1. Becoming A Woman/becoming A Man: Gender Identity And Gender Roles
Variations In Development: Intersexed Individuals
Gender And Sex As Social Constructs
Gender Identity “Disorder”
Psychological Theories Of Gender Identity Development
Gender Roles

2. Gender identity is the inward experience of your gender role, and gender role is the outward expression of your gender identity.
“Masculinity” and “femininity” were once viewed as bipolar.
Gender role stereotypes are oversimplified, rigid beliefs that all members of a particular sex have distinct behavioral, psychological, and emotional characteristics.
An androgynous person is capable of integrating both traditionally masculine characteristics and traditionally feminine characteristics into his or her gender role.

3. He or she can be both assertive and compassionate, logical and emotional, depending on what is most appropriate for a particular situation.

4. The Role of Hormones
Testosterone must be produced at a critical stage of embryonic development in order for an XY combination to result in a baby with male anatomy.
If there is no Y chromosome, the primitive gonads will eventually develop into ovaries. Unless there is a high level of testosterone at a critical stage of prenatal development, nature has programmed everyone for female development.

5. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain
Are men’s brains different from women’s brains, and if so, could this account for differences in behavior?
The hypothalamus was different in male and female rats. The difference was not noticeable at birth, but became apparent shortly thereafter as a result of differences in testosterone levels.

6. Chromosome Variations
These biological men have both masculine characteristics, because of the Y chromosome, and feminine characteristics, because of the XX chromosome combination.
They tend to be tall with long arms and have poor muscular development, enlarged breasts and hips, a small penis with shrunken testes, and low sexual desire.

7. Turner’s syndrome is a condition in which there is only one X chromosome. It occurs in about 1 in every 2,000 to 3,000 live births.
Because women with Turner’s syndrome are missing a chromosome, the ovaries never develop properly; and in the absence of ovarian hormones, they also do not menstruate or develop breasts at puberty.

8. Hormonal Variations
Hermaphrodites are usually genetic females, and even though a uterus is almost always present, they often have an ovary and Fallopian tube on one side and a testicle and a vas deferens and/or epididymis on the other.
pseudohermaphroditism, in which a person with an XX or XY chromosome pattern is born with the proper set of gonads, but whose external genitalia are either ambiguous or that of the other sex.

9. In women, the most common cause is known as adrenogenital syndrome (AGS), also known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, in which the adrenal glands secrete too much masculinizing hormone during fetal development.
The internal organs are normal, but the genitals are masculinized, so that even physicians sometimes mistake these individual for boys at birth.

10. This condition occurs in about 1 in 20,000 births.
pseudohermaphroditism in men is known as androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which the testicles secrete normal amounts of testosterone but the body tissues do not respond to it.
As a result, a clitoris, a short vagina, and labia develop, but the internal female structures fail to develop because the testicles still secrete Mulerian duct-inhibiting substance.
This happens in about 1 in 20,000 births.

11. Gender And Sex As Social Constructs
The concept of gender was adopted “to distinguish culturally specific characteristics associated with masculinity and femininity from biological features.”

12. Gender Identity “Disorder”
People with gender dysphoria feel that they are “trapped in the wrong anatomic body.”
Adults with this condition are generally referred to as transsexuals, and children with the condition are diagnosed as having gender identity disorder of childhood.
The criteria for gender identity disorder are
(a) behaviors that indicate identification with the opposite gender and
(b) behaviors that indicate discomfort with one’s own anatomy and gender roles.

13. Homosexuals have gender identities that agree with their anatomical sex just as often as heterosexuals.
Most male-to-female transsexuals, for example, are attracted to men because they wish to be desired and loved as a woman by a heterosexual man.
Transsexuality is also not the same as transvestism.
A transvestite dresses in the clothing of the opposite sex in order to achieve sexual arousal.

14. However, a transvestite does not want to change his or her biological sex and does not experience gender dysphoria.
In contrast, transsexuals cross-dress as a means of psychologically with their appearance, not for sexual arousal.
To correct this disorder, medicine offers sex “reassignment” surgery, so that an individual’s anatomy and gender identity are in accord with society’s expectations.

15. Social Learning Theory
An important type of learning that may be involved in acquiring gender roles is that of operant conditioning, which is based on the principle that an individual’s behavior is modified by the consequences of the behavior.
For example, a boy may be praised by a parent for “acting like a man” and not crying after he falls down; he may be yelled at or punished for putting on his mother’s lipstick.

16. He is learning a gender identity and a gender role, and he will associate good things with “masculine behavior” and negative things with “feminine behavior.”
According to social learning theorists, another way children lean gender stereotyped behavior is by imitating models of people of their own sex.
For example, children love to imitate their parents and learn what mom and dad do simply by watching their parents.

17. Cognitive-Developmental Theory
Cognitive theory views infants as “information seekers.” Rather than talking about an “oral stage of psychosexual development” to explain why crawling infants put things into their mouths, cognitive theory claims that this is done because infants can “know” things and acquire information about the world this way.
Social learning theory states that gender understanding occurs because of the learning process.
Cognitive theory states that a need to understand one’s gender causes a child to want to learn.

18. Theories of Gender Role
The sociocultural model says that the psychological differences between men and women are a social construction.
The theory “begins with the postulate that in humans, males and females are born neutral with respect to sex-dimorphic behavior predispositions.”
Androgynous individuals are viewed by these researchers as being healthy because of their flexibility, demonstrating instrumental or expressive orientations as the situation demands.

19. Gender-Role Development During Childhood
Cognitive theory, shows that young children have difficulty understanding complex concepts.
Their early learning often consists of dual categories, such as “good and bad” or “big and small.” It is not surprising, then, that young children’s ideas about gender roles reflect concrete, simple ideas, dividing behaviors or traits into either “masculine” or “feminine.”
In our society, there are gender-role stereotypes.

20. Stereotypes, are oversimplified preconceived beliefs that supposedly apply to anyone in a given group.
People who assume “traditional” gender roles behave differently toward their children. In these families, mothers act as the caregivers, while the fathers act as playmates to their infants.
Children organize their world according to gender starting at age 2 or 3.
Gender roles are usually learned first in the home, but when children reach school age peers and teachers become powerful reinforcers of the process of socialization and gender-role development.

21. Gender-Role Development in Children Raised in Single-Parent Households
Children who are raised in single-parent households are more likely than those raised in “intact” households to become androgynous. This is true not only for boys but for girls as well.

22. Role Of The Media
Men are much more likely to be shown as the authoritative central figure, while women generally assume dependent roles. Even the settings are stereotypical. Men are often shown in outdoor leisure activities, while women are most likely to be shown at home.

23. Gender-Role Development in Adulthood
Among adults today, gender roles are in transition. Women have not only entered the work force in larger numbers, but have gained entry into careers and attained access to higher-level positions previously dominated by men.
When husbands do participate in domestic chores, women are happier with them, but men with traditional stereotyped attitudes are likely to evaluate their marriages negatively if “forced” into egalitarian roles.

24. Gender Roles and Sexual Relations
Many studies have found that men are more interested in the purely physical aspects of sex than are women. Women, on the other hand, are more likely than men to value love and a nurturing relationship.

25. Sociocultural Theories of Gender-Role Development
Cancian argues that love became feminized during the 1800s, when the United States was becoming industrialized. Early American society did not have different gender roles for the expression of love, nurturance, or dependency.
With increased industrialization, men began to earn their livings away from home, and the economic activities of men and women began to split.

26. Because the women maintained the home, the qualities of nurturance, love, and devotion became associated with being ignored or not considered to be as important or meaningful as work done outside the home.
Women were dependent upon wage-earning husbands, but this dependency was hidden by the feminine gender role of women in the form of being nurturant, emotional, passive, and physically weak, though morally pure.

27. Men reacted to the rise of the women’s movement in one of three ways.
The first way was an antifeminist response, with an emphasis on the need to return the woman to the home.
A second reaction was a pro-man reaction, which involved segregating boys and girls in separate schools and other social institutions in order to “preserve” boys’ masculinity from the corrupting influence of feminism.
The third reaction was pro-feminist. Some men joined with feminists to promote equality among the sexes.

28. This perspective contends that the problem with the male gender role is that men in our society are confronted by contradictory demands and expectations from their early socialization process and their adult life experience.
In order for men to move away from traditional gender-role behavior, it has been noted that men not only need to feel such change is desirable and beneficial as far as improving the quality of their lives, but they also need to receive support from their spouses, from other men, and in the workplace.