Gender Identity
Essay Preview: Gender Identity
Report this essay
Gender identity is a personal belief of oneself as either male or female. This notion is closely connected to the notion of gender role that is characterized as the external manifestations of personality that indicate the gender identity. Gender identity is a combination biological factors and environmental factor. There are many arguments on which has the most influence on gender identity, nature versus nurture and how it relates to sexual orientation. Biological factors in sexual orientation are extremely imperative to people because it allows a person to seize and understand the complications and problems that are concerned with human sexual conditions. Early stages of sexual differentiation following birth are influenced by environmental factors. As a child moves from childhood into young adulthood the biological, environmental and culture influences effect sexual differentiation. Gender identity is a complex system of thoughts surrounding manliness and womanliness, in stipulations of the roles prearranged to men and women by culture, and how they relate to masculinity and femininity.
Gender identity is presented through behavioral expressions of masculinity and femininity, feelings surrounding the body as a sexual, and individual perceptions regarding how others will respond to expressions of gender. Gender refers to humans ability of awareness and reaction to biological, psychological and sociological factors. Gender is that refer to masculine for male and feminine for female. The human body contains hormones that are key to the body that secrete different hormones that are vital to the human bodies gender.
A difference between male and female brains underlies sex and gender differences. This intriguing statement has been put forward in recent years by psychologists studying brain structure and functioning. For example, psychologists found that groups of children with exceptional talent in mathematics were characterized by an unusual assortment of physical attributes, such as an overrepresentation of left-handedness and a high incidence of allergies and shortsightedness. Such seemingly unrelated characteristics, it turns out, may be associated with the degree of prenatal exposure to androgens, male sex hormones, which may slow the growth of the left hemisphere of the brain. According to one theory, the right hemisphere of the brain – which specializes in mathematical problems – then compensates for the deficiencies of the left hemisphere by becoming strengthened, thereby leading to the increased abilities of males in mathematical spheres. Similarly, evidence from at least one study suggests that women perform better on tasks involving verbal skill and muscular coordination during periods when their production of the female sex hormone, estrogen, is relatively high then when it is low. In contrast, they perform better on tasks involving spatial relationships when their estrogen level is relatively low.
Psychologists do not know yet the extent to which biological causes may underlie sex differences, but the evidence is growing that such factors may explain, at least in part, behavioral differences between men and women. The human brain plays a vital role in the sexual behavior of male and female. Especially the hypothalamus and the amygdala, which are the most important parts of the brain stem, are one of the control centers of sexual functioning. However, it is also clear that environmental factors have a critical effect in producing sex and gender differences.