Psychosexual Stages of Development
I’m sure you need little reminding of Freud’s stages: “Old Age Pensioners Love Gardening.”
According to Freud during the first two stages, oral and anal the child has no concept of gender. That takes us up to the age of four or five and the phallic stage.
Oedipus Complex (boys)
According to Freud young boys have an unconscious, incestuous desire for their mums which also results in a fear or hatred of their father who say see as a threat for their mother’s affections.
Also, fearing castration by their father, should he find out, they also experience castration anxiety.
The crucial aspect to Freud’s theory is that eventually boys realise that the only way they can find a woman like their mum is to grow up to be like their father. This results in resolution of their Oedipus Complex as they identify with their father and his gender role.
Elektra Conflict (girls)
Freud had little to do with children (Little Hans aside) and seemed to like girls least of all, though he did like ladies! Therefore, it was left to his student, Carl Jung, to suggest a female version of Oedipus.
The Elektra Conflict, named after the heroine who avenged the murder of her father by her mother, is essentially the same idea as Oedipus. Girls desire father and are therefore afraid of mother. Eventually, girls identify with mum and adopt her gender role, as well as her moral values.
Identification eventually leads to internalisation of the same sex gender role. Obviously the prime example here is Little Hans who Freud studied indirectly through Little Han’s father.
In the case of Hans, is feat of horses was a result of displacement of his fear of father, but eventually was still resolved by identification.
Note: calling it a pair of primary sex characteristics that result from the boy’s exposure to testosterone in the womb is not sufficient JOther than Little Hans, who is not an example of gender identity anyway, Freud cited no other case studies as evidence of the Oedipus or Elektra conflicts. We therefore have the usual issue. Psychoanalytic theories are based on hypothetical constructs operating at an unconscious level. There is no direct, empirical evidence, only the subjective opinion of the analyst. As a result, the theory is totally unscientific, non-falsifiable and beyond testing.
Freud did conclude that boys had a stronger sense of moral development. He assumed that the fear of castration, which girls did not experience, the identification was stronger in boys. Since the same principle is driving gender identity it seems fair to conclude that boys would also develop a stronger gender identity. In fact there is evidence to support this (see SLT).
However, by the same argument, stricter parents, creating greater anxiety might be expected to produce greater gender identity in their offspring. In fact the evidence suggests the opposite to be true. According to Blakemore & Hill (2008) it’s more liberal parents who produce a stronger and more secure gender identity in their children.
Child of its time
Freud’s theory has often been criticised for being out-dated and better representing the outdated ideals of a male-dominated Victorian society in which it was developed.
Karen Horney (early twentieth century feminist psychologist) believes boy’s womb-envy is more important than girl’s penis envy. After all, it is only women who can bring new life into the world.
For Freud, gender identity development also relies on the child being born into a two-parent nuclear family. This would have been the norm at the end of the nineteenth century so would not have been questioned. However, the children of today still develop gender identity despite being brought up in one-parent families. If Freud is right then this should not be possible. Golombok et al (1983) found that being raised in single parent families does not impact on gender development and nor does being raised by trans-gender parents (Green 1978).
Chodorow (1978) developed an alternative psychodynamic theory. Most young children develop a close relationship with their mother. This relationship sets a pattern for future relationships.
Girls develop a sense of gender identity based on their close relationship with another female (mother). They associate femininity with closeness.
Boys have to move away from their close relationship with their mother in order to develop gender identity. This can make boys regard closeness unrelated to masculinity.
CGS Psychology Blog: Mrs Harris 