The Gender 1

Schema

Sandra Bem

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 Gender schema theory was introduced by psychologist Sandra Bem
in Definition of 1981 and asserted that children learn about male and female roles from the
culture in which they live. According to the theory, children adjust the
Gender behavior to align with the gender norms of their culture from the earliest
stages of social development.
Schema Bem’s theory was influenced by the cognitive revolution ﾧ of
the 1960s and 1970s as well as her desire to remedy what she
believed to be
shortcomings in the psychoanalytic and social learning theories of the time.
Freudian theories ﾧ, she suggested, were too focused on the influence of
anatomy on gender development. Instead, Bern proposed that a child’s
cognitive development combined with societal influences largely influence
the patterns of thought (schema ﾧ) that dictate "male" and "female" traits.

Gender schemas have an impact not only on how people process

in Cultural formation but on the attitudes and beliefs that direct "gender-appropriate"
Behavior. For example, a child who lives in a very traditional culture might
Influences be that a woman’s role is in the caring and raising of children, while a man’s
role is in work and industry. Through these observations, children form
On Gender schema related to what men and women can and cannot do.
It also dictates a person's value and potential in that culture. For
Schema
Exampl a girl raised in a traditional culture might believe that the only path
available to her as a woman is to get married and raise kids. By contrast, a
girl raised in a more progressive culture might pursue a career, avoid having
children, or decide not to get married.
Many of these influences are overt, while others are more subtle. For
instance, even the placement of gender titles in vocabulary ("how men and
women are meant to behave") inherently places women in a secondary
position by rule. All of these influences add up to how gender schema is
Formed.

Within this construct, men and women are tacitly aware of the
Consequences consequences of not adhering to the cultural norm. A woman who decides
to pursue a career, for example, might be considered "uppity" in a
Of traditional culture or be considered "unfair" or "disrespectful" to her
husband if she doesn't take his last name.
Noncomformity On the flip side, even in more progressive societies, men may be subject to
disapproval for being the stay-at-home parent, while a woman may be
described as "old-fashioned" or "backward" if she adheres to a more
traditional "housewife" role. When subjected to societal disapproval,
people will often feel pressured to alter their behavior or face rejection by
those who disapprove of them.

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 According to Bern's theory, people fall into one of four different gender
Gender categories:
Categories - Sex-typed individuals are those who identify with their gender and process
information through the lens of that gender schema.

- Cross-typed individuals process information through the lens of the opposite

gender.

- Androgynous individuals exhibit both masculine and feminine thinking.

- Undifferentiated individuals ﾧ do not show a consistent use of sex-typed

processing.

Rationale and In her writings, Bem believed that gender schemas were limiting for men,
women, and society as a whole. Raising children free from these
Criticism stereotypes and limitations, she believed, would lead to greater freedom and
fewer restrictions of free will. Critics of Bem's theory say that she portrayed
individuals simply as passive bystanders in the development of
gender schemas and ignored the complex forces that contribute to the
construction of gender.
In addition to the gender schema theory, Bem created a questionnaire
known as the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BRSI). The inventory consists of 60
different words that are either masculine, feminine, or gender neutral.
When taking the test, respondents are asked to rate how strongly they
identify with each characteristic. Rather than simply categorize people as
masculine or feminine, the inventory presents both traits as part of a continuum.
Individuals can rank high on one gender or low on another (sex-typed) or,
alternately, rank high on both masculine and feminine traits (androgynous).
The BSRI was first developed in 1974 and has since become one of the
most widely used psychological assessment tools in the world.

Cognitive 2
Development
Theory

3
Jean Piaget

4
 Definition of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development
suggests that children move through four different stages
Cognitive of mental development. His theory focuses not only on
understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also
Development on understanding the nature of intelligence. Piaget's stages
are:
Theory
 Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years
 Preoperational stage: ages 2 to 7
 Concrete operational stage: ages 7 to 11
 Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up

Piaget believed that children take an active role in the learning process,
acting much like little scientists as they perform experiments, make
observations, and learn about the world. As kids interact with the world around
them, they continually add new knowledge, build upon existing knowledge,
and adapt previously held ideas to accommodate new information.

Piaget ﾧ was born in Switzerland in the late

How Piaget 1800s and was a precocious student, publishing his
first scientific paper when he was just 11 years old.
Developed His early exposure to the intellectual development
the of children came when he worked as an assistant
Theory to Alfred Binet ﾧ and Theodore Simon as they
worked to standardize their famous IQ test ﾧ.
Much of Piaget's interest in the cognitive
development of children was inspired by his observations of his own nephew
and daughter. These observations reinforced his budding hypothesis that
children's minds were not merely smaller versions of adult minds. Up until this
point in history, children were largely treated simply as smaller versions of
adults. Piaget was one of the first to identify that the way that children think is
different from the way adults think. Instead, he proposed, intelligence is
something that grows and develops through a series of stages. Older children
do not just think more quickly than younger children, he suggested. Instead,
there are both qualitative and quantitative differences between the thinking of
young children versus older children.
Based on his observations, he concluded that children were not less
intelligent than adults, they simply think differently. Albert Einstein called
Piaget's discovery "so simple only a genius could have thought of it."
Piaget's stage theory describes the cognitive development of children.ﾧ
Cognitive development involves changes in cognitive process and abilities. In
Piaget's view, early cognitive development involves processes based upon
actions and later progresses to changes in mental operations.The Stages.
Through his observations of his children, Piaget developed a stage
theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages:

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The Sensorimotor Stage
Ages: Birth to 2 Years
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:
The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations.
Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking,
grasping, looking, and listening.
Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be
seen (object permanence).
They are separate beings from the people and objects around them.
They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world
around them.

The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

The Preoperational Stage
Ages: 2 to 7 Years
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:
Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and
pictures to represent objects.
Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things
from the perspective of others.
While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend
to think about things in very concrete terms.

Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development in Young Children

The Concrete Operational Stage
Ages: 7 to 11 Years
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes
During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete
events.

The Concrete Operational Stage in Cognitive Development ﾧ

The Formal Operational Stage
Ages: 12 and Up
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

To better understand some of the things that happen during cognitive
development, it is important first to examine a few of the important ideas and
concepts introduced by Piaget.
The following are some of the factors that influence how children learn
and grow:

Schemas
A schema describes both the mental and physical actions involved in

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 understanding and knowing. Schemas are categories of knowledge that help us
to interpret and understand the world.

In Piaget's view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the

process of obtaining that knowledge. As experiences happen, this new
information is used to modify, add to, or change previously existing schemas.

Assimilation
The process of taking in new information into our already existing schemas is
known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective because we tend to
modify experiences and information slightly to fit in with our preexisting beliefs.
In the example above, seeing a dog and labeling it "dog" is a case of

Accommodation
Another part of adaptation involves changing or altering our existing schemas
in light of new information, a process known as accommodation. Accommodation
involves modifying existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or
new experiences. New schemas may also be developed during this process.

Equilibration
Piaget believed that all children try to strike a balance between assimilation and
accommodation, which is achieved through a mechanism Piaget called
equilibration. As children progress through the stages of cognitive development, it
is important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge
(assimilation) and changing behavior to account for new knowledge
(accommodation). Equilibration helps explain how children can move from one
stage of thought to the next.

Psychosexual 3
Stages of
Development

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Sigmund Freud

Definition of According to the famous psychoanalyst

Sigmund Freud ﾧ , children go through a
Psychosexuaal series of psychosexual stages that lead to the
development of the adult personality. His
Development theory described how personality developed
over the course of childhood. While the
theory is well-known in psychology, it has
always been quite controversial, both during Freud's time and in modern
psychology.

Freud believed that personality developed through a series of childhood stages

in which the pleasure-seeking energies of the id ﾧ become focused on certain
erogenous areas. An erogenous zone is characterized as an area of the body that is
particularly sensitive to stimulation. During the five psychosexual stages, which
are the oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital stages, the erogenous zone associated
with each stage serves as a source of pleasure.This psychosexual energy, or libido
ﾧ, was described as the driving force behind behavior.

Psychoanalytic theory ﾧ suggested that personality is mostly established by the

age of five. Early experiences play a large role in personality development and
continue to influence behavior later in life.
So what happens during each stage? What if a person fails to progress through
a stage completely or favorably? If these psychosexual stages are completed
successfully, a healthy personality is the result.
If certain issues are not resolved at the appropriate stage, fixations ﾧ can occur.
A fixation is a persistent focus on an earlier psychosexual stage. Until this conflict
is resolved, the individual will remain "stuck" in this stage. For example, a person
who is fixated at the oral stage may be over-dependent on others and may seek
oral stimulation through smoking, drinking, or eating.

The Oral Stage

Stages of
Age Range: Birth to 1 Year
Psychosexual Erogenous Zone: Mouth

Development During the oral stage, the infant's primary source

of interaction occurs through the mouth, so the
rooting and sucking reflex is especially important. The mouth is vital for eating,
and the infant derives pleasure from oral stimulation through gratifying activities
such as tasting and sucking. Oral fixation can result in problems with drinking,
eating, smoking, or nail biting.

The Anal Stage

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 Age Range: 1 to 3 years
Erogenous Zone: Bowel and Bladder Control

During the anal stage, Freud believed that the primary focus of the libido ﾧ was
on controlling bladder and bowel movements. The major conflict at this stage is

toilet training--the child has to learn to control his or her bodily needs. Developing this control
leads to a sense of accomplishment and independence.
If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-retentive
personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive.

The Phallic Stage

Age Range: 3 to 6 Years

Erogenous Zone: Genitals

Freud suggested that during the phallic stage, the primary focus of the libido is on the
genitals. At this age, children also begin to discover the differences between males and females.
Freud also believed that boys begin to view their fathers as a rival for the mother’s affections.

The Oedipus complex describes these feelings of wanting to possess the mother and the desire
to replace the father. However, the child also fears that he will be punished by the father for
these feelings, a fear Freud termed castration anxiety.
The term Electra complex has been used to described a similar set of feelings experienced by
young girls. Freud, however, believed that girls instead experience penis envy.

The Latent Period

Age Range: 6 to Puberty

Erogenous Zone: Sexual Feelings Are Inactive

During this stage, the superego continues to develop while the id's energies are suppressed.
Children develop social skills, values and relationships with peers and adults outside of the
family.
The development of the ego ﾧ and superego ﾧ contribute to this period of calm. The stage
begins around the time that children enter into school and become more concerned with peer
relationships, hobbies, and other interests.

The Genital Stage

Age Range: Puberty to Death

Erogenous Zone: Maturing Sexual Interests

The onset of puberty causes the libido to become active once again. During the final stage of
psychosexual development, the individual develops a strong sexual interest in the opposite sex.

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 This stage begins during puberty but last throughout the rest of a person's life.
Where in earlier stages the focus was solely on individual needs, interest in the welfare of
others grows during this stage. If the other stages have been completed successfully, the
individual should now be well-balanced, warm, and caring. The goal of this stage is to establish a
balance between the various life areas. Psychoanalytical 4 Feminist Theory

Nancy Chordrow

10
 Psychoanalytic feminists explain
womens oppression as rooted within
Definition of psychic structures and reinforced by the
continual repetition or reiteration of
Psychoanalytic relational dynamics formed in infancy and
childhood. Because of these deeply
Theory engrained patterns, psychoanalytic
feminists wanted to alter the experiences of
early childhood and family relations, as
well as linguistic patterns, that produce and
reinforce masculinity and femininity.
Critical of Freudian and neo-Freudian
notions of women as biologically, psychically, and morally inferior to men,
psychoanalytic feminists addressed political and social factors affecting the
development of male and female subjects. Like radical feminists, they saw as key
issues sexual difference and women’s otherness in relation to men.

The two major schools of psychoanalytic feminism are Freudian and Lacanian.
Freudian feminists, mostly Anglo-American, are more concerned with the
production of male dominance and the development of gendered subjects in
societies where women are responsible for mothering, whereas Lacanian feminists,
mostly French, analyze links between gendered identity and language.

Early feminist appropriations of Freud in the work of Alfred Adler, Karen Horney
and Clara Thompson emphasized the uniqueness of each human being over rigidly
gendered developmental tracks and explained women’s psychic pathologies as
generated and sustained by their inferior social status within patriarchy, rather than
biologically determined lack. These theorists reinterpreted some women’s neuroses
as creative attempts to address ongoing social subordination.

Later feminist appropriations of Freud critique the traditional family structure in

which primarily women mother and assume other care-taking responsibilities. In
The Reproduction of Mothering,Nancy Chodorow, for instance, argued that
differential experiences in infancy orient girls and boys toward different
developmental paths, with boys definitively separating from their mothers to
identify with the father’s social power and girls developing a more
symbiotic/continuous sense of self in relation to the mother. These relational
dynamics that emphasize autonomy and separation for boys render men emotionally
stunted and less capable of intimate personal relationships, but better prepared for
public life and the world of work. Girls, who in contrast develop as subjects in
closer relation with their mother, have more fluid psychic boundaries that facilitate a
greater capacity for intimacy but leave them less prepared to negotiate the public
sphere. Chodorow and other object relations theorists advocated dual parenting as
one way to eliminate the characterological imbalances generated by gendered
extremes, as children would be able to view both parents as individuals-in-relation,
experience men and women as both self- and other-oriented, and view both sexes as
inhabiting private and public domains.

11
 Putting into practice Chodorow’s theoretical restructuring of the family would, of
course, require considering some substantial changes in current policies and
practices: reasonable parental leave, adequate compensation for part-time work,
quality childcare staffed with both male and female caretakers, and early/elementary
education with both male and female teachers.

Psychoanalytic feminists in the Lacanian mode privileged the analysis of self-

construction through discourse over the biological and psychosocial implications of
parenting, arguing that, in order to alter gender relations, we need to change
language. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the phallus is symbolic of the child’s entry
into language and culture under. The Law of the Father, and Lacanian feminists
wanted to interrogate and resist oppressive constructions of gender and sexuality
encoded in language.

One group of French Lacanian feminists including Luce Irigarary, Helene Cixous
and Catherine Clement is known for their project of ecriture feminine, an attempt to
write from or to discursively embody the position of woman in order to challenge
women’s positioning in phallogocentric culture. These writers argued that women
needed to forego neutral, scientific masculine language and embrace a rebellious
creativity based in subjective experience of the body and the feminine. In this they
attempted to realize a female/feminine sex/subject outside of patriarchal definitions
of woman. For Irigaray and Cixous, this involved celebrating women’s diffuse and
autoerotic sensuality, in contrast to the linear, focused dynamic of phallic sex, as
well as critiquing the symbolic order through parody.

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Horney vs. Freud 5

Karen Horney

13
 Gender Development: Freudian Perspective
Definition of Psychosexual stages of development take place
with possibility of particular conflicts at different
Gender stages. Gender roles develop as a result of
resolution process of conflict at phallic stage
Development Feelings of rivalry and hatred develop against
the father at this stage. The father is seen as
stronger and unconquerable; this leads to a
conflict. The defense mechanism of
identification is used for resolving the conflict.
This gender identification leads to sex-typed
behavior and development of gender roles. Absence of a parent, particularly, the
same-sex parent affects the normal process of gender development. Stevenson &
Black (1988): boys with absent fathers around the oedipal stage show less sex-
typed behavior.

Gender Development Karen Horney’s Perspective Karen Horney reexamined

some of Freud’s basic concepts. Although she remained within the psychoanalytic
paradigm, and accepted the role of unconscious as a driving force, she digressed
from Freud on gender differences in personality development. She differed from
Freud on the concept of envy in females, their feelings of inferiority, and
masculinity complex; whereby females express masculine attitudes and behavior.
She also differed on Freud’s emphasis on early childhood experiences, and the
significance that he attached to the role of biological forces. She argued that the
envy that females have against males, was symbolic, and did not emerge out of a
desire to physically match them; instead it represented a desire to attain the social
prestige and position that men enjoy. Horney emphasized upon the significance of
social forces.

She hypothesized that men envy women’s

Hypothesis ability to reproduce i.e., womb envy. According to
Horney, men seek and struggle for, achievement
because they are trying to overcompensate for the
lack of ability to reproduce. In comparison to
women, men feel inadequate, and as a result they
attribute evil to women. In order to deal with their
feeling of inferiority, men need to feel more
adequate, for which they see women as inferior. Men’s feelings of resentment
result in attempts to weaken women and leave women with feelings of inferiority
and insecurity Unlike Freud, Horney believed that females’ inferiority had origin
in male insecurity; she disagreed from Freud over the idea that females feel
inferior because of a perceived physical inferiority. It is men’s behavior, and a
society with masculine bias that generates females’ inferiority.

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 Kaschak’s Theory: 6
Antigone Phase

Ellyn Kaschak

15
 Antigone Phase: Kaschak’s Theory. Kaschak
Definition of has borrowed the character of Antigone from
Sophocles’ Greek plays, just like Freud borrowed
Kaschak’s the character of Oedipus. Antigone was Jocasta’s
and Oedipus’s daughter. Antigone was Oedipus’s
Theory care taker, companion, and guide, after Oedipus
destroyed his eyes. Antigone devoted her life and
freedom to the care of her father, and sacrificed for him; Oedipus the height of her
devotion as his right. Kaschak used the same scenario to explain the personality
development and male up of men and women. Kaschak acknowledges the
usefulness of the application of the legend of Oedipus in Freudian theory, but
disagrees with the way he treated women in his concept of female Oedipus
complex. Antigone represents a typical good daughter in a patriarchal family.
Patriarchal societies are those societies in which men are born, grown and
developed grant power to them in the society as well as in their families. As part
of this system and process, men take women as their possession.

Women on the other hand are born and developed in such a manner that they
consider themselves as men’s possession. Their position is always that of subservience
to men; and this is reflected in their personality make up and life. “As Oedipus’
dilemma became a symbol for the dilemma of the son, so might that of Antigone be
considered representative of the inevitable fate of the good daughter in the patriarchal
family” (Kaschak, 1992).It is not possible for many men and women to resolve these
conflicts because the societies are formed and structured in such a manner that they
maintain a constant state of male power and autonomy on one hand, and female
subservience on the other. As a consequence, men treat women not as independent
people, but as extensions of themselves. Men want to gain power, and they do it in a
self- centered manner; this may end up in causing harm to others, especially women,
by means of family violence and other such behaviors. In a research on family
violence, Johnson (1995) concluded that the cause underlying indulgence of some men
in family violence is the feeling that they have a right to do so.

For a normal course of personality development, women should resolve the

Antigone phase. But if they fail in doing so, then they “allow themselves to be
extensions of others rather than striving for independence”. When women start
believing like this, then they are also learning that their own wishes are not important;
it is only men who are important. This belief makes them impose limitations on
themselves, thus living a limited life. They deny their physicality, and try to make their
bodies invisible; this may be observed in the development of eating disorders. This
situation may result into the development of self- hatred, or shame. In such cases
women may develop a need to establish form relationships with others so that a feeling
of self- worth is attained.

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Queer Theory 7

17
 Definition of Queer theory is derived largely from post-
structuralist ﾧ theory ﾧ , and deconstruction in
Queer particular. Starting in the 1970s, a range of authors
brought deconstructionist critical approaches to bear
Theory on issues of sexual identity, and especially on the
construction of Heteronormativity ﾧ , i.e. the
normalizing practices and institutions that privilege ﾧ heterosexuality as
fundamental in society ﾧ and in turn discriminates ﾧ those outside this stem of
power ﾧ , and focused to a large degree on non-heteronormative sexualities and
sexual practices. In "The Politics of Inside/Out" Fuss asserts that the concept of
“coming out” and being visible has been normalized while simultaneously
contributing to the disappearance of queerness. By declaring oneself to be visible
and “out” declares the ones who are not invisible. The theory was also influenced
by the political agency, particularly the Anglo-American cultures in the
HIV/AIDS activism of the 1980s and contemporary feminism in the early 1990s.

Queer Theory's overarching goal is to be sought out as a lens or tool to

Goal deconstruct the existing monolithic ideals ﾧ of social norms ﾧ and taxonomies ﾧ;
as well as, how these norms ﾧ came into being and why. The view is that these
notions and norms are rigid organizing categories that do not sufficiently explain
different attitudes, behaviors, or conditions of individual experiences. In addition,
it analyzes the correlation between power distribution and identification while
understanding the multifarious ﾧ facets of oppression ﾧ and privilege. Feminist ﾧ
and Queer Theory are seen as applicable concepts that provide a framework to
explore these issues rather than as an identity to those in the community ﾧ. Queer
is an umbrella term ﾧ for those not only deemed sexually deviant, but also used to
describe those who feel marginalized ﾧ as a result of standard social practices ﾧ. It
is a “site of permanent becoming” (Giffney, 2004).
The term queer theory was introduced in 1990, with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
ﾧ, Judith Butler, Adrienne Rich ﾧ and Diana Fuss (all largely following the work
of Michel Foucault ﾧ) being among its foundational proponents.

Queer theory is grounded in gender and

Background sexuality. Due to this association, a debate emerges as
to whether sexual orientation is natural ﾧ or essential
Concepts ﾧ to the person, as an essentialist ﾧ believes, or if
sexuality is a social construction and subject to
change.
The essentialist feminists believed that genders
"have an essential nature (e.g. nurturing and caring versus being aggressive and
selfish), as opposed to differing by a variety of accidental or contingent features
brought about by social forces".Due to this belief in the essential nature of a
person, it is also natural to assume that a person's sexual preference would be
natural and essential to a person's personality ﾧ.
Social constructivism is a concept that proposes the realities we produce and

18
 the meanings we create are a result of social interaction ﾧ ; communicating and
existing in a cultural context that conveys meaning to us. Our world is a product
of continuous “claims making, labelling and other constitutive definitional
processes”.
Furthermore, queer theorists have offered the argument that there is no

essential self at all, and that people exist not just as subjects but also as
objects of the social world. In this way, an identity is not born but rather
constructed through repeated performative actions ﾧ that are in turn informed by
existing social constructions of gender. By thus analyzing and understanding the
ways in which gender is shared and historically constituted, the production of
gender can occur differently and beyond a socially constructed binary upon
which heterosexuality depends.

Queer theorists focus on problems in

Intersex and classifying individuals as either male ﾧ or female ﾧ,
even on a strictly biological basis. For example, the
Role of sex chromosomes ﾧ (X ﾧ and Y ﾧ ) may exist in
atypical combinations (as in Klinefelter syndrome
Biology ﾧ [XXY]). This complicates the use of genotype ﾧ
as a means to define exactly two distinct sexes.
Intersex ﾧ individuals may for various biological reasons have sexual
characteristics ﾧ that the dominant medical discourse regards as disordered ﾧ.

Scientists who have written on the conceptual significance of intersex

individuals include Anne Fausto-Sterling ﾧ, Katrina Karkazis ﾧ, Rebecca Jordan-
Young ﾧ , and Joan Roughgarden ﾧ . While the medical literature ﾧ focuses
increasingly on genetics of intersex traits, and even their deselection ﾧ , some
scholars on the study of culture, such as Barbara Rogoff ﾧ , argue that the
traditional distinction between biology and culture as independent entities is
overly simplistic, pointing to the ways in which biology and culture interact with
one another.
Intersex scholars and scientists who have written on intersex include Morgan
Holmes ﾧ, Georgiann Davis ﾧ, Iain Morland ﾧ and Janik Bastien-Charlebois ﾧ, in
each case focusing on more particular realities of the intersex experience. In his
essay What Can Queer Theory Do for Intersex? Morland contrasts queer "hedonic
activism" with an experience of post-surgical insensate intersex bodies to claim
that "queerness is characterized by the sensory interrelation of pleasure and
shame".

19
Theory of 8
Gender
Performativity

Judith Butler

20
 A central concept of the theory is that your
Definition of gender is constructed through your own
repetitive performance of gender. This is related
Gender to the idea that discourse creates subject
positions for your self to occupy—linguistic
Performativity structures construct the self. The structure or
discourse of gender for Butler, however, is
bodily and nonverbal. Butler’s theory does not
accept stable and coherent gender identity.
Gender is “a stylized repetition of acts . . . which are internally discontinuous . . .
[so that] the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a
performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the
actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief” (Gender
Trouble). To say that gender is performative is to argue that gender is “real only to
the extent that it is performed” (Gender Trouble).

There is no self preceding or outside a gendered self. Butler writes, “ . . . if

gender is constructed, it is not necessarily constructed by an ‘I’ or a ‘we’ who
stands before that construction in any spatial or temporal sense of ‘before.’
Indeed, it is unclear that there can be an ‘I’ or a “we” who had not been submitted,
subjected to gender, where gendering is, among other things, the differentiating
relations by which speaking subjects come into being . . . the ‘I’ neither precedes
nor follows the process of this gendering, but emerges only within the matrix of
gender relations themselves” (Bodies that Matter).

Performativity of gender is a stylized repetition of acts, an imitation or

miming of the dominant conventions of gender. Butler argues that “the act that
one does, the act that one performs is, in a sense, an act that’s been going on
before one arrived on the scene” (Gender Trouble). “Gender is an
impersonation . . . becoming gendered involves impersonating an ideal that
nobody actually inhabits” (interview with Liz Kotz in Artforum).

Biological sex is also a social construction—gender subsumes sex.

“According to this view, then, the social construction of the natural presupposes
the cancellation of the natural by the social. Insofar as it relies on this construal,
the sex/gender distinction founders . . . if gender is the social significance that sex
assumes within a given culture . . . then what, if anything, is left of ‘sex’ once it
has assumed its social character as gender? . . . If gender consists of the social
meanings that sex assumes, then sex does not accrue social meanings as additive
properties, but rather is replaced by the social meanings it takes on; sex is
relinquished in the course of that assumption, and gender emerges, not as a term
in a continued relationship of opposition to sex, but as the term which absorbs and
displaces “sex” (Bodies that Matter). Butler also writes “I think for a woman to
identify as a woman is a culturally enforced effect. I don’t think that it’s a given
that on the basis of a given anatomy, an identification will follow. I think that
‘coherent identification’ has to be cultivated, policed, and enforced; and that the
violation of that has to be punished, usually through shame” (interview with Liz

21
 Kotz in Artforum).

What is at stake in gender roles is the ideology of heterosexuality. “To claim that all gender
is like drag, or is drag, is to suggest that ‘imitation’ is at the heart of the heterosexual project
and its gender binarism, that drag is not a secondary imitation that presupposes a prior and
original gender, but that hegemonic heterosexuality is itself a constant and repeated effort to
imitate its own idealizations. That it must repeat this imitation, that it sets up pathologizing
practices and normalizing sciences in order to produce and consecrate its own claim on
originality and propriety, suggests that heterosexual performativity is beset by an anxiety that
it can never fully overcome….that its effort to become its own idealizations can never be
finally or fully achieved, and that it is constantly haunted by that domain of sexual possibility
that must be excluded for heterosexualized gender to produce itself” (Bodies that Matter).

Performativity of Gender (drag) can be subversive. “Drag is subversive to the extent that it
reflects on the imitative structure by which hegemonic gender is itself produced and disputes
heterosexuality’s claim on naturalness and originality” (Bodies that Matter).

But subversion through performance isn’t automatic or easy. Indeed, Butler complains that
people have misread her book Gender Trouble. “The bad reading goes something like this: I
can get up in the morning, look in my closet, and decide which gender I want to be today. I
can take out a piece of clothing and change my gender, stylize it, and then that evening I can
change it again and be something radically other, so that what you get is something like the
comodification of gender, and the understanding of taking on a gender as a kind of
consumerism. . . . [treating] gender deliberately, as if it’s an object out there, when my whole
point was that the very formation of subjects, the very formation of persons, presupposes
gender in a certain way—that gender is not to be chosen and that ‘performativity’ is not radical
choice and its not voluntarism . . . Performativity has to do with repetition, very often the
repetition of oppressive and painful gender norms . . . This is not freedom, but a question of
how to work the trap that one is inevitably in” (interview with Liz Kotz in Artforum). Butler
also writes that “it seems to me that there is no easy way to know whether something is
subversive. Subversiveness is not something that can be gauged or calculated . . . I do think
that for a copy to be subversive of heterosexual hegemony it has to both mime and displace its
conventions” (interview with Liz Kotz in Artforum).

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Gender 9
Difference Theory

23
 By the early 1980s a focus on group
difference, that is, on a singular identity aspect or
Definnition of subjective category, came to prevail within
various projects of critical sociocultural analysis
Gender in the European and North American academy. In
feminist thought gender became the organizing
Difference term for a theoretical and political critique of
heteropatriarchal social relations and was used to
Theory highlight the additional value and validity of a
marginalized, in this case, feminine, perspective.
Rather than attempting to include women in a gender-neutral universe in which all
people are considered the same, proponents of gender difference theory defend an
alternative worldview that not only recognizes but actually foregrounds gender
difference as a positive value and as an "antidote to the androcentric organization
of society" (Beasley 2005, p. 21). The insistence on the specific positioning of
women in society in this context does not necessarily mean that gender becomes
renaturalized, or that gender differences are conceived as essential or intrinsic.
Especially within the branch of feminist thought known as sexual difference
thinking, the controlling idea is that gender identities have no meaning or
significance in and of themselves, but that the feminine represents in cultural
terms difference from the masculine norm. As Australian political scientist Chris
Beasley maintains, "gender (Feminine and Masculine) is here not so much about
the actual characteristics of men and women as the exemplary symbolic register
for power and hierarchy in society" (Beasley 2005, p. 21).

Gender difference theories find various equivalents in critical sexuality

studies in which a strong focus on lesbian/gay identities equally led to the
highlighting and privileging of marginalized perspectives that were suggested to
offer more enlightening insights into the operations of heteropatriarchal culture
and its underlying system of power relations. It is nonetheless partly as the result
of critiques from lesbians, as well as from nonwhite feminist women, that gender
difference theories came most severely under attack. Challenging its focus on the
singular difference of gender, defined in term of the masculine/feminine
dichotomy, lesbians and women of color, from the mid 1980s onward, began to
challenge any form of gender theorizing that involved the suppression of other
differences, such as differences of sexuality and racial, ethnic, and cultural
differences. According to these critics gender categories necessarily function
differently within different sociocultural locations and are, moreover, always
complexly inflected with racial, ethnic, and sexual meanings. Instead of merely
adding such differences, however, to any overarching mode of gender analysis,
later scholars dealing with sexuality, as well as race, ethnicity, and imperialism,
seek to understand the ways in which gender and other differences operate in
mutually constitutive ways. As no aspect of any person's gendered self can be
detached from other aspects of her/ his subjectivity and social positionality, such
theorists recognize that gender, in its various forms and permutations, is always
race, as well as sexually and socially, specific.

24
Social 10
Learning
Theory

Albert Bandura

25
 In social learning theory, Albert Bandura (1977) agrees with
the behaviorist learning theories of classical conditioning and
operant conditioning. However, he adds two important ideas:
1. Mediating processes occur between stimuli & responses.
2. Behavior is learned from the environment through the
process of observational learning.

Children observe the people around them behaving in various

Observational ways. This is illustrated during the famous Bobo doll experiment
(Bandura, 1961).
Learning Individuals that are observed are called models. In society,
children are surrounded by many influential models, such as
parents within the family, characters on children’s TV, friends
within their peer group and teachers at school. These models
provide examples of behavior to observe and imitate, e.g.,
masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social, etc.

Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and

encode their behavior. At a later time they may imitate (i.e., copy)
the behavior they have observed. They may do this regardless of
whether the behavior is ‘gender appropriate’ or not, but there are a
number of processes that make it more likely that a child will
reproduce the behavior that its society deems appropriate for its
gender.
First, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those
people it perceives as similar to itself. Consequently, it is more
likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the same gender.
Second, the people around the child will respond to the behavior it
imitates with either reinforcement or punishment. If a child
imitates a model’s behavior and the consequences are rewarding,
the child is likely to continue performing the behavior. If a parent
sees a little girl consoling her teddy bear and says “what a kind girl
you are,” this is rewarding for the child and makes it more likely
that she will repeat the behavior. Her behavior has been reinforced
(i.e., strengthened). Reinforcement can be external or internal and
can be positive or negative. If a child wants approval from parents
or peers, this approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling
happy about being approved of is an internal reinforcement. A
child will behave in a way which it believes will earn approval
because it desires approval. Positive (or negative) reinforcement
will have little impact if the reinforcement offered externally does
not match with an individual's needs. Reinforcement can be
positive or negative, but the important factor is that it will usually
lead to a change in a person's behavior. Third, the child will also
take into account of what happens to other people when deciding
whether or not to copy someone’s actions. A person learns by
observing the consequences of another person’s (i.e., models)

26
 behavior, e.g., a younger sister observing an older sister being
rewarded for a particular behavior is more likely to repeat that
behavior herself. This is known as vicarious reinforcement.

This relates to an attachment to specific models that possess

qualities seen as rewarding. Children will have a number of models
with whom they identify. These may be people in their immediate
world, such as parents or older siblings,

or could be fantasy characters or people in the media. The motivation to identify

with a particular model is that they have a quality which the individual would like
to possess.

Identification occurs with another person (the model) and

involves taking on (or adopting) observed behaviors, values,
beliefs and attitudes of the person with whom you are identifying.
The term identification as used by Social Learning Theory is
similar to the Freudian term related to the Oedipus complex. For
example, they both involve internalizing or adopting another
person’s behavior. However, during the Oedipus complex, the
child can only identify with the same sex parent, whereas with
Social Learning Theory the person (child or adult) can potentially
identify with any other person.
Identification is different to imitation as it may involve a
number of behaviors being adopted, whereas imitation usually
involves copying a single behavior.

SLT is often described as the ‘bridge’ between traditional

learning theory (i.e., behaviorism) and the cognitive approach.
Mediational This is because it focuses on how mental (cognitive) factors are
involved in learning.
Processes Unlike Skinner, Bandura (1977) believes that humans are
active information processors and think about the relationship
between their behavior and its consequences. Observational
learning could not occur unless cognitive processes were at work.
These mental factors mediate (i.e., intervene) in the learning
process to determine whether a new response is acquired.

Therefore, individuals do not automatically observe the

behavior of a model and imitate it. There is some thought prior to
imitation, and this consideration is called mediational processes.
This occurs between observing the behavior (stimulus) and
imitating it or not (response).

There are four mediational processes proposed by Bandura:

1. Attention: The extent to which we are exposed/notice

27
 the behavior. For a behavior to be imitated, it has to grab our
attention. We observe many behaviors on a daily basis, and many
of these are not noteworthy. Attention is therefore extremely
important in whether a behavior influences others imitating it.

2. Retention: How well the behavior is remembered. The

behavior may be noticed but is it not always remembered which
obviously prevents imitation. It is important therefore that a
memory of the behavior is formed to be performed later by the
observer.

3. Reproduction: This is the ability to perform the

behavior that the model has just demonstrated. We see much
behavior on a daily basis that we

would like to be able to imitate but that this not always possible. We are limited by our
physical ability and for that reason, even if we wish to reproduce the behavior, we cannot.
This influences our decisions whether to try and imitate it or not.

4. Motivation: The will to perform the behavior. The rewards and punishment that
follow a behavior will be considered by the observer. If the perceived rewards outweigh the
perceived costs (if there are any), then the behavior will be more likely to be imitated by the
observer. If the vicarious reinforcement is not seen to be important enough to the observer,
then they will not imitate the behavior.

28
Masculine 11
Protest

Alfred Adler

29
 Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler created
Definition of the term masculine protest to describe the
behavior of women who reject traditional
Masculine feminine roles in favor of more masculine ones.
And one big reason that women (and men, too)
Protest reject roles is because they want to gain power
and feel more dominant in a situation. This need
for domination comes from their feelings of inferiority at being known for being
the weaker sex.
Alfred Adler stated that parents who show either directly or indirectly that
they wanted a boy instead of the girl they got are among the major factors that
lead to the development of a masculine protest. The more the girl hates being
among the weaker sex (according to what she learned) the more likely she is to
develop a masculine protest. Some of these women may even refuse to get
married because that reminds them of their feminine rule. It's so hard to escape
from that rule for 20 or thirty years then suddenly admit it by deciding to get
married to a man.
According to Alfred Adler Some but not all of the women who develop a
masculine protest turn into lesbians in order to continue escaping from that
feminine rule for the longest period possible.

30
 Chapter 1
Gender Schema 1
Sandra Bem

Chapter 2
Cognitive Development Theory 4
Jean Piaget

Chapter 3
Psychosexual Stages of Development 8
Sigmund Freud

Chapter 4
Psychoanalytical Feminist Theory 11
Nancy Chordrow

Chapter 5
Horney vs. Freud 14
Karen Horney

Chapter 6
Kaschak’s Theory: Antigone Phase 16
Ellyn Kaschak

Chapter 7
Queer Theory 18

Chapter 8
Theory of Gender Performativity 21
Judith Butler

Chapter 9
Gender Difference Theory 24

Chapter 10
Social Learning Theory 26
Albert Bandura

Chapter 11
Masculine Protest 30
Alfred Adler

Bibliography 32

31
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