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Gender Identity in Adolescence

 

Following through to childhood, parents hold gender-differentiated expectation for children of different sexes to achieve at (Flinders, 2002). This notion can be supported by the data collected, which found that of the individuals who identified playing with an action figure during childhood, 83.4% where male, whereas 100% of the sample group who identified engaging in play with a plush toy were female (see figure 1). .
             In the norms of the Australian Society action figures are considered a male toy, where plush toys are usually connected to females. This data supports this idea of parents reinforcing the social conditioning created by societal norms. Sandra Bem created a theory based on these socio-cultural conceptions. The 'Gender Schema Theory' is based around associations that work with a cognitive system to form an organisation of ideas of an individual's perspective, which are called schemas. Bem states "Gender schema is a cognitive structure that enables individuals to sort characteristics and behaviours into masculine and feminine categories." The way in which we perceive the world is as if we are looking through gender coloured glasses, everything is associated with either masculine or feminine. These schemas form a gender script that children learn to follow in order to fit into societal norms. With an understanding of gender schemas, Nancy Chodorow's psychoanalytic theory can be understood. Chodorow focused on Ego boundaries and the connection between infants and their primary caregiver. Ego boundaries are the division between an individual and the world they live in. It's the understanding of knowing where the life of one-person stops and the rest of the world begins. Although this may seem obvious, Ego boundaries are not developed at birth but are an ongoing process of learning. Chodorow explained in her book "The Reproduction of Mothering," that a child's sense of identity begins with their mothers as they are their primary caregivers and they are completely dependant on their mother for survival.


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