24. Gender identity

[Assignment- First Two Year Batch-MEd. 2015-17

- Govt. College of Teacher Education, Thiruvananthapuram]

Is Gender Identity Cultural, Biological, or a Personal Decision?

Gender identity, in nearly all instances, is self-identified, as a result of a combination of inherent and extrinsic or environmental factors; gender role, on the other hand, is manifested within society by observable factors such as behaviour and appearance. For example, if a person considers himself a male and is most comfortable referring to his personal gender in masculine terms, then his gender identity is male. However, his gender role is male only if he demonstrates typically male characteristics in behaviour, dress, and/or mannerisms.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-overview

Gender identity is defined as a personal conception of oneself as male or female (or rarely, both or neither). This concept is intimately related to the concept of gender role, which is defined as the outward manifestations of personality that reflect the gender identity. Thus, gender role is often an outward expression of gender identity, but not necessarily so. In most individuals, gender identity and gender role are congruous. Assessing the acquisition of this congruity, or recognizing incongruity (resulting in gender-variant behavior), is important in the developing child. It is important also to note that cultural differences abound in the expression of one's gender role, and, in certain societies, such nuances in accepted gender norms can also play some part in the definition of gender identity. In order to understand gender identity development and related issues, definitions must be emphasized for clarity.

Every society uses biological sex as one criterion for describing gender, but, beyond that simple starting point, no two cultures would completely agree on what distinguishes one gender from another. There is therefore considerable variation in gender roles between cultures. The division of labor between the sexes is best explained by gender, but because reproduction is based on a universal biological difference between the male and female sex, societies use this as a basis for allotting other tasks. These tasks are allotted according to convenience and precedents in the particular culture, and determine masculine and feminine roles:

'Professor George Murdock has surveyed the data for 224 societies (mostly preliterate) and shows that the tendency to segregate economic activities in one way or another according to sex is strong. Taking a list of 46 different activities, he suggests that some are more often masculine than feminine, and vice versa. For example, lumbering is an exclusively masculine activity in 104 of his societies and exclusively feminine in 6: cooking is exclusively feminine in 158 and exclusively masculine in 5. Hunting, fishing, weapon making, boat building and mining tend to be masculine, while grinding grain and carrying water tend to be feminine. Activities that are less consistently allotted to one sex include preparing the soil, planting, tending and harvesting the crops, 'burden bearing' and body mutilation.' (Oakley, 1972).

Submitted by Ms. Selvamari