psychodynamic explanation - gender development

• Freud's psychoanalytic theory (gender development)

  • during phallic stage - libido focused on genitals (3 - 6 years)
  • gender identity resolved through either Oedipus or Electra complex
• Oedipus complex (Freud)

  • boys desire mother at age 3/4
  • see father as rival for love and wishes death, anxiety and fear of castration - fears repressed
  • resolved when boy identifies with father - through identification father's gender identity is internalised
• Electra complex (Jung)

  • girl initially attracted to mother until realised has no penis, blames mother for lack of penis - penis envy
  • sexual desires transferred to father
  • resolved when penis envy converts to wish to have baby, less anger at mother - identification w mother

  resolution less satisfactory - freud believed identification less strong
• unresolved phallic stage

  • frustration and overindulgence may lead to fixation
  • genital stage fixation = phallic character afraid or not capable of lobe
  • freud claimed fixation could be root of amoral behaviour and homosexuality
• support from case studies

  Little Hans

  • fear of horses = interpreted as repression of desire for mother
  • resolution when hans identified with father and no longer feared castration

  Levin

  • 32 manic depression - 22 appeared to have unresolved electra complex

  BUT subjective interpretation, selective reporting, small sample = poor evidence
• child sexual awareness

  depends on child awareness of genitals

  • Bem reported many 3-5 yr didn't know what opposite sex genitalia looked like
  • would make complex impossible to develop

  can't say it's causal
• lacks predictive validity

  no evidence of children having difficulty w gender if no same sex parent

  • Patterson reports from review of research that sexual identities (including gender) develop in same in children of lesbian mothers as w heterosexual parents
  • children w gay parents have normal social relationships w peers and adults

  suggests not based on complexes
• gender bias

  feminists dismissed freuds idea of inferior female development

  • freud said he didn't really understand women
  • suggested by Lacan that penis envy is symbol of envy of male power in m dominated society
  • many objected to ides that children mentally sexually active

  theories may make more sense if taken symbolically