Human Sexuality Chapter 6
Crocodile Eggs
Do not carry sex chromosomes. The crocodile offspring's sex is determined by the temperature at which the eggs develop. Males - at least in mid-90's Female - under mid-80's
Unconventionally Gendered
Anyone who identifies with, or behaves in, a manner that runs counter to traditional gender roles relevant to his or her assigned sex.
Psychoanalytic Theory
Sigmund Freud's approach to understanding human behavior that emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
Sex Reassignment
Surgery is one element of sex reassignment. Health professionals will decide if people are competent to make such a decision since the surgery is irreversible. They usually require the person wanting the surgery to live openly as a member of the other sex for and extended trial period before surgery. The person will begin taking hormones.
Phonosurgery
Surgery that is done in the case of male-to-female transsexuals to raise the pitch of the voice.
Sexual Strategies Theory
women & men have evolved distinct mating strategies because they faced different adaptive problems over the course of human history; maximize the probability of passing along their genes to future generations. Men are more likely to have one-night stands and brief affairs.
Gender Schema
A cluster of mental representations about male and female physical qualities, behaviors and personality traits. Once children acquire gender schema, they begin to judge themselves according to traits considered appropriate to their sex. Gender identity itself is sufficient to inspire gender-appropriate behavior.
Transsexualism / Transgendered People
A condition in which people strongly desire to be of the other sex anatomically and live as a person of the other sex. This is referred to as Gender Identity Disorder. Many undergo hormone treatments and surgery to create the appearance of the external genitals typical of the other sex. It can be done precisely with male to female. They can attain orgasm during sex, but can not conceive or bear children.
Stereotype
A fixed conventional idea about a group of people. (It is usually distorted)
Dominican Republic Syndrome
A form of intersexualism in which a genetic enzyme disorder prevents testosterone from masculinizing the external genitalia. (Was first documented in 1974.) 18 boys that were born with normal testes and internal male reproductive organs, but the external genitals were malformed. They were raised as girls. A puberty the "clitorises" expanded into penises, testes descended and their voices changed. 17 of them shifted to the male gender.
Androgen-intensitivity Syndrome - Male
A form of intersexualism in which a genetic male is prenatally insensitive to androgens such that his genitals are not normally masculinized. At birth their external genitals are feminized, including a small vagina and their testes are undescended. Because of the insensitivity to androgens the male duct system fails to develop. They usually do not have pubic or axillary hair, because the development of hair in these locations is dependent on androgens.
Berdache "Two Spirits"
A name given to multiple genders by the Native American cultures. They are considered to be gender crossers.
Hermaphrodite
A person who possesses both ovarian and testicular tissue. True hermaphrodites have one gonad of each sex (testicle and an ovary) or gonads that combine testicular and ovarian tissue. (this is rare) Regardless of their genetic sex, hermaphrodites often assume the gender identity and gender role of the sex assigned at birth.
Gender Dysphoria
A sense of incongruity between one's anatomic sex and one's gender identity. Being trapped in the wrong body.
Phalloplasty
A series of operations to construct and artificial penis, but the penises do not work very well and they are very expensive.
Psychological Androgyny
A state characterized by possession of both stereotypical masculine traits and stereotypical feminine traits. People that are psychological Androgynous tend to have higher self-esteem and are generally better adjusted psychologically then people that are feminine or undifferentiated.
Transgenderism
A synonym for transsexualism. An activist movement seeking rights and pride for various transgendered individuals, intersexuals, transvestites and anyone who is unconventionally gendered.
Gender Typing - Biological
Biological view on gender typing tend to focus on the roles of hormones, genetics,and brain structures in predisposing men and women to gender-linked behavior patterns. It is largely assumed that a major mechanism by which heredity expresses itself in this realm is through prenatal sex hormones.
Hormones
Boys and girls have been found to show gender-typed play by the age of 13 months. Testosterone - is first diffused into fetal amniotic fluid through the skin of the fetus and later by fetal urination. The amount found in amniotic fluid varies but is usually higher in male fetuses.
Sex-reassignment Surgery
Cannot implant the internal reproductive organs of the other sex. Surgery creates the appearance of the external genitals typical of the other sex.
Schema
Concept: way of interpreting experience or processing information.
Kathoeyes "Ladyboys"
Considered to be the third sex in Thailand. They consider themselves to be a "second" kind of women. They are seen as males with mistaken minds or women born into the wrong body or a third gender.
Gender Roles
Cultural broad expectations for the personalities and behaviors of men and women.
Third Gender / Third Sex
Describes people who are considered to be neither women or men. May represent an intermediate state between men and women or it may be in the case of "the spirit of a man in a woman's body". Some people say that the third gender emerged around 1700 in England: The male sodomite.
Autogynephilic
Descriptive of transsexuals who are sexually stimulated by fantasies that their own bodies are female.
Group Differences
Examples are verbal skills and spacial skills between men and women.
Social-Cognitive Theory
Explanation of the development of gender-type behavior in terms of processes such as observational learning, identification and socialization. Identification is seen as a continuous and learning process in which rewards and punishments influence children to imitate adult models of the same sex. They not only watch but want to become like the model. They believe that aggression is largely influenced by learning.
Homosexual Transsexuals
Extremely feminine gay males who seek sex reassignment. They are not fully satisfied with sex activity with other males. Usually show cross-gender preferences in play and dress in early childhood. Female transsexuals seem to have an easier time adjusting than male transsexuals.
Personality Differences
Female - extraversion, anxiety, trust and nurturance Males - assertiveness, tough-mindedness and self-esteem Women have to perform better than males to be seen as doing equally well.
Chromosomal Sex
Gender identity is almost always consistent with chromosomal sex.
Gender Roles and Sexual Behavior
Gender roles affect relationships and sexual behavior. Children grow up learning that a man usually approaches the women and initiate sexual relationships, whereas women usually serve as the "gatekeeper" in romantic relationships. Men are the ones to make the first move an women are to determine how far they will go. Men are considered sexually aggressive and women are sexually passive. Men are expected to have higher numbers of sexual partners than women.
CAH - Characteristics
Girls with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia in a study showed more interest in masculine-typed toys such as transportation toys and less interest in girl-type toys. (dolls etc) They are more likely to have boys as playmates and desire masculine-typed careers. They are more "boylike" in choice of toys and agressiveness.
Monogamous - Women
Having sexual relations with one partner only, excluding all others. These relationships are usually long-term relationships.
Identification
In psychoanalytic theory, the process of incorporation within ourselves our perceptions of the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings of others. Boys identify with their fathers and girls identify with their mothers.
Intersexual / Pseudohermaphrodite
Individuals that posses the gonads of one sex but external genitalia that are ambiguous or typical of the other sex. Sometimes these people are reared to match the genitalial vs the chromosomal sex.
Partial Androgen-Insensitivity Syndrome (PAIS) & (CAIS) - Complete
Intersexual girls. Occurs in 1 in 2000 to 5,000 girls with a single X chromosome and in girls with XX Chromosomal structure that lose some X sex chromosomal material. CAIS girls develop typical external genital organs but internal reproductive organs do not develop or function normally. PAIS girls develop masculinized external genitals. They are sometimes raised as boys or girls.
Aggressiveness Differences
Men are more aggressive than women.
Gender Identity Awareness
Most children become aware of their anatomic sex by the age of 18 months. By 3 years old a child has a firm sense of gender identity.
Intersexualism
Occurs in 1infant in 5,000. Intersexuals have testes or ovaries but not both. Intersexualism has given scientist an opportunity to examine the roles of nature and nurture in the shaping of gender identity.
Gender Identity
Our psychological awareness or sense of being male or being female and it is one of the most obvious and important aspects of our self concept.
Cognitive-Developmental Theory
Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg proposed a cognitive-developmental view of gender typing. These developments occur in three stages: Infants show visual prefences for gender-typed toys by - 3-8 months Gender Identity - age 3 Gender Stability - age 4-5 (understand that people retain their genders for a lifetime) Gender Constancy age 7-8 Children are motivated to behave in gender-appropriate way once they established the concepts of gender stability and gender constancy.
Prenatal Brain Organization
Testosterone in male fetus brains triggers growth in right hemisphere and slows growth in left. This may explain why men excel at visual-spacial tasks, such as road maps and visualizing an object in space. It also influences the preference of childhood toys.
Visual-Spacial Ability
The ability to visualize objects or shapes an to mentally manipulate and rotate them. Men are better at this than women. Difference start to become apparent at age 8 or 9 and persists into adulthood.
The Evolutionary Perspective
The belief that our heritage influences our social and sexual behavior as well as our anatomic features. It implies stereotypical gender roles such as that men are the breadwinners and women are the homemakers.
Gender Stability
The concept that people retain their genders for a lifetime. Ages 4-5
Gender Constancy
The concept that people's genders do not change, even if they alter their dress or behavior. Ages 7-8
Sex Assignment / Gender Assignment
The labeling of a newborn as a male or female. Reflects a child's anatomic sex and usually occurs at birth. Our identification of ourselves as female or male.
Sexism
The prejudgement that, because her or his sex, a person will possess negative traits. These negative traits are assumed to disqualify the person for certain vocations or preventing him or her from performing adequately in these jobs or in some social situations. To interpret the same behavior in a prejudicial ways when performed by women or men. "Sissy" - a sensitive man. "mens work & womens work".
Socialization
The process of guiding people into socially acceptable behavior patterns by means of information, rewards and punishments.
Sex Reassignment - Female to Male
They begin to receive androgens which promote male secondary sex characteristics. The voice deepens, hair becomes distributed according to the male pattern, muscles enlarge, and the fatty deposits in the breast and hips are lost. The clitoris may also grow more prominent. In surgery the internal female sex organs are removed, along with the fatty tissue in the breasts. Most female-to-male transsexuals have hysterectomies, mastectomies and testosterone treatments.
Sex Reassignment - Male to Female
They will begin to take estrogen which fosters the development of secondary sex characteristics. It causes fatty deposits to develop in the breast and hips, softens skin and inhibits the growth of a beard. This surgery is more successful. The penis and testicles are removed. The tissue from the penis is place in an artificial vagina so that sensitive nerve endings will provide sexual sensations. A penis-shaped form of plastic or balsa wood is used to keep the vagina distended during healing.
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH)
This is the most common form of female intersexualism. A genetic female has internal female sexual structures but masculinized external genitals. The clitoris is enlarged and may resemble a small penis. This is caused by high levels of androgens, which are produced by the fetus's own adrenal glands. This can also happen in the mother received synthetic androgens during their pregnancies. In 1950s and 1960s synthetic androgens were sometimes prescribed to prevent miscarriages in women with histories of miscarriages.
Willingness to seek health care Differences
Women are more willing to seek health care. Men tend to let things go until they become serious and possibly life threatening. Men have a "bullet-proof mentality".
Social Behavior Differences
Women disclose their feelings and personal experiences more often than men. Men show more interest in sex than women. Women want to combine sex and a romantic relationship. Men are more interested in casual sex and have more partners.
Mullerian Inhibiting Substance (MIS)
a hormone released by the testes that helps prevent the development of the female reproductive system.
Polygamous - Men
a mating relationship wherein one partner mates with multiple other partners of the opposite sex, but each of those partners mates only with the one. Polygyny (one male has multiple females) is found more commonly than polyandry (one female has multiple male partners)
Oedipus Complex
conflict during phallic stage in which boys supposedly love their mothers romantically and want to eliminate their fathers as rivals. This happens between the ages of 3 and 5 during the phallic period.
Differences in Cognitive Abilities
no overall intelligence diff, girls speak sooner and have larger vocab and better reading scores, boys better with verbal analogies and more likely to stutter, european/american males have slight math advantage, largest gender diff is spatial abilities