When I first read The Wasp Factory some 20 years ago, I was struck by this satire of the social and scientific construction of gender: the hero, a woman, who believes herself to be a man, acts out an hyper-male identity centered on the soldier-hero, over-the-top violence (Banks, 1984). This confronted for the first time my belief that gender was anchored in biological sex and immutable.
Having embarked on a psychotherapy course, I started exploring my difficulties maintaining boundaries in the therapy room, originally through an analysis of my intrapsychic processes, those of my clients, and how they met in the room. This lead me to refocus my reflective enquiry question on our power struggle and the possible impact gender might have on the
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The child needs his father to break into the intense relationship of the mother-infant, providing them with access to the external world and reality (Chasseguet-Smirgel, 1981; Benjamin, 1988, Maguire, 2004; Lichtenberg, 2007). Benjamin 's Bonds of Love (1988) examines the power play between genders through the lenses of domination and submission: when sides cannot be integrated, one side is devalued and the other is idealised, hence splitting occurs.
Expanding on Chodorow analysis of the mother-daughter relationship using Hegel’s master-slave dialectic (Hegel, 1801, cited in Benjamin, 1988) and Winnicott’s transitional space and theory of destruction (Winnicott, 1974, cited in Benjamin, 1988), Benjamin commits to moving beyond a model of internalisation to a truly intersubjective one involving two subjects. She explains how the child needs to achieve independence and be recognised as independent, paradoxically by the people she is the most dependent on. True independence means sustaining the essential tension of these contradictory impulses; that is both asserting the self and recognising the other. Domination is the consequence of refusing this condition, beginning with an attempt at denying dependency, an inability to relinquish omnipotence, an alienated form of differentiation happening in the relationship and missed by intrapsychic
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Both gender children need to differentiate first in their relation to a woman. She quotes Stoller 's work on development and disruption of gender identification and the fact that male identification (to the father) is a secondary phenomenon achieved by overcoming the primary identification with the mother (Stoller, 1968, cited in Benjamin,
In today’s society, it can be argued that the choice of being male or female is up to others more than you. A child’s appearance, beliefs and emotions are controlled until they have completely understood what they were “born to be.” In the article Learning to Be Gendered, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell- Ginet speaks out on how we are influenced to differentiate ourselves through gender. It starts with our parents, creating our appearances, names and behaviors and distinguishing them into a male or female thing. Eventually, we grow to continue this action on our own by watching our peers. From personal experience, a child cannot freely choose the gender that suits them best unless our society approves.
The role of a father is more than just another parent at home (Popenoe, 1996). Having a father, the male biological parent in a child’s life is important because it brings a different type of parenting that cannot be replicated by anyone else (Stanton, 2010). Fathers who are present and active in a child’s life provide great benefits to a developing child (Popenoe, 1996). Having a father brings a different kind of love. The love of the father is more expectant and instrumental, different from the love of a mother (Stanton, as cited in Pruett, 1987).
The Chrysis Ignita (Kris-is Ig-nee-ta), more commonly known as the ruby-tailed wasp or the “cuckoo wasp” is a wasp found commonly in the U.K., usually from April to September. The ruby-tailed wasp is a threatened (and endangered) species, making it rare.
In the stage of gender stability children are able to indicate that a gender remains the same throughout time and therefore, children start to realise that they will be male or female for the rest of their lives. Nevertheless, their understanding of gender i...
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
There are many different facets to the nature versus nurture argument that has been going on for decades. One of these, the influence of nature and nurture on gender roles and behaviors, is argued well by both Deborah Blum and Aaron Devor, both of whom believe that society plays a large role in determining gender. I, however, have a tendency to agree with Blum that biology and society both share responsibility for these behaviors. The real question is not whether gender expression is a result of nature or nurture, but how much of a role each of these plays.
It is not an easy task for a child to understand the obligations that accompany their assigned gender, yet while they encounter difficulties processing these thoughts they are also achieving a greater sense of identity. Different stages of life consist of social rules that encode how one is to behave, however, it is not clearly defined when the transition should occur from young girl to young woman. It is not surprising that learning about gender roles and their associated responsibilities is not an easy part of a young child’s maturation and is often the result of a very emotionally charged collection of experiences.
An infant’s initial contact with the world and their exploration of life is directly through the parent/ primary caregiver. As the child grows, learns, and develops, a certain attachment relationship forms between them and the principle adult present in this process. Moreover, this attachment holds huge implications concerning the child’s future relationships and social successes. Children trust that their parental figure will be there; as a result, children whom form proper attachments internalize an image of their world as stable, safe, and secure. These children will grow independent while at the same time maintaining a connection with their caregivers. (Day, 2006). However, when a child f...
From the time their children are babies, parents treat sons and daughters differently, dressing infants in gender-specific colors, giving gender-differentiated toys, and expecting differe...
As we discuss the articles of Anne Fausto- Streling, “The Five Sexes, Revisited” and Marjorie Garber, “The Return to Biology” in class we came to see how these two articles could bring up such controversy. As they question our perspective on human nature as we have always known it to be, from “The Five Sexes, Revisited” stating “absolute dimorphism disintegrates even at the level of basic biology” (176), to “The Return of Biology” saying “Society mandates the control of intersexual bodies because they blur and bridge the great divide” (184). We see many different aspects on how human biology or culture is more than what meets the eye. All I can begin to say is everything we, as the human species, do revolves around dimorphism no matter the questions or contradictions that may arise. The idea that only two sexes exist is still firmly maintained in our society as how things are suppose to be aka the “norm”.
The above quote is the response of the Financial Times to the best-selling novel, “The Wasp Factory”, and in my opinion, truer words were never spoken. I myself had to force the book out of my hands in the early hours of the morning on several occasions. This clearly says something about the sheer power of Iain Bank’s debut novel. Whether you love it or hate it, once you have read the first page you are instantly struck by it’s brilliance. Throughout this essay, I intend to explore the mind and characteristics of the main character, Frank Cauldhame.
Kohlberg defined the steps in gender role development to three steps. The first step, the kids (ages 1-3) begin learn their gender identity by their parents (adult) education. In this step also Kohlberg mentioned that the kids know their gender by observations of sex differences. As Kohlberg says “ they categorize themselves as a boy or a girl during this period” (Bergen 2008, p. 153). Teaching kids in early periods of their life makes them more receptive to their identity, even their knowing about their gender still changeable.
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.
Even before birth a mother and child share a special bond. This bond is like no other, for it is miracle to have a baby growing inside your body. The feelings that emerge with this miracle are too strong for words. After birth, the bond develops into a greater emotional and physical bond. The child will spend much of his or her time learning in the first years of life with the mother, who is usually the primary caregiver. Much of what the children learn from their mother will effect their whole life. Through the processes of social learning and modeling the child will learn his or her values, social roles, social identity and gender identity from their mother. Gender identity development is related to the emotional relationships that develop between children and their mothers (Chodorow).
Society has stamped an image into the minds of people of how the role of each gender should be played out. There are two recognized types of gender, a man and a woman, however there are many types of gender roles a man or a woman may assume or be placed into by society. The ideas of how one should act and behave are often times ascribed by their gender by society, but these ascribed statuses and roles are sometimes un-welcomed, and people will assume who they want to be as individuals by going against the stereotypes set forth by society. This paper will examine these roles in terms of how society sees men and women stereotypically, and how men and women view themselves and each other in terms of stereotypes that are typically ascribed, as well as their own opinions with a survey administered to ten individuals. What I hope to prove is that despite stereotypes playing a predominant role within our society, and thus influencing what people believe about each other in terms of their same and opposite genders, people within our society are able to go against these ascribed stereotypes and be who they want and it be okay. Through use of the survey and my own personal history dealing with gender stereotyping I think I can give a clear idea as to how stereotypes envelope our society, and how people and breaking free from those stereotypes to be more individualistic.