"Theories and Views on gender"

Gender symbolic interactionism - is the argument that gender develops through how people behave
with each other. For example, a person may have biologically male genitals, but wear women's
clothing. This person may be seen as having a feminine gender in symbolic interactionism.

Cognitive development theory - The cognitive development approach to gender, pioneered by

Lawrence Kohlberg, contends that children's ideas about gender develop in a stage-like manner. That
is, as children gain knowledge of the gendered world around them, their thinking about gender
changes in qualitative ways.

Gender schema theory -

was introduced by psychologist Sandra Bem in 1981 and asserted that children learn about male and
female roles from the culture in which they live. According to the theory, children adjust their behavior
to align with the gender norms of their culture from the earliest stages of social development.

The functionalist perspective - assumed that men and women had different roles and positions in
society, much of which was determined by inherent biological differences. The variability hypothesis
was developed by Havelock Ellis and suggested that men had a greater variability in their abilities
compared to women. Functionalists argue that men and women have separate roles that are based on
biological differences and that these roles contribute to the smooth-running of society. -Functionalists
suggest that because women give birth and nurse children, it is only natural that they will care for their
children.

Conflict theory - argues that gender is best understood as men attempting to maintain power and
privilege to the detriment of women. Therefore, men can be seen as the dominant group and women as
the subordinate group.

Gender theory - is the study of what is understood as masculine and/or feminine and/or queer behavior
in any given context, community, society, or field of study (including, but not limited to, literature,
history, sociology, education, applied linguistics, religion, health sciences, philosophy, cultural studies).
The term sex refers to categories of the biologically observable human body, female and male or
intersex (i.e., nature), while the term gender refers to the categories of social expectations, roles, and
behaviors, feminine and masculine (i.e., what is nurtured).

” Stages of gender development”

According to Kohlberg, these are the stages of gender development,

Gender Identity
is each person’s internal and individual experience of gender. It is a person’s sense of being a woman,
a man, both, neither, nor anywhere along the gender spectrum. A person’s gender identity may be
the same as or different from their birth-assigned sex.

Gender stability
occurs when children start to recognize their gender identity doesn't change as time passes and
they start to accept their gender roles. For example, in the United States, (most) girls learn they need
to play with dolls while (most) boys learn they should love big trucks and toy cars.

Gender Constancy
is analogous to Piaget's concept of conservation of physical properties in that gender constancy the
theory that children develop a sense of gender over time and eventually come to understand that
their biological sex is fixed and permanent.

Biological Theory
proposes that there is no difference between sex and gender.
Gender socialization
is the process of teaching members of society how to behave according to gender expectations, or
gender roles.

Neurophysiological theory-
This theory outlined the function of the brain in higher organisms in their interaction with the
changing environmental contingencies

Gender theorist and their contributions

1. Sigmund Freud
- Freud contended that boys and girls acquire gender identity by learning to negotiate desires for the
opposite sex parent and by eventually identifying with the same-sex parent.
2. Jaques Lacan
- the gender identity of a subject is fashioned by the function of the semblance and not by its fate-given
anatomy
3. Julia Kristeva
- a child's sexual identity is formed through a struggle to separate from its mother's body.
4. Sandra Bem
- asserted that children learn about male and female roles from the culture in which they live. Children
adjust their behavior to align with the gender norms of their culture from the earliest stages of social
development.
5. Pavlov
- outlined a neurophysiological theory as the physiological basis of his theory of higher nervous
activity.