The Bem 1983 article had the objective of describing sex typing and child development using famous psychological theories. The article mentions that for children becoming male or female is portrayed from an early age. In this context children become either masculine or feminine and start developing sex-associated preferences skills, personality attributes behaviors and self-concepts; this is what is known in psychology as sex typing. It is estimated that besides the psychological theories cultures has an evident role towards these development. The article seeks to introduce a new psychological theory called the gender schema theory and show how it works to complement other psychological theories.
Prior to describing her new theory, Bem compares various theories that are responsible for sex typing. Firstly she describes the psychoanalytic theory a some of the reasons why children consciously identify themselves as male or female. According to the article, this theory is a major tool why children become sex-typed. This occurs because the theory exposes the children to identify with same-sex parent and eventually discover genital sex differences. However, the theory is associated with the inevitability of sex typing (Bem, 1983). Maybe it is this shortcoming that is making it lose its popularity and research psychologists are shying away from using it. The other reason why it is not commonly used is that it is difficult to test it empirically.
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The social learning theory is the second item discussed in this article. Unlike the first theory, the social learning theory looks at the rewards and punishments that children are exposed to for sex appropriate and sex-inappropriate behaviors. Through this theory, the children get to learn what is expected of them as males or females. With this theory it is believed that there are no special consideration or special mechanisms; maleness or femaleness traits are learned socially. However, this raises some questions on whether the phenomenon of sex typing is inevitable and unmodifiable.
The third theory is the cognitive development theory; this theory focuses on the child as an individual who determines his or her sex role socialization and this occurs almost naturally. According to Bem, 1983, it is the child who realizes what gender he or she is and in what behavior he or she should engage. The theory then goes on to motivate the child into valuing what they view as similar to the self in terms of gender (Bem, 1983). This, in turn, makes the child develop gender appropriate skills, behaviors and attributes- this includes preferences emotions and anxieties.
The gender schema theory is the new theory introduced in this article; it states that children learn their male and female roles from the culture in which they live in. Typically the theory describes that children adjust their behavior to align with the gender of their culture from the earliest stages of social development. Bem 1983, mentions that the theory was developed by advancing the features of developmental and social learning theories (Bem, 1983). The theory states that the child has to be ready to encode and organize the information according to the cultural definition of maleness or femaleness. In this context, sex typing is therefore mediated by the child through cognitive processing. The gender schematic processing is derived from the sex-differentiated practices of the social community.
Personally, I believe that Bem develop the theory because she felt that other theorists were more focused on the influence of anatomy in gender development. With the new theory, the author goes on to propose that a child’s cognitive development can be combined with those of societal influences and this affects the patterns of thought and therefore defines the male and female traits (Bem, 1983). In addition to influencing how people process information, the gender schema determines people’s attitudes and believes that are ideally appropriate for their respective genders (Bem, 1983). For instance, a child who is raised in a traditional culture will grow up believing that children have the primary role of caring and raising children while a man’s role is work and industry. There is an excellent example of the impacts of gender schematic processing- the community have prepared the children to believe the available patterns.
Moreover, I would say that the gender schema theory is somehow subjective because it can limit people of some particular gender from pursuing various life opportunities. For instance in some culture, if women break from the norms of their particular cultures and decide to pursue their careers, they might be considered as unfair wayward disrespectful or disloyal to their husbands and the community at large. This might make such people face disapproval rejection and this might make them have a bad attitude towards their culture. The author was aware of these perceptions and she suggests raising of children in a way that they are not stuck on stereotypes and limitations and these would offer them greater freedom and fewer restriction. Therefore the theory has its pros and cons but it is a great psychological theory.
Lastly, I feel that the theory of gender schema concentrates more on the development of gender schemas more than it tests how it would prevail on complex forces that contribute to the construction of gender. For instance, there are children who are born intersex, what would determine the end result of how they feel about themselves. How will they decide on their preferences and attributes especially when they live in a community that feel that such children are abnormal and unworthy. There is a need for research to determine how sex typing for intersex children would be decided.
Reference
Bem, S. L. (1983). Gender schema theory and its implications for child development: Raising gender-aschematic children in a gender-schematic society. Signs: Journal of women in culture and society, 8(4), 598-616.
