Gender Identity: Gender Binary (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

Gender identity

• The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of men, women, girls, and boys

  • This covers relationships between people as well as the norms, behaviours, and roles that come with being a girl, boy, woman, or man

  • Gender as a social construct differs from society to society and is subject to change over time

• According to the NHS, gender identity is a way to describe a person’s innate sense of their gender. A person's gender identity may:

  • be binary (i.e., male or female)

  • be non-binary (a catch-all term for gender identities that are outside of the male/female binary)

  • not correspond to the biological sex registered at birth

Gender as a social construct

• Some argue that gender is based on biological differences; however, many psychologists and sociologists believe that gender is socially constructed

• Feminist Anne Oakley contends that society creates and sustains gender roles via socialisation, a process she breaks down into four distinct mechanisms:

  • Manipulation: Encouraging behaviour which is stereotypically acceptable for a child’s gender and actively discouraging behaviour that does not

    • e.g., a mother praises her daughter for calmly sharing dolls with friends, then tells her off for splashing in the mud

  • Canalisation: The channelling of behaviour and interests into those that fit the binary

    • e.g., dolls and prams for girls, toolkits and footballs for boys

  • Verbal appellation: Using language that reinforces gender expectations

    • e.g., ‘daddy’s little princess’ for girls or ‘big boys don’t cry' for boys

  • Different activities: Encouragement to take part in activities that reinforce stereotypes

    • e.g., fixing machines for boys or baking cakes for girls

Gender binary

• The gender/sex binary refers to the belief that both sex and gender are binary, and that gender follows directly from sex

  • ‘Sex’ in this context refers to the biological makeup of an individual (such as their chromosomes and hormones)

  • ‘Gender’ refers to the cultural interpretation of sex (i.e. gender roles and stereotypes) and gender identity (American Psychological Association, 2018)

• The gender binary is the system that categorises gender into two mutually exclusive and fixed options: men and women, male and female, masculine and feminine

  • This classification is often based on biological characteristics such as reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormones

• In Western cultures, the gender binary system can be understood as the hidden foundation upon which much of everyday life is built

  • Binary gender shapes perceptions of masculinity and femininity and influences all aspects of life, including language, clothing and social roles

  • Individuals are expected to conform to the societal norms associated with their assigned gender at birth

  • Failure to conform to, or challenging, the gender binary can lead to punishment

    • Many argue that it is the foundation of gender inequality

Evaluation of the gender binary

Strengths

• Support for the gender binary comes from the evolutionary approach, which suggests that binary distinctions are rooted in reproductive strategies such as division of labour and parental investment, e.g., males compete for mates leading to traits like aggression and risk-taking, whereas females focus on caregiving and survival of offspring, leading to nurturing and co-operative behaviour

  • This suggests that binary roles are adaptive, and men and women are inherently suited to different tasks and roles

• Chromosomes and hormones are the biological definitions of sex, and research uses these classifications to differentiate between male and female

  • The biological perspective supports the gender binary by tying genes and hormones to two distinct categories, so our biological sex determines our gender (‘anatomy is destiny’)

Weaknesses

• The gender binary rests on the assumption that there is a sex binary, meaning that sex is dimorphic; however, research from biology, neuroscience, and neuroendocrinology challenges the idea that sex is binary, suggesting instead that sex is a spectrum

  • Diversity in sex development beyond the binary provides evidence against the claim that individuals can be divided into two groups based on sex

• Hyde et al.'s similarity hypothesis (2019) challenges the gender binary as evidence shows that the categories (male or female) are more similar than different:

  • Brain imaging shows there is no sexually dimorphic 'male' or 'female' brain

  • Hormone research reveals overlapping, flexible endocrine profiles rather than two fixed systems

  • Large-scale psychological studies find men and women far more alike than different, while the healthy identities of transgender and non-binary people demonstrate that lived experience can exist outside of two genders

  • Cross-cultural work shows that seeing gender as rigid is socially taught and can be unlearned, so it isn’t a solid basis for modern gender theory

Link to Issues & Debates

Psychology can be seen to reinforce the gender binary through a prioritisation of research that seeks to establish gender differences; therefore, there is an issue of alpha bias in gender theory research.

Viewing gender as binary due to biological characteristics such as reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormones and reinforced by societal/cultural norms is an example of hard determinism.

This refers to the idea that all human behaviour is innate and it ignores the role of the environment, culture and socialisation in gendered behaviour. The idea that all human behaviour is innate is a form of hard determinism that views biological sex as directly linked and something over which the individual has no control. This perspective ignores personal agency as it assumes people cannot choose identities or behaviours outside their assigned sex, overlooking the lived experiences of transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming individuals.