Gender Development

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Gender Development

• Psychoanalytic Approach

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Psychosexual Theory

• Sigmund Freud circa 1933
• Described 3 structures of the personality id,
  ego, superego
• Also identified 3 domains of consciousness
  preconscious, unconscious, and conscious mind.

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2 major instincts provide drives

• Life, or the sexual instinct or drive
• Death, aggressive instinct or drive
• Known in Greek as Eros and Thanatos

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3 Parts to the Mind

• Conscious-small part
• Preconscious-some thoughts stored just below the
  surface
• Unconscious-thoughts, feelings, memories that we
  repress

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3 Parts to Mind-1.Id

• ID
• most primitive part of mind
• wants to satisfy basic biological urges
• operates on the pleasure principle
• Completely unconscious

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Ego

• Reality Principle
• tries to satisfy urges of Id
• Executive of Personality
• Seeks to make rational decisions
• Partly conscious

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Superego

• Internalized rules of parents society
• Two parts
• conscience
• ego ideal
• Constrains beh based on morality
• Partly conscious, partly unconscious

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Freuds psychosexual theory

• Ended in adolescence but he thought
• Personality dynamics set by 6 or 7
• Basic issues of personality set by adolescence
• Childhood mostly explains adult behavior

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Oral Stage 0-1 yr

• Babies experience sexual gratification from
  sucking, eating, etc.
• Each stage is based on where one experiences
  pleasure

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Anal stage 1-3

• Pleasure centered on anus
• Pleasure from excretory functions
• Frustration from toilet training

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Phallic Stage Age 3 - 6

• Oh ohsome dont have a phallus
• Different paths for girls and boys from here on
  in

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Latency stage Age 7-12

• Resolve Oedipus complex first
• We put the sexual activity in park for awhile
• Ends at puberty

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Genital Stage-Adolescence

• Pleasure from genitals in the appropriate way by
  having sex
• Masturbation immature
• So is clitoral orgasmmust be vaginal

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Oedipus Complex-boys only

• Boy develops sexual longing for mom
• Boy hates, fears, is jealous of dad
• Recognizes Dad is a lot bigger than he is

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Wisely decide to identify with Dad

• Deny sexual feelings for mom
• No longer compete w/ Dad
• And also figure women are mutilated, inferior
  beings
• Thus ends the Oedipal complex

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Girls have different path

• In phallic stage, notice boys have a phallus
• Develop penis envy
• Immediately we are envious of the penis

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So..we want Dad

• Want to have babies as substitute for penis
• Supposed to resolve this best when we have a son

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Superego (reprise)

• Develops as boys resolve Oedipus
• Have stronger superegos than girls
• Girls remain underdeveloped morally

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Freuds Time

• He called masturbation immature
• Others calling it By far the worst form of
  venereal indulgence is self-pollution.
• Termed the corruption of youth, a debasing sin,
  and so on.

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Onanism

• Caused the nerves to be tortured into a diseased
  irritability and sensibility caused them to
  deteriorate. Could lead to numbness of limbs.
• Lose sense of taste, sense of smell, hearing, and
  vision (the worst sufferer)

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Passion in Women

• The best mothers, wives, and managers of
  households know little or nothing of the sexual
  pleasure. Love of home, children, and domestic
  duties are the only passions they feel. As a
  rule, the modest woman submits only to

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continued

• her husband, but only to please him and, but for
  the desire for maternity, would far rather be
  relieved from his attentions. p. 162 Eugenics
  by Shannon.

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Karen Horney

• Studied with Freuds associates
• Decided girls envied boys superior social status,
  not actual organs
• Decided men envied women their power to give
  birth (womb envy)

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Why did Freud go wrong?

• Probably Victorian denial that his patients could
  have been seduced by dad
• Therefore, a fantasy on their parts

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Seduction theory

• Was mostly given up
• Replaced with children fantasizing about sex with
  parent
• F then presented patients as being unable to
  distinguish fantasy from reality

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Chodrows Feminist Psychoanalytic Theory

• Children develop sense of self
• Need to separate from mom
• Events differ for boys/girls in this path

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Nancy ChodrowBoys Girls

• Need to separate from mom
• Need new identity
• Reject all thats feminine

• Already id w/ mom
• Maintain that
• Add their own

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Some confirmations

• Women remain closer to their moms as adults than
  men
• Worldwide boys denigrate women