Sex and gender

Sex identity vs gender identity

Sex is a biological term....hormones and chromosomes dictate this. Sex is male or female. Gender is a psychological term....attitudes and behaviour dictate this. Gender is masculine or feminine. For most people this matches. Sex identity is the same in all cultures. Gender identity changes across cultures Gender identity disorder describes people who have strong feelings of being born with the wrong gender.

Psychodynamic theory of gender development

Free association was used by Freud to explore the unconscious mind Saying the first word you think of after hearing another word helps unlock the mind He felt development was in 5 stages; Oral, Genital, Phallic, Latent and ? In the Phallic stage the Oedipus and Electra complex occurs and links to gender development This involves a process called identification.

Freud

He used a case study known as Little Hans.His aim was to investigate his phobia.The father of Hans wrote to tell Freud about Hans development.At 4 Hans developed a phobia of horses. He was very frightened of white horses with black mouths and feared they might bite him or fall down.Freud linked this to the Oedipus complex.He sexually desired his mother, feared his father as a rival and feared castration.He had displaced the fear onto horses.The black mouth represented his fathers black beard, the biting castration and falling down was the desire to see his father dead.

Electra complex

The girl is unconsciously attracted to her father, worries her mother will realise and cannot fear castration because that has already occurred. She fears losing her mothers love which is in conflict with her feelings for her father. To resolve this she identifies with her mother and behaves like her.

Gender development (lone parent)

Single parents bring up children with a disturbed or poorly developed gender identity.This is due to the lack of Oedipus/Electra.A boy without a father will not develop masculine traits and Freud said the boy would become homosexual.Gender identity will be a problem.Gender disturbance is not developing the gender identity associated with ones sex.

Carl

Rekers (1974) describe Carl who was 8 and had a gender identity problem. He had a feminine voice and liked dresses, cosmetics and babies as topics. He played with girls by choice and also his sister.  He would fall ill (or pretend to be) when asked to play with boys. Carl lived with his mother.

Rekers and Moray

Aim: Is there a link between gender disturbance and family background?Method: 46 boys with gender disturbance were rated on gender behaviour and gender identity. Their family was also investigated.Results: 75% of the most severely disturbed had neither a biological father or substitute living with them.Conclusion: Lack of a father figure in childhood can be linked to problems with gender identity.

Evaluation 

Freud ideas are difficult to test. Although there has been a rise in single parent families there has not been a corresponding rise in the homosexual population as predicted by Freud. Little Hans cannot be generalised and there is no evidence of either the Electra or Oedipus complex.