The Biosocial Explanation Of Gender Development

1. The nurture/nature argument of Dr. John Money is that while genes are important, as for gender is concern: a baby is consider neutral for the first two years of life During these two years, a child’s upbringing (their nurture) will determine if it feels masculine or feminine. In other words, it is possible to raise a boy as a girl, and that nurture is more important than nature. 2. The conclusion of the documentary in terms of this case study and the nature/nurture controversy, Dr. Money’s theory does not seem to hold true for most children.

Those who agree that gender is a social construct would also argue that gendered behaviour is not innate, and that it is learnt throughout development. Gender identity is defined as “the way in which being feminine or masculine, woman or man, becomes an internalized part of the way we think about ourselves” (Ryle, 2014). The idea of masculinity and femininity and the strong distinction between the two are taught to us throughout our lives. An individual’s earliest exposure to the concept of gender comes from parental influence. Many studies show that parents socialize their children from birth by creating distinct environments for boys and girls and treating son’s and daughter’s differently. For instance, parents are more likely to assign domestic chores such as cooking, mending clothes and doing laundry to daughters, whereas sons are more likely to be assigned maintenance chores such as mowing lawn, small household repairs and carrying out garbage (Lackey, 1989). Parents may also use more emotive language when talking to their daughter’s and might encourage certain interests such as math and science in son’s, by purchasing more math and science toys and committing to other promotive activities (Jacobs & Bleeker, 2004; Leaper, 1998; Tenenbaum &

Environmentally, a child’s experiences impact gender identity. Depending on family values or morals, a child could be confused by their gender. When a baby is born, there is much control on colors (if boy or girl) and ideas of the parents on how they would want to raise their daughter or son. For an example, a father would treat his son in a rough or unemotional way, while a girl would be protected and nurtured. Known as traditional roles, a boy doesn’t cry or play with dolls, but he can roll

The authors use toys as an example for gender specifying children as male or females. They did a study to see what kind of toys that toddlers had at home. They found that girls had more toys for parties, wedding, cooking, and motherhood. And boys had toys that helped them with automotive skills and building skills. They express how parents do this to show children what they want them to do when they get older. Parents buy children toys to set their gender types early so kids know what gender type they have at an early age.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” is a question that is commonly used in a world where roughly 350,000 babies are born each day. Questions such as the one previously stated are what helps to determine what gender a child would be. “Learning to Be Gendered” by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet focuses mainly on the factors that potentially influences gender. These factors can include names, colors, voice change and the societal norm of what a boy and girl should be. Eckert’s main argument is that being gendered isn’t something one can to gain based off of physical characteristics but rather on their own and through their interaction with society. Names and clothing are just a small part of the symbolic resources used to support a consistent ongoing

The formation of gender identity is not completely understood as it is much more complex than just getting a sperm and egg cell to join; an XX or an XY genotype is only the first part in gender identity. There are many biological, psychological and sociological factors involved. The biological includes chromosomes, gonads, prenatal hormones, internal accessory organs, external genital appearance. The psychological includes assigned gender role and gender identity. The sociological could come from family, mass media and society (Kenyon, PhD, 2006). Sammons (2007) states that biological psychology

Fagot and Leinbach found that children who learn gender labels the earliest are those whose parents provide the most reinforcement for gender appropriate behaviour. This contradicts Kohlberg's idea of self socialisation by suggesting that reinforcement is relevant to gender development.

An eclectic use of both of these theories would enhance our understanding of gender development because it is important to understand that biology and socialization play a part in gender development. Hormones, sexual organs, culture, and society intertwine and make a child aware of his or her gender. A cognitive understanding does not suffice. For example, for parents who believe that culture, school, peers, and media influence their son or daughter to be transgender are incorrect. Both of these theories demonstrate that biologically their child was born with the awareness that they belong to a different sex; it is embedded in their chromosomes. Meanwhile, society simply enabled them to observe the gender roles and determine which gender they felt most comfortable in.

The concept of gender has a strong social impact on me. When I was born, I was immediately assigned to a biological sex as a female with two X chromosomes. I was then socially classified as a girl in the society with feminine gender roles. Gender is defined as a social principle which attribute to the roles and expectations of males and females through the years of different societies (Phillips, 2005). Gender can be considered as behavioural, cultural and psychological traits

Gender should not be intertwined with the term sex, which refers to the physical differences in individuals. Instead, gender is the idea of being male or female, and it is well understood by the time children reach the preschool years. Differences in gender become more pronounced as children age, and societal expectations are reinforced by parents and peers. Behavioral differences may be evident since parents may treat their child differently according to gender. A big example of this is how parents may react to a child’s first

Gender refers to the concepts o masculine and feminine whereas sex is the biological fact of being a male or female. According to the evolutionary approach, gender differences are neither deliberate nor conscious; they exist because they enhanced or helped men and women perform particular types of roles in the past. Therefore, the role differences we observe are more a product of our biological inheritance than acquired through socialisation.

The biggest question asked is how it comes around, however there is not a solid reasoning or proof of one main causal factor. According to Lippa, exposure to testosterone during the second trimester of pregnancy, when the development of both male internal and external genitals and a male-typical nervous system forms, may influence gender identity. (98) Brown counters this argument by saying the formation of a secure unconflicted gender identity and gender role is influenced by social factors, such as the character of parent’s emotional bond or the relationship each parent has with the child; he asserts that the biological factors (genetic complement or prenatal hormones) do largely determine gender identity however they do not act alone, more or less just setting the stage to go one way or the other.

They preferred male activities with male company and expressed more interest in a career than in having a family.” (G.C Davenport, ESSENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY, chapter five, page 116.) When a child is born their gender role (set of expectations to say how they should think, act, feel.) is based on their gender identity (sense of being male/female), which is usually based on what sex the child’s genitalia reflects. When we look at children who have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, it is interesting to see that some individuals develop in a feminine direction and acquire a sense of identity as female but others are brought up as males. The child’s upbringing was based purely on judgements about their genitals,

As evident from the generalized patterns found in differences in behaviour and outlook observed between the sexes, it may be tempting, as has been done in the past, to conclude that gender is an unavoidable aspect of human existence as determined purely from one 's genes. Indeed, human physiology is subject to sexual dimorphism; statistically significant differences in brain size and rate of maturation of specific substructures in the brain exist between males and females (Giedd, Castellanos, Rajapakese, Vaituzis, & Rapoport, 1997), yet these physical differences fail to explain how individuals form their concept of their own gender, and why they tend to conform to their perceived gender roles as defined by the society in which they live, when these roles are ever-changing. Thus, it is important to differentiate between the physical and nonphysical traits, and how the labels of femininity and masculinity should not confuse the two aspects. As defined by Unger (1979), “sex” would be used to refer to the biological differences in males and females, while “gender” describes socioculturally determined, nonphysiological traits which are arbitrarily designated as being appropriate for either females or males. With more recent awareness and interest in matters of gender nonconformity and individual gender identity, new research now explains how these concepts of gender are shaped by social influences (Perry

It is normally thought that gender is something that is developed at birth and is something that is set in stone. More recently in time, people have started to express that they feel that their gender identity is different and separate from their sex at birth. Egan and Perry are considered very important researchers in the field of gender identity and psychology. The two proposed that gender identity is multi-faceted and is made up of five different components that are generally independent of one another. The categories are as follows: knowing one belongs to one gender or another, how much they feel they belong to the category, how happy they are with that gender, how much pressure they feel to conform to gender stereotypes and how much they feel their sex is superior to the opposite (Carver, Yunger & Perry, 2003, p. 95). All of these relate to adjustment in different senses. Egan and Perry found that by middle childhood, most have a fairly stable idea of their standing on all of these categories. Their perception thrives most when they are confident in themselves and when they feel that they are not constricted in their freedom to explore other