Male and female gender constructs

1635 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role gender plays in society

Our cultural beliefs dictate that there are only two biological sexes corresponding to two genders (Newman, 2001). The male and female constructs often carry with them misconceptions and stereotypes, such as the belief that gender and sex are synonymous or that gender assigned at birth indicates a specific preference for toys, interest, clothes, and eventual erotic attraction (Newman, 2001). Males are expected to exhibit masculine personality traits and be attracted to women while females are expected to exhibit feminine personality traits and be attracted to men. Research in many countries reveals that stereotyping of personality traits increases steadily in middle adolescence, becoming adult like around age 11 (Berk, 2010). For example, children regard “tough”, “aggressive”, “rational”, and “dominant” as masculine and “gentle”, “sympathetic’, and “dependent” as feminine (Berk, 2011). Male and female gender constructs are considered the norm, and any other combination of biological sex, gender, and sexuality is commonly considered unnatural or pathological (Mintz, & O’ Neil, 1990; Newman, 2002).

Despite cultural beliefs, other gender and sexual role combinations are possible. A child whose biological sex is that of a typical female can have a gender identity of a boy and as an adult, this person may self-identify as transgender or transsexual and live as a man Newman, 2001(). On the other hand, a biological male can have a gender identity of a boy/man, be attracted to other men, and identify as gay (Newman, 2001). It is not necessary for people who feel attracted to others of the same gender to express any gender nonconformity (). Gay men can be comfortable in their male bodies and exhibit no gender variant behaviors, just as ...

... middle of paper ...

...dentity disorder: Treatment and post-transition care in transsexual adults. International Journal of STD and AIDS, 18, 147-150.

Gibson, B. & Catlin, A. ( 2011). Care of the child with the desire to change gender: Part 1. Urologic Nursing,31, 222-229.

Berk, L. (2010). Development through the lifespan. Allyn & Bacon: MA.

Vasey, P. & Bartlett, N. (2007). What can the samoan fa’afafine teach us about the western concept of gender identity disorder in childhood? Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 50, 481-490.

Mintz, L.B., & O’Neil, M. (1990). Gender roles, sex, and the process of psychotherapy: Many questions and few answers. Journal of Counseling and Development, 68, 381-387.

Newman, L.K. (2001). Sex, gender, and culture: Issues in the definition, assessment, and treatment of gender identity disorder. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 7, 352-359.

Show More
Related

  • The Pros And Cons Of Gender Dysphoria

    1262 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, keeping Gender Dysphoria as a diagnosis aids the most vulnerable population in seeking treatment and care, options, protection, and guidance. As society and medicine moves forward, we may be able to steer away from mental health bias and general discrimination towards non-conformity, but for now it is important to protect the patients who are helped by the diagnosis. Gender Dysphoria currently allows patients to be treated under their insurance, have access to care, and fight for their

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in Society

    2016 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).

    Read More

  • Gender Expression and Social Norms

    818 Words  | 2 Pages

    Therefore, the constrictive American ideals of male and female gender identities inhibits growth and acceptance of gender expression. Each gender is separated by rules and guidelines that they must abide by. This, in turn, creates inner tensions that inhibit personal growth. For males, this may be, or is, an extraordinarily arduous task. More often than not, it is other male figures, such as the father, that administer and enforce these certain rules.

    Read More

  • She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan

    1748 Words  | 4 Pages

    Egan, Susan K., and David G. Perry. "Gender Identity: A Multidimensional Analysis With Implications For Psychosocial Adjustment.." Developmental Psychology 37.4 (2001): 451-463. Print.

    Read More

  • Argumentatice Essay Gender Roles

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    ‘Boys will be boys’, a phrase coined to exonerate the entire male sex of loathsome acts past, present, and potential. But what about the female sex, if females act out of turn they are deemed ‘unladylike’ or something of the sort and scolded. This double standard for men and women dates back as far as the first civilizations and exists only because it is allowed to, because it is taught. Gender roles and cues are instilled in children far prior to any knowledge of the anatomy of the sexes. This knowledge is learned socially, culturally, it is not innate. And these characteristics can vary when the environment one is raised in differs from the norm. Child rearing and cultural factors play a large role in how individuals act and see themselves.

    Read More

  • Gender and Sex

    965 Words  | 2 Pages

    Biological factors (sex) and gender are correlated, but gender may or may not be caused by biological factors. Cherlin proposes four models of how gender is created: the biosocial model, the socialization model, the interactionist model and the patriarchic model. Only the first model, the “biosocial” model, allows for heredity and biological factors to play a role in determining gender. This model is based on the idea that biologically, men and women are predisposed to act a certain way “on average,” but also, that social factors play a strong role in determining whether biological tendencies prevail. According to this theory, biological differences account for only about a quarter of behavioral gender differences while social influences account for the remaining portion. Socialized traits are stronger than biological traits, and can eliminate biological traits, but biological tendencies are still important because it is a challenge for socialized traits to subdue biological traits. A good example of this is outlined in Ke...

    Read More

  • Gender Dysphoria In Children, Adolescents and Adults

    1986 Words  | 4 Pages

    According to the DSM-5, gender dysphoria is “the distress that may accompany the incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed gender and one’s assigned gender” (American Psychological Association, 2013). Even though studies have shown that not every individual suffers from distress, it is still possible that an individual might suffers from distress due to the hormonal treatment or surgical procedure(s). In the past, gender dysphoria has been referred to as “gender identity”. However, gender identity, by the DSM-IV definition is “a category of social identity and refers to an individual’s identification as male, female, or occasionally, some category other than male or female” (American Psychological Association, 2000). Individuals that identify themselves with another gender tend to change their sex, which has been proven to be a hard and long process.

    Read More

  • The Social Construction Of Gender

    1833 Words  | 4 Pages

    The terms sex, gender and sexuality relate with one another, however, sociologists had to distinguish these terms because it has it’s own individual meaning. Sex is the biological identity of a person when they are first born, like being a male or female. Gender is the socially learned behaviors and expectations associated with men and women like being masculine or feminine. Gender can differentiate like being a man, woman, transgender, intersex, etcetera. Sexuality refers to desire, sexual preference, and sexual identity and behavior (1). Sexuality can differentiate as well like being homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, etcetera. Like all social identities, gender is socially constructed. In the Social Construction of Gender, this theory shows

    Read More

  • Sex Roles and Gender Bias in Early Childhood Education

    2170 Words  | 5 Pages

    The research on sex role stereotyping is currently growing. There are many theories regarding its existence. Some attribute the sex roles to the media, literature and society, but it is a combination of all these factors. Despite the best of intentions by parents to not encourage the sex roles, at the time of kindergarten, children will demonstrate behaviors specific to their sex. It is believed that this phenomenon occurs because the children know that they are either a boy or a girl but are trying to figure out exactly what that means (Seid, 114).

    Read More

  • Gender, Sexual, And Gender Identity

    2006 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gender dysphoria was not really identified as disorder until the early 1960’s when the first Gender Identity clinic was established by Dr. Robert Stoller (Reicherzer, 2008). Stoller maintained a theory of core gender identity challenges that resembled an altered version of Freud and that was the libido is primarily masculine. Freud had the opinion that both girls and boys, starting at birth, associated themselves little boys and were only altered based on environmental influences (Peterson, 2014). Stoller’s inverse opinion against Freud was a precursor to studies of gender and sexual disorders all over. Stoller identified three main components that construct the core gender identity, being able to distinctively develop a sense of being male or female by the second year of life: establishing biological...

    Read More

  • Essay On Gender Stereotypes In Children

    537 Words  | 2 Pages

    The concept may seem so simple but it’s a very complex subject matter. With the recent resurgent of transgender, acceptances of what is indefinable gender is socially acceptable. Gender dysphoria formerly known as Gender Identity Disorder is a defined by strong, persistent feeling of identification with the opposite gender and feel discomfort with the assign sex. People with gender dysphoria live as members of the opposite sex by dress attire and mannerism. If a person identified as boy may feel and act like a girl. Several studies have tracked the president of gender dysphoria in children. Many research shows young children is highly unstable and likely to change. There is not predication of gender dysphoric in children. Some young children are highly unstable and likely to change because of social or parental influence. For the children that stay in gender dysphoric many are give hormone suppression before

    Read More

  • Gender Identity: A Child's Identity

    1898 Words  | 4 Pages

    As a child grows and conforms to the world around them they go through various stages, one of the most important and detrimental stages in childhood development is gender identity. The development of the meaning of a child’s sex and gender can form the whole future of that child’s identity as a person. This decision whether accidental or genetic can effect that child’s life style views and social interactions for the rest of their lives. Ranging from making friends in school all the way to intimate relationships later on in life, gender identity can become an important aspect to ones future endeavors.

    Read More

  • The Social Construction Of Gender

    3360 Words  | 7 Pages

    Gender is such a ubiquitous notion that humans assume gender is biological. However, gender is a notion that is made up in order to organize human life. It is created and recreated giving power to the dominant gender, creating an inferior gender and producing gender roles. There are many questionable perspectives such as how two genders are learned, how humans learn their own gender and others genders, how they learn to appropriately perform their gender and how gender roles are produced. In order to understand these perspectives, we must view gender as a social institution. Society bases gender on sex and applies a sex category to people in daily life by recognizing gender markers. Sex is the foundation to which gender is created. We must understand the difference between anatomical sex and gender in order to grasp the development of gender. First, I will be assessing existing perspectives on the social construction of gender. Next, I will analyze three case studies and explain how gender construction is applied in order to provide a clearer understanding of gender construction. Lastly, I will develop my own case study by analyzing the movie Mrs. Doubtfire and apply gender construction.

    Read More

  • Social Construction of Gender

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    Social Construction of Gender Today’s society plays a very important role in the construction of gender. Gender is a type of issue that has raised many questions over the years in defining and debating if both male and female are equal. Today, gender is constructed in four different ways. The The first way gender is defined is by the family in which a child is raised.

    Read More

  • Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

    3600 Words  | 8 Pages

    In order to discuss the biology of gender identity and sexual orientation, it is necessary to first examine the differences between multiple definitions that are often mistakenly interchanged: sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Sexual orientation is defined by LeVay (2011) as “the trait that predisposes us to experience sexual attraction to people of the same sex as ourselves, to persons of the other sex, or to both sexes” (p. 1). The typical categories of sexual orientation are homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual. Vrangalova and Savin-Williams (2012) found that most people identify as heterosexual, but there are also groups of people that identify as mostly heterosexual and mostly gay within the three traditional categories (p. 89). This is to say that there are not three concrete groups, but sexual orientation is a continuum and one can even fluctuate on it over time. LeVay (2011) also defines gender as “the ...

    Read More

More about Male and female gender constructs

Open Document