Importance of Gender in the Construction of Identity

Gender and Identity

Perhaps the most important question facing any human, be they male or female, is that of the discovery of their own identity. The majority of child development theories, from Freud onward, have dealt with the way in which children must learn to disengage their own identity from that of their parents (mothers in particular) and discover who they are as adults. Yet this process is far from over when one reaches physical maturity, and one may even see many other psychological theories, from Maslow to the existentialists, as exploring the stages through which one continues to define one's true identity as distinct not only from one's parents but also from one's biological and social circumstances. It is somewhat ironic that the word identity which was originally used to note categories of same-ness and unity (Connell 2002) is now so vitally bound up with defining distinctness. At the risk of making a rather sweeping generalization, it may not be inappropriate to say that the search for individual identity is one of the hallmarks of modern Western civilization. In the quest for individual identity, which has become increasingly politicized and psychologically centralized as wider social or class-based unities have decayed, one's individual identification becomes a new basis for political and social activism. (Connell 2002)

That identity is so important to the human experience, and that it is in a constant state of development and evolution, should make apparent that it is bound to be affected by all those facts of life which act upon the experience of the individual. Hence, it is almost inevitable that the physical experience of one's biological sex should have an impact on the formation of identity. This impact is both channelled and controlled by the social meanings attached to sex -- which is to say, by one's gender. Gender is defined as "the culturally learnt [or defined] characteristics of what it means to be male or female," (Kidd 2002, 177) These cultural definitions of the meaning of one's sex may subtly or blatantly manipulate the development of identity. Once upon a time the influence of biological sex may have been unmistakable, dictating everything about one's life from career path to childhood wardrobe. In Australia in the 1950s, for example, "Little girls wore dresses, skirts, pinafores, and ribbons in their hair. Little boys wore shorts, summer, and winter..." (Richmond 1997, 253) Today, thanks to the women's liberation movements, the impact is less obvious if (perhaps) no less pervasive. Nonetheless, as Bessant and Watts point out, "Sex and Gender are central to our self understanding... prominent parts of our daily lives." (1999, 3) For this reason, entire fields of sociology and psychology have arisen to address the question of gender's impact and influence over individual identity, and how this shapes society.

Three main theories dominate the field, each with many facets and even occasionally overlapping claims: that of the existentialist who claims that biological sex contributes specific and perhaps universal elements to identity formation, that of the socializationist who claims that it is society which forces gender upon the identity of the individual, and that of the post-modernist position which --in its purest form-- denies that in the face of human freedom there can be a coherent and consistent meaning either to gender or to group identification. Each of these theories has great strengths and weaknesses for the interpretation of gender and identity -- yet the strongest theory would surely form some synthesis between them. It seems that the strongest possible theory of gender and identity would not claim a single source or truth about identity, but rather take a sensible middle ground: that biology and socialization create gendered forms around which individual identities are shaped, in a complex interplay of negation and acceptance which may not only take an infinite number of shapes, but may also warp biology and society itself so as to create myriad variations on their themes.

The Theories

Essentialism is considered to be one of the oldest of the sociological/psychological theories regarding the relationship between identity and gender. This theory suggests that humans are innately male and female not just in terms of their bodies but also in terms of their behavior, natural roles, and identity. As Bessant and Watts explain it: "Biological determinists believe that biology shapes human behavior and identity in ways that do not very and which are universal. For example, the fact that men have testicles and a penis or are muscular is used to argue that all men are strong, competitive, tough, hunter-gatherers, aggressive, intellectually rational and emotionally stupid." (1999, 3) This theory has been largely responsible both for sexist theories which proclaim men are inherently more qualified in certain areas, or that women are inherently weak physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Yet essentialism has also been used to defend the value, and even superiority, of women. For example, Wearing reports how the feminist thinker Lloyd defended essentialism by making "a case for the retention of a concept of difference based on male and female bodies." (1996, 46) Lloyd apparently claimed that essentialism was necessary to encompass the unique and life-shaping experiences of the female sex, such as menarche, childbirth, or menopause. Since truly biological men are forbidden these experiences, and since the majority of women share many of the same physical experiences (from similarities in sexual experiences to similarities in hormones and cycles), she argues that a true feminist perspective will demand recognition and honor for uniquely female experiences and viewpoints. So essentialism can be either very sexist and proclaim one gender superior to the other, or it can be more egalitarian and demand that they are separate but equal. In either case, however, essentialism makes generalizations about groups of people based on their biological sex, which may or may not be accurate. The basic claim, regarding identity, of the essentials is that however one may codify or obscure it, that part of the individual identity which is gendered has been determined at birth, and all attempts to redefine it are at least partly artificial.

Socialization, as a theory, suggests that identity is not formed by what body an individual was born into, but by what experiences that individual had as they were being raised to adulthood. Men and women are both human, the social-formist would argue, and their soul is essentially the same in either case -- the differences between them which are not obviously physical and genital are caused not by nature but by nurture. There is some evidence for this stance, as men and women in different cultures have been expected on occasion to play different roles and have risen to those opportunities in a way that did not imply some biological imperative to do otherwise. For example, "Margaret Mead's study... In three different communities demonstrated that not all men are strong, tough breadwinners; not are all women soft, caring, passive, and nurturing." (Bessant & Watts 1999, 5) However, socialization theory goes beyond the suggestion that there are exceptions to the biological rules, and rather suggests that "although male and female bodies are different, this bodily difference can be transcended by a sexless soul to which we are all aspiring." (Wearing 1996, 46) This sexless soul exists at birth, and is warped into taking on a sex role as it ages. There are a number of ways in which this warping occurs, from parental guidance or even punishment of sex-role transgression to the systematic pressures of a patriarchal society which prepare girls for poorer economic and academic outcome. As late as 1984 (one of the most recent field studies on this topic), researchers found that "the quality of girls' and boys' education still differed in terms of teachers' time. Boys got not only more time, but more resources..." (Richmond 1997, 259) Girls and boys alike are, according to this theory, trained from birth to take on traditional gender roles -- they are given gender specific messages by their entertainment, their families, their schools, and eventually their peers, lovers, and employers. Society rewards those who conform and punishes those who do not, until gender conformity is so engrained in the human nature that it is self-enforcing. In short, this socialization theory suggests that to some degree society imposes particular gender roles on people, and in this way has a hand in defining their identity.

Postmodernists, and many of those who consider themselves "postfeminist" argue against both essentialism and socialization-theory, in defense of the idea that the free will and the inconsistency of humans is such that it renders rigid, dichotomous ideas such as gender functionally obsolete. They speak of "multiple" masculinities and feminities, (Connell 2002) which are construed as a myriad of different ways in which an individual can embody their particular gender. For example, a man may be gendered as masculine by being aggressive and unemotional (as in most action movies) -- or he may be equally masculine by being extremely gentle, giving, and romantic (as in some romantic movies and dramas). Equally, a woman may be gendered as feminine both as a mindless, sexualized "bimbo" or as an intensely shy academic. Postmodernist theory suggests that socialized roles are not static, nor are they transmitted faithfully to individuals, but rather the individual interacts dynamically with the role. "Children [have] agency in learning gender. They are not passively 'socialized into a sex role... they do this actively, and on their own terms..." (Connell 2002, 15) Gender becomes not a role, but a "project" -- something which is willingly undertaken and engaged. Essentially, postmodernists suggest that gender does not create identity, but rather that identity creates individual gender.

Major Theory Critiques

If one could require a single litmus test of all sociological or psychological theories, it would be that they ought not fly in the face of actual experience and basic common sense. As sound as a theory may seem on paper, if it is blatantly disproved in daily experience, one would be wise to disregard it. Strangely, this method does not seem to be sufficiently applied in the case of the three major theories presented above, at least when they are presented in their unadulterated form. (Admittedly, many reasonable thinkers have certainly admitted prior to this that some synthesis between these theories must exist, but the theories themselves seem to be presented in a somewhat absolutist form) The basic flaw in these theories appears to be a misrepresentation of gender dichotomies as they apply to individuals, whether by virtue of over-stressing the universal elements or ignoring them altogether.

Essentialism is deeply flawed by its focus on the universal to the exclusion of the personal. As most writers on the subject will admit, biological determinism is flawed inasmuch as it actually fails to explain the development of gender. If behavioral roles were actually dictated by sex, then "gender" -- the socially defined roles of individuals based on sex -- would be redundant. "Gender exists precisely to the extent that biology does not determine the social. . . Gender is a scandal. . Sociobiologists are constantly trying to abolish it, by proving that human social arrangements are a reflex of evolutionary imperatives." (Connell 1995, 71-72) Moreover, essentialism fails to account for gender aberrations -- not only homosexuals and transsexuals, but also smaller deviants such as weak and artistic heterosexual men or aggressive and dominant heterosexual women. Sociologists have consistently shown that gender roles can be socially dictated or individually defied, (Connell 2002) and moreover common sense and experience proves that there are no universal gendered traits (not all women are emotional or all men aggressive -- therefore essentialism cannot be a complete account of the way in which biological sex forms social gender or individual identity.

The obvious alternative to biological determinism is social determinism, which also has significant flaws both in denying the universal physical impact of sex and the non-universal results of socialization. On the one hand, socialization is weak because it implies that there are no essential differences between the male and female experience other than that provided by society. If this were true, then a totally sex-blind society would not have any sort of gendered differences. Men and women, raised identically, would behave identically. The flaw with this theory are evident not only to biologists and evolutionary sociologists, but also to anyone who has undergone the hormonal chaos of adolescence. Post-menstrual syndrome alone, not to mention the emotional ravages of childbearing and menopause, would set women apart from men emotionally. It is impossible to imagine that the intensely emotional act of being pregnant and giving birth would leave no mark. Likewise the biological fact that the mother's minimum investment in the birth of a child is necessarily longer in term (even if only nine months longer) than that of a father must have some effect on the identity of a woman who has given birth. Some leeway must be allowed for physical biological differences. (Likewise, saying that men are just women who don't menstruate seems as false as saying that women are just men who happen to bleed monthly)

On the other hand, social-determinism is week because --like biological determinism-- it suggests that people are passive in their reception of gender. "Sociological essentialists assume that babies and children are passive vessels [filled] ... with whatever the society prescribes as the appropriate sex-role characteristics." (Bessant & Watts, 7) Evidence suggests that this is not the case. Children have been actively seen negotiating their own gender identities. (Connell 2002) Men and women raised with specific social gender roles have, through-out history, managed to buck those roles. Heterosexual parents who put their children through heterosexual schools and only let them play with other heterosexuals, may still find that their son or daughter becomes homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual. Of course, some defiance of social constructs is so common that it even has its own names -- the "tomboy" phenomena among girls, or "mama's boy" among boys. Additionally, as postmodernists point out, "psychological research suggests that the great majority of us combine masculine and feminine characteristics, in varying blends, rather than being all one or all the other." (Connell 2002, 5)

Yet if essentialism of the social or biological sort is flawed in its inability to admit to exceptions, postmodernism (not unlike social determinism) is flawed in its inability to admit similarities and overarching patterns. Postmodernism critiques social and biological essentialism on the basis that humans make their own decisions and can define their own identities. This is accurate. However, postmodernist ideas that their are a potential infinite number of masculinities and feminities, and that gender is spontaneously created along with identity itself, seems to deny that their are certain things which appear to be biologically or culturally based. What can we make of the fact that the majority of women in a given country do choose the same sorts of identities and gender roles, other than to appeal to some form of pattern? Postmodernism works as an excellent critique of more essentials theories, yet it seems somewhat weak on its own.

In conclusion, it appears that all of the main theories of the relationship between identity and gender have certain failings. The precise mechanism by which gender identity is formed, and the precise ways in which identity in general is shaped by gender remain vague. Biology does appear to have a role to play, for the vast majority of those who are biologically of a specific sex share that gender identity. Yet it is not a complete explanation even of gender identification. Social pressure also has a role to play, for the social development of gender identity can be studied and traced -- yet it does not completely explain the deviation of minority populaces from the social standard. Postmodernism, which suggests a chaotic gender play within identity, meanwhile, fails to recognize that deep stability that exists in most cultures regarding male and female roles.

Renovation of the Theories and Conclusion