Gender Identity - Stratification Sociology - Lecture Slides, Slides of Sociology

Download Gender Identity - Stratification Sociology - Lecture Slides and more Slides Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! Gender Identity Where does it come from? docsity.com Basic Concepts • Sex - biological distinction between females and males - sex characteristics include chromosomes, anatomy, hormones, and other physical traits • Gender - social and psychological characteristics associated with being male or female • Gender identity - perception of self as a woman or man, masculine or feminine docsity.com • Think about continuums rather than dichotomies - e.g., Kinsey sex scale • Think about femininities and masculinities instead of Femininity and Masculinity - what is considered feminine or masculine may vary over time or place - gender identity combines with other identities—race, class, sexuality—to produce different femininities/masculinities docsity.com Theories of Gender Identity: Biological Determinism • Hormonal Influences - during gestation, the level of androgens (male hormones like testosterone) determines whether a fetus develops into a female or male - some scientists assert that androgen levels also cause brains to be organized differently, producing behavioral differences later in life docsity.com • Ehrhardt, 1985 - girls exposed to abnormally high levels of androgens during gestation showed greater interest in physical activity and less in dolls - boys exposed to high levels of female sex hormones were less interested in physical activity and played more with dolls docsity.com Psychoanalytic Approach • Stresses unconscious mental processes (internalization) and early caregiving • Infants become attached to and identify with their first caretaker • Boys soon realize that they are different from their mothers and must establish a male identity docsity.com • Boys try to transfer their attachment and identity to their fathers, but instead distance themselves from their mothers • Girls have no need to put boundaries around their gender identities, and maintain their attachment to their mothers • “The basic feminine sense of self is connected to the world, the basic masculine sense of self is separate (Chodorow, 1978).” • This process will only change if men are as involved in parenting as women docsity.com • But: - psychoanalytic approach criticized for reliance on clinical case histories - case histories do not constitute a sample that is representative of the population - individuals who seek psychotherapy are likely to be more troubled than other people docsity.com Parental Socialization • Parents are a primary socializing agent, especially when children are young • Starting at birth, parents treat girls and boys differently, and believe them to possess different characteristics docsity.com • Rubin, Provenzano, and Luria, 1974 - in the first 24 hours after birth, parents described girls and boys differently, though there were no actual differences between them • Jacklin, 1984 - parents give sons toys that encourage invention and manipulation, while girls receive toys that emphasize caring and imitation • McHale et al., 1990 - parents assign boys maintenance chores, and give girls domestic tasks docsity.com Media Influences • Messages about gendered behavior and interactions are also conveyed through television, movies, magazines, and books • On average, each day a 4-year-old watches 2 hours of television and a 12-year-old watches 4 hours (Comstock and Scharrer, 2001) • Some European nations ban ads before, during, and after children’s television programming docsity.com Peer Groups • Between the ages of two and three, children sort themselves into same-sex peer groups - this sorting creates social distance between girls and boys, and reinforces gender stereotypes and gender-typed play - within groups, children learn the behaviors expected of them, try out these behaviors with peers, get feedback, and try again docsity.com Continual Construction of Gender • Gender is maintained and reinforced through everyday interaction and social performance • “Gender is not a set of traits, nor a role, but the product of social doings of some sort (West and Zimmerman, 1987)” • Interactions reflect ideas about gender roles, and ideas about gender reflect interactions docsity.com