Theories about the Construction of Gender Identity

1. Biological Theory: emphasizes influence of genes and hormones

2. Psychodynamic Theories:

• Psychoanalytic: emphasizes inner psychic conflicts of children instead of external pressures—e.g. Freudian concepts of oedipal conflict and penis envy)
• Cognitive-Developmental: emphasizes stages of mental development—e.g. Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory that “children are almost inevitably led by their own cognitive processing to choose gender as the organizing principle for social rules that govern their own and their peers’ behavior” (Bem, Lenses of Gender 112)

3. External Theories: emphasize what culture does to the individual

• Socialization or Social-Learning Theory: emphasizes influence of differing “learning environments,” especially of children but sometimes of adults as well
  • imitation of models and examples they see in society
  • response to rewards for gender-appropriate behavior and criticism or punishment for gender-inappropriate behavior (from peers as well as adults)
• Gender-Schema Theory: merges cognitive-developmental with social-learning theory. Schemas are internal cognitive networks (shaped by socialization) that organize and guide individual perceptions; gender schemas are cognitive networks associated with concepts of masculine and feminine. Highly gender-schematic individuals tend to organize many of their thoughts, perceptions and evaluations according to gender stereotypes and symbols.
  • “Research shows that by 3 years old children have already begun to learn the figurative or metaphorical meanings of gender. . . . [C]hildren learn an underlying framework for understanding the nature of masculine and feminine that does not depend on the specific models having appeared in their environment” (Virginia Sapiro. Women in American Society: An Introduction to Women's Studies. 3rd ed. Mountain View: Mayfield, 1994. 83).
• Social-Structural or Situational Theories: emphasize structural constraints on children and adults (i.e., the fact that men and women are in different and unequal positions in the social structure)
  • conscious discrimination
  • unconscious discrimination: people may not be aware that they are discriminating or being discriminated against—it is quite difficult to prove that discrimination has occurred

4. Identity-Construction Theory: emphasizes the individual’s personal and conscious commitment to a specific image of self

5. Enculturated-Lens Theory: Sandra Bem’s theory, which includes all the above and also emphasizes the social and historical context containing the lenses of gender). There are two key enculturation processes that are constantly linked and working together:

• “the institutional preprogramming of the individual’s daily experience into the default options, or the historically precut ‘grooves,’ for that particular time and place” which differ markedly for men and women
• “the transmission of implicit lessons—or metamessages—about what lenses the culture uses to organize social reality,” including the idea that the distinction between male and female, masculine and feminine, is extremely important (Bem, Lenses of Gender 139)