psychodynamic - gender development

• Oedipus complex

  Freud's explanation of how a boy resolves his love for his mother and feelings of rivalry towards his father by identifying with his father
• Electra complex

  A term proposed by the neo-Freudian Carl Jung which refers to a process similar to the Oedipus complex. In girls, an attraction to and envy of their father is resolved through identification with their mother
• Identification

  A desire to be associated with a particular person or group often because the person/group possesses certain desirable characteristics
• Internalisation

  An individual adopts the attitudes and/or behaviour of another
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory - Pre-phallic children

  • 5 biologically-driven psychosexual stages
  • OAPLG
  • phallic stage - gender development occurs between 3-6
  • prior to this children have no concept of gender identity - dont categorise themselves
  • phallic stage focus of pleasure for child switches to the genitals
  • experience Oedipus complex or electra complex
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory - Oedipus complex

  • phallic stage - boys develop incestuous feelings towards their mother
  • harbour a jealous and murderous hatred for their father
  • boy recognises fathers power - fears he will be castrated
  • castration anxiety
  • to resolve conflict boy gives up love for his mother and identifies with father
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory - Electra complex

  • phallic stage - girls experience penis envy
  • mother as competition for their father's love
  • double-resentment towards mother - blamed for having no penis and standing in the way of father
  • Jung - girls over time accept they won't have a penis and substitute penis envy with desire to have children - identify with mother
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory - identification and internalisation

  • children of both sexes identity with the same-gender parent as a means of resolving their respective complexes
  • children take on board the gender identity of the same-gender parent - internalisation
  • boys and girls receive a second-hand gender identity all at once at the end of phallic stage
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory - Little Hans

  • 5-year-old boy with a morbid fear of being bitten by a horse
  • stemmed form an incident when he had seen a horse collapse and die in the street
  • represented his fear of castration
  • Hans had transferred his fear of his father onto horses via the unconscious defence mechanism of displacement
• AO3 - Oedipus complex - strength

  P: support for the role of the oedipus complex in gender development

  E: Rekers and Morey - rated gender identity of 49 boys 3-11 based on intervies with families and boys

  • gender disturbed children - 75% had no father living with them

  E: supports Freuds explanation that for boys normal gender development depends on being raised by at least one male parent

  L: As it suggests that being raised with no father may have a negative impact upon gender identity
• AO3 - Freud's psychoanalytic theory - limitation

  P: inadequate account of women's development

  E: Freud admitted women were a mystery to him - notion of penis envy reflected the androcentric Victorian era - men held power

  E: Horney - a more powerful emotion than penis envy is men's experience of womb envy - women's ability to nurture and sustain life

  • penis envy was a result of cultural rather than biological factors

  L: challenges idea that women's gender development is founded on a desire to be like a man - androcentric bias
• AO3 - Freud's psychoanalytic theory - Limitation

  P: lacks scientific credibility

  E: Many of his concepts are untestable (penis envy) - unconscious

  • other explanations of gender are based on objective, verifiable evidence derived from controlled lab studies

  E: Popper - Freuds theory is pseudoscientific - cannot be falsified

  L: questions the validity of Freud's theory - not based on sound scientific evidence