Chapter 5 Flashcards
Gender socialization
Occurs when individuals internalize the social expectations and attitudes associated with their perceived gender
- very complex process
- Norms about gender change over time
Psychoanalytic Theories
suggest that gender development is controlled by unconscious forces
- Early childhood is the critical time in development
Sigmund freud
founding father of psychoanalytic perspective
- the genitalia determine whether a person is a woman or a man but are also the root cause of many of the differences between women and men
- proposed that being male and having a penis is superior to being female and having a vagina
Oedipus complex
boys develop an uncoscious love for their mothers and a feeling of hostility toward their fathers
castration anxiety
the fear that his father will cut off his penis –> results in oedipus complex
Oedipus complex
boys develop an uncoscious love for their mothers and a feeling of hostility toward their fathers
- eventually decides that instead of getting rid of his father and marrying his mother, he would rather be like his father
Penis envy
as soon as a girl realizes that she doesn’t have a penis, she experienes penis envy which she continues to have for the rest of her life
- becomes angry and hostile toward her mother because she blames her mother for her inferior atonomy
- She becomes attached to her father –> electra complex
Karen Horney
argued that power inequalities, cause the psychological differences observed in girls and women
- Girls don’t envy having a penis simply because a penis is superior to a vagina –> they envy what the penis represents
- Men experience womb envy: an envy of women’s reproductive ability
Nancy Chodorow
combined psychoanlytic theory and feminist perspectives
- emphasized how the social structure of the family and the gendered division of labor influence the development of gender roles
Behavioral theories
consider how aspects of the environment influence behacior
- uses learning theory to understand gender development
Operant conditioning
gender develops when certain behaviors are reinforced, or rewarded, and other behaviors are punished
Operant conditioning
gender develops when certain behaviors are reinforced, or rewarded, and other behaviors are punished
- Gender development occurs when others reinforce behavior that conforms to gender norms and punish behaviors that do not
social learning theories
learning takes place in a social setting even when children aren’t directly being reinforced or punished
observational learning
occurs when children learn from watching what others do
self-socialization
children don’t need parents to tell them how to behave
Cognitive development theories
focus less on reinforcements and punishments and more on what children are thinking and assuming about their gender roles
- children’s understanding of gender goes through stages corresponding to the development of cognitive skills and children are participants in their attempt to understand and take on gender roles
Gender schema theory
focuses on how children integrate this network of assumptions about gender with their understanding of themselves
Gender constancy
the understanding that even if a change in physical appearance takes place, a girls will still be a girl and a boy will still be a boy
social construction theories
based on a postmodern perspective and suggests that knowledge isn’t objective, rather, it is constructed and therefore can change as a function of time, place or culture
- Cultural beliefs about gender exist to uphold particular social and economic systems and inequalities
Doing gender
performing or enacting behaviors associated with a specific gender in day-to-day life
Gender segregation
the tendency for children to segregate on the basis of actual or perceived gender identity
Borderwork
girls and boys do sometimes enter each other’s play areas –> often as a form of torment and teasing
- reinforces the invisible border between girl’s spaces and boy’s spaces
Hidden curriculum
the ways the school environment indirectly teaches norms, beliefs and values
- schools tend to enforce dress codes more strictly for girls than for boys
Gender rigidity
strict gender typing, and a sense of inflexibility in terms of what girls and boys are supposed to do
Gender intensification
girls and boys start to more rigidly enact their gender roles
Stages of gender development
- baby
- Pre-School
- Middle Childhood
- Adolescence
Stages - Baby
- Sex often assigned via ultrasound
- Infant’s sex considered the most important information about them
- Infant’s sex shapes how people describe and interact with the baby
Stages - Pre-School
- Learn about traditional stereotypes associated with each gender
- Display gender rigidity
- Gender non-conforming kids may have trouble having their identity recognized
Stages - Middle Childhood
- Reduced gender rigidity among girls but not boys
- development of gender constancy
- Realization that masculinity conveys more power
Stages - Adolescence
- Gender intesification
- Gender non-conforming girls experience peer victimization and exclusion
- Timing of puberty impact girls in a variety of ways
