Tells us if someone has masculine, feminine or androgynous traits.
Masculinity
A gender term associated with male traits/roles.
Femininity
A gender term associated with female traits/roles.
Androgynous
A gender role where an individual shows high levels of BOTH masculine & feminine traits.
Gender roles today?
- Gender role is based on the culture, society and era we live in.
- Men and woman today display both masculine and feminine characteristics but it doesn’t mean we are becoming androgynous.
- Our society is changing, we no longer criticise of evaluate people taking on different gender roles.
- Not always has been like this e.g. Billy Elliot 1980s.
Core Theory
- Biological Theory
- Looks at how the chromosomes and hormones in our bodies affect our sex and gender
What chromosomes do the mother and father produce?
- Mothers ova (eggs) produce X chromosome
- Fathers sperm produces either an X or Y chromosome
- XX or XY, depends on what the fertilising sperm gives you
Girl
- XX chromosomes
Boy
XY chromosomes
Early stages of pregnancy, the embryo and how it develops?
- Embryos can form to be a boy or girl and have a body part called ‘gonads’
- XX chromosomes, gonads develop into ovaries
- XY chromosomes, gonads develop into testes
When genitals change and how?
- Up to 7th week of pregnancy, genitals look identical
- After, testosterone changes boys sex organs to develop into penis and scrotum
- Oestrogen and progesterone changes girls to develop a uterus and a vagina
Both sexes have both hormones - so what’s different?
The quantities differ
What do low levels of testosterone in male foetuses do?
Cause the baby to be born with female external genitals , although they have XY chromosomes
Other facts about hormones in the womb?
Adult sexual orientation can be due to levels of sex hormones in womb - controversial
Testosterone
Responsible for changes in male bodies: increases hair growth, deepening of the voice, increased muscle and aggressive behaviour
What happens if your testosterone levels are wonky?
- Women w/ too much become more masculine in behaviour and appearance (can be caused by disorders to endocrine system)
- Men w/ too little will have loss of muscle, strength, lowering of sex drive.
Evolution
Process where we have survived over the course of millennia through being the fittest
What is the evolutionary theorist argument?
- We have the same biological functioning as before
- We have changed our mating behaviours as our environments change
- GENDER is socially constructed, SEX isn’t
Evolutionary differences
When we got tools and could fight larger animals, we travelled in groups to catch them. Hard w/ children
Division of Labour
- Women stayed and cared for children (could feed newborns)
- Men Hunted
What happened due to the division of labour?
- Men developed better navigation skills (to find food, return home)
- Women became better at recognising land marks (concerned with close to home dangers - served as markers for current destination when they got food)
Today, what are men and women better at and why?
- Women have better verbal skills, they had to fight and defend their families
- Men are physically stronger, they would fight with their muscles, reducing the need to verbally assault their attacker
Today what do women look for in a man to ensure the offsprings survival?
- Look for providers: men w/ good jobs, an influential status in society or a large inheritance
- Caring and nurturing men to help raise children, women have their own careers now
- Healthy men w/ healthy sperm
Evaluation on the biological (evolutionary) theory…
- :( Gender roles have changed over time, biology isn’t only answer
- :( We could have learned our behaviours (through watching others) might not be biological
- :( Cultural differences aren’t taken into account, in Fiji women wear big skirts not trousers
- :( A MIX of biology/evolution and gender roles/hormones
Alternate Theory
- Psychodynamic Theory
- Sigmund Freud’s theory
- Believed behaviour could be explained by ‘forces in the mind’
- ‘forces’ (or energy) could be physical or mental.
- For this theory, we look at mental forces
What did Freud think about the stages of development?
- Thought childhood could be seen as a series of stages - each dominated by particular aspects of the relationship w/ parents
- Stages help develop our personalities
- The libido is with us from birth - energy must be used up somehow!
Libido
The sex drive
Name the 3 stages of development
Oral phase/stage
Anal phase/stage
Phallic phase/stage
Oral Phase/Stage
- 0-1 years old
- Children are forming their first close relationships
- Problems at this stage can cause: problems in relationships like overdependence on others
- Libido centred on mouth
Anal Phase/Stage
- 1-3 years old
- Child-parent relationship is centred on the first experiences the child has on having authority posed on them
- Can be conflicts: Over potty training
- Conflicts can lead to anal personality characteristics
- Libido centred on anus
Anal personality characteristics
- Stinginess
- Stubbornness and orderliness
- Intolerance of mess
- Ambiguity
Phallic Phase/Stage
- 3-6 years old
- Libido focused on phallus, the penis, for BOTH boys and girls
- Experienced differently by boys and girls
- Freud believed this was when ones sense of gender began to develop
- The stage the Oedipus Complex begins
What is the Oedipus Complex named after?
The character ‘Oedipus’ in Ancient Greek play ‘Oedipus the King’ by Sophocles
The story behind the Oedipus Complex:
- Oedipus is abandoned by parents and adopted
- One day as an adult, he gets into a fight w/ a man and kills him
- Then solves a riddle from a Sphinx terrorising the kingdom
- Gets rewarded with the Queens hand in marriage
- The man turns out to be his father, the Queen his mother.
Oedipus Complex
- Freud’s version based on story, a bit different
- Only boys experience this
- Libido is focused on mother, he desires his mother
- Knows if father found out he would be angry
- Anxiety builds up, boy has to balance his fear of his father w/ desire for his mother.
Castration Anxiety
- Fear of father leads to castration anxiety
- Definition: boy fears his testicles will be cut of by his father if he finds out how much the boy desires his mother
- To solve this, the boy acts like a man to please father and get closer to mother
Females: Electra Conplex
- Female version of Oedipus Complex
- Occurs in the Phallic Stage
1. Girls desire their fathers because they desire a penis which is known as “penis envy”
2. She believes she had already been castrated from mother as a punishment for desiring father
3. Therefore not afraid of mother as little boys are of their father
4. Girl learns her gender role by identifying w/ her mother
What was the Electra Complex called before?
Freud called it “the feminine Oedipus complex”, psychoanalysts later renamed it after a character in another play by Sophocles.
Evaluation on the Psychodynamic Theory:
:) Psychoanalytic explanation of sex and gender fits w/ other evidence showing that around 6 years old children identify with their same-sex parent.
:( Children develop sense of gender at diff times, impossible to tell what a young child is thinking. Might not have language to explain
:( If all this takes place in unconscious - like Freud maintains it does, the child won’t know it’s taking place
:( Unconscious is impossible to test, Freud’s theory remains a theory
:( There is evidence to suggest children develop gender identity w/out external genital organs; Freud’s theory can’t properly respond to that.
Background of Bruce Reimar
- Born in 1965
- 8 month baby, during regular circumcision an accident occurred making his penis badly damaged
- Parents saw psychologist John Money on tv talk about how boys could be turned into girls.
BACKGROUND: JOHN MONEY
- Believed gender was determined by upbringing, not biology
- So by bringing up a boy as a girl, he would be just like a girl
- Believed in order to have a healthy psychosexual development, important for someone’s genitals to look normal
- If going to be raised a girl, need female genitals for healthy psychosexual development
DIAMOND & SIGMUNDSON
- Did a follow up study years later
- By time they wrote it up, Bruce was an adult living as a man under name of David
- They challenged Money’s statement that socialisation is the better explanation of gender
- They believed biology would win - found it was a better explanation.
AIM
To see if gender is more dependent on your biology or your upbringing
METHOD
- Case study
- They looked at old psychologists notes, therapists impressions and medical records
- Interviewed David Reimer, his mother and his wife
SAMPLE
David Reimer
FINDINGS
- David hated being a girl and he preferred doing boy activities and wearing boy clothes
- Once told about what happened, he chose to be a boy again —> suggests we are not psycho sexually neutral at birth and biology plays a larger role in our gender development than upbringing
Various names of David Reimer and why
Bruce/Brenda - his parents picked it for him, liked it
John/Joan - Money picked it to follow ethical guidelines to keep his identity anonymous
David - David picked it as an adult because he wanted to
What was the parents plan after Bruce/Brenda had testes removed and how old was he?
- 17 months (had op and became known as Brenda, treated like a girl from then on)
- They would bring Bruce up as their daughter not son, was too young to know what happened
- As she got older was led to believe she was a girl
What did money claim about Brenda?
He claimed she adapted well to being a girl, Sigmundson found opposite to be true
What did Sigmundson find out - proving money’s claims to be false?
- Between the ages 9-11, Brenda considered suicide
- She had no friends, was teased about her looks (had a mannish face)
- Got expelled for fighting - maybe due to he fact she couldn’t take the reading anymore
What did Bruce/Brenda’s mother tell Diamond and Sigmundson?
- Bruce was often more boisterous than twin
- Would ignore girls toys, go for boy toys
- Disliked dresses, liked boys clothing
- Would mimic father, not mother
- Little girls dress up in mothers dresses and lipstick, Brenda would mimic her father and pretend to shave
What happened when Brenda reached puberty?
- Was given hormones to develop breasts and a more feminine shape
- Made him more unhappy - refused to wear a bra or take the hormones
What did Brenda admit after puberty?
- She often felt like a man inside:
• Found other girls attractive, rejected boys w/ an interest in her
• Preferred masculine activities, like sports
• Wanted to ‘hang out’ with her brother - Father admitted what happened to her, chose to live as a boy again and took male hormones. Age 15/16 reconstructed penis
What happened after identifying as a boy again?
- At age 25, got married to a women and adopted her children
- At 38, took his own life - maybe due to the enormity of what happened in his life, couldn’t overcome it
- Twin brother took his own life, perhaps a biological explanation rather than a psychological one?
What can we conclude from this case study?
- Babies are not psychosexually neutral at birth
- Gender is based more on biology than upbringing
- Healthy psychosexual development doesn’t depend on appearance of genitals, more on the chromosomes (XX or XY)
EVALUATION OF THE STUDY
:( Case study, only investigates ONE person - might not be representative of whole population
:( He had a twin brother - did is help him in his gender development or hinder him?
:( Parents knew he was born a boy. Did this have an effect on how they raised him? Did they treat him differently? Did they greet him better, worse or differently? Did this have an impact?
Application to real life: equal opportunities
- Psychological research suggests that males and females are born w/ diff aptitude’s
- Positive discrimination: lead to boys getting more help w: their literacy because of their less developed verbal skills, girls may benefit from same sex maths classes because of their less developed visual spatial skills
