preview

Questions On Gender Identity And Gender Essay

Decent Essays

List 8:
1. Gender Identity (p.369): This concept is important for our understanding and sensitivity to other peoples’ gender. When we say gender, we initially mean the biological characteristics that determine whether we are male or female. This is somewhat different in gender identity because it involves the thoughts and acceptance of an individual’s gender no matter what their biological gender may be. An example of this would be someone who is born with biological characteristics of a female, but identifies with a male gender.
2. Psychoanalytic Theory of Gender (p.371): This theory stems from Sigmund Freud. It states that from the ages of 3-5 a child has a sexual attraction to their opposite sex parent. Freud claims that as the child grows, they become anxious and ashamed of these feelings and subsequently adopt the mannerisms and characteristics of their same sex parent. I think that this is interesting because Freud was very adamant that even as a young child we had innate sexual desires.
3. Gender Schema Theory (p. 374): This concept develops as we develop. As we age, we see the people around us performing gender appropriate and gender inappropriate activities. Based on the culture that we grow up in, we learn which actions are appropriate and add that to our gender schema. This is interesting because it is primarily centered around the environment that we grow up in. Children are motivated to perform those gender appropriate actions in order to conform to social norms

Get Access