Question

Read the posted articles about Baby Storm and the parents' decision to raise her without a gender. Given what you have learned about biological, social, and cognitive influences on gender development, is raising a gender-neutral child possible? Or desirable? Or perhaps even harmful? Be sure you explain your argument!

Answer 1

Biological influences : There is a great biological influence in gender development. Basically females have XX chromosome where males have XY chromosome. These chromosomes determine if a human being will be male or female.There is also a great difference in the amount of hormone secretion in their body. Testosterone hormone is more presented in male body where progesterone and estrogen is secreted more in female body. Both Freud and Erikson argued that individual's genitals influence his/her gender behavior.

Social influences : Many social scientists do not locate the biological causes for gender differences. Rather they focus on psychological schemas which is built by social influences. Alice Eagly(2000, 2001) proposed social role theory, which states that gender differences mainly result from the contrasting roles of females and males.According to him, women adopted to roles with less power and less status in society, so they showed more cooperative, less dominant profile than men.

Parents also have a great influence in gender development. They allows boys more independence than girls.

Cognitive influences : The social cognitive theory emphasizes the children's and adolescent' s gender development occurs through observation and imitation of gender behaviour and ofcourse through the rewards and punishments they receive for gender appropriate and inappropriate behaviour.

No. Gender neutral child is not possible because there is obviously the biological, social and cognitive effects. Human being is a socialized animal and if parents try to do that, it will never be possible for society.

It is harmful because when the psychosocial development occurs,the child feel lost about his/her own identity. Gender and sexuality is the only thing which leads to a child's identity. Without a proper identity they may feel anxiety which may create problem in other developmental aspects.