psychodynamic explanation of gender development

• all children mature through the same stages and each stage is characterised by a conflict

  1. oral
  2. anal
  3. phallic
  4. latency
  5. genital
• freud suggested that children's perception of gender identity develops in the phallic stage, but before this they were considered 'bisexual' because they didnt identity with either gender
• in the phallic stage, the focus of pleasure for the child switches to the genitals and they either experience the oedipus or electra complex
• oedipus complex


  boys develop incestuous feelings towards their mum and harbours murderous hatred for their dad who stands in the way of the boy possessing his mum
• oedipus complex


  boy recognises that his dad is more powerful than he is and fears that he may be castrated for his feelings for his mum

  • to resolve this conflict, the boy gives up his love for his mum and begins to identify with his dad (identification with the aggression)
• electra complex


  girls experience penis envy and see themselves and their mum as being in competition for the dad's love

  • they develop a double resentment for the mum for being a 'rival' standing in the way of the dad's love and blaming them for their lack of a penis
• electra complex


  carl jung suggested that over time girls come to accept that they will never have a penis and substitute penis envy for the desire to have children, identifying with their mums
• children of both genders identify (identification) with the same-sex parent by adopting their values and attitudes (internalisation) as a means of resolving their respective complexes

  • boys and girls then receive a 'second hand' gender identity all at once at the end of the phallic stage
• little hans - freud's evidence for the existence of the oedipus complex


  a 5 year old boy with a morbid fear of horses which may have stemmed from seeing a horse die in the street .

  freud's interpretation was that hans' fear of being bitten represented his fear of castration and his fear was transferred from his father to the horses through an unconscious defence mechanism of displacement
• ✔️ freud’s theory implies that sons of harsh fathers should go on to develop a more robust sense of gender identity because higher levels of anxiety should produce stronger identification with the aggressor
• X blakemore and hill - evidence doesn’t support freud’s interpretation that higher levels of anxiety produce stronger identification as boys with more liberal fathers tends to be more secure in their masculine identity
• X inadequate account of female development - freud admitted that women were a mystery to him and his notion of penis envy has been criticised as reflecting the patriarchal victorian era that he lived in
• X female gender development was founded on a desire to want to be like men - androcentric assumption
• X horney argues that penis envy is the male experience of womb envy - a reaction to women’s ability to nurture and sustain life
• horney - penis envy is a cultural concept and not innate and challenged the idea that women have a desire to be like men
• X freud’s theory relies on the child having 2 parents of different genders to be able to manage the complexes effectively - having a non nuclear family would then affect a child’s gender development
• X no evidence to support that having a non NF affects gender development as Golombok demonstrates how lone parent families went on to develop normal gender identities
• X no evidence to support that having a non NF affects gender development as Green studied a sample of 37 children who were raised by gay or trans parents and found that only one had a gender identity that was described as ’non typical’
• X freud’s theory is pseudoscientific as his key ideas can’t be falsified and proved wrong through scientific testing according to popper
• X contrasts kohlbergs theory that the child‘s concept of gender develops gradually across a sequence of stages coinciding with cognitive capacity as freud argues gender identity is formed at the end of the phallic stage when the child identifies with the same sex parent