Gender Flashcards
Define androgyny
This his formed from the words ‘andro’ meaning male and ‘gyny’ meaning female. The word means a combination of male and female characteristics.
Define Gender
This refers to a person’s identity, their sense of maleness or femaleness, which is usually a psychological / social construct - unlike sex which refers to to whether a person is genetically male (XY) or female (XX).
How is biological sex determined ?
Each person has 23 pairs of chromosomes, each with genes that carry the instructions for physical and behavioural characteristics. There is a link between sex chromosomes and genitalia XX/Vagina and XY/Penis and internal genitalia (ovaries/testes). At 3 months, foetuses - if they are male, produce testosterone in the testes, causing external genitalia to form. Genes explain how individuals acquire their sex.
Describe Klinefelter’s syndrome.
This condition is due to an extra X chromosome in males. This XXY coordination causes individuals born with this condition to have a penis, but they can also possess female qualities such as breast tissue. This affects around 1 in 660 males.
Define intersex.
This refers to an individual who is not distinctly genetically male or female due potentially to discrepancies between chromosomes and genitals.
List the stages of Kohlberg’s theory of gender development.
Stage 1: Gender Labelling
Stage 2: Gender Stability (GS)
Stage 3: Gender Constancy
According to the SLT, how does gender identity develop ?
We gain our gender identity through the observation of others, and then making the decision to imitate gender related behaviours that are rewarded.
What is a schema ?
This is a mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. Schemas contain our understanding of an object, a person or an idea. Schemas become increasingly complex during development as www gain more information about each object/idea.
what role do meditational processes play in gender development ?
These are the mental events that determine whether an individual perceives a behaviour as being worth imitating, for example watching a girl play with a doll. This decision is made after viewing the consequences of the behaviour (the girl receives praise), typically after it is performed by a performed by a person that they identify with - stronger identification increases the likelihood of imitation.
Describe Mead’s study on the role of culture in Gender development.
Mead (1935) looked at social groups in Papua New Guinea. Arapesh men and women were gentle and responsive but Mundugumor men and women violent and aggressive. Gender role differences were shown by the Tchambuli - the women were dominant but the men emotionally dependent.
Briefly explain the case of David Reimer.
David Reimer was a young man who despite being raised female due to a botched circumcision had a male gender identity, eventually choosing to reassign himself as a man.
Describe the Oedipus complex.
- Boys desire their mothers, as they become aware of their sexuality.
- They want their mother’s sole attention and so see their fathers as rivals for this attention and wish their father, creating a repressed fear of castration.
- As the body begins to identify with his father, the complex is resolved as the body internalises his father’s gender identity and accepts it as his own gender identity. This leads to masculine behaviour based on the attitudes / expectations of their fathers.
How can schema help memory
Martin & Halverson found that children under 6, when showed pictures of people remembered more of the gender consistent ones than the inconsistent ones - like male nurses / female doctors. This shows their apparent ability to help organise memories.
What is an ingroup ?
This is an exclusive, typically small, group of people with a shared interest or identity. In terms of gender development, this is the group that a child identifies with, and imitates behaviour to gain their own gender identity.
Define gender identity disorder (GID) ?
This is a condition described in the DSM-V. Individuals experiencing this disorder have a sense of gender dysphoria, which is unease or dissatisfaction with their gender. They also have feelings of identification with the opposite gender, whilst feeling discomfort with their own.
Describe the brain-sex theory ?
This is the idea that male and female are different, and so the brains of transexuals may not match their genetic sex.
How can mother-son relationships cause GID ?
Stoller (1975) suggested GID comes from issues with parental figures.Boys with close relationships with their mothers have female identification and gender identity.
How can pesticides lead to GID ?
Pesticides can contain oestrogen which may result in males being exposed to high levels of the hormone, leading to femininity.
Why are psychodynamic explanations of gender development often disregarded ?
This is because both the complexes rely on children having knowledge of genitalia, but Ben found that children of this age did not know what the genitalia of the opposite sex looked like, making it impossible for either complex to occur. In addition to this, the explanation is sexual in nature and involves children which some find to be inappropriate.
What is counter stereotyping ?
This refers to when the media changes existing stereotypes, in addition to perpetuating them. Pingree (1978) found an example of this - when children were shown adverts with women in nontraditional roles, stereotyping decreased.
