Gender Development

Gender Development

Doctor D. G. Myers says ¨Man and Women are not from different planets- Mars and Venus- but from the same planet earth." Said this, man and women are more alike than different. We have more commonalties than we think. For instance, we have faced similar adaptive challenges and share the same components by which we learn, see, feel, smell, etc. Even our genetic makeup is so similar, where 45 out 46 chromosomes are unisex. However, our gender differences play a big role when talking of social behavior and physiological distinction; in which, the different concentrations of sex hormones and sex chromosomes have highly influenced them. Tabitha Powledge (2011) adds, the influence of mom and dad transmitted to offspring through genes ‘could shape and adult's behavior and even disease susceptibility', these factors are attributed to gene changes produced by epigenetic events such as genomic imprinting. Imprinting occurs during a critical period right after birth forming attachments in animals and in adults that is needed for proper development. But one defective gene can create fatal results. "Some 30 serious disorders are attributed to disrupted imprinting." (Powledge, 2011)

Biology alone does not completely determine our gender characteristics; this goes hand in hand with the social influences that surround us and our learned experiences. For example, Myers (2010) points out that "culture shapes gender roles-- expectations about how men and women should behave. [Of course, these models] vary from one place to another and from time to another within the same culture." Added to this, two theories explain gender identity differently. Social learning theory suggests that people learn gender behavior as the natural process of learning other things. And gender schema theory suggests that we learn a formula of how to be and behave like either male or