Biological And Social Factors Influencing Gender Identity Essay

There are a number of biological and social factors influencing gender identity. Gender identity means a person’s subjective experience of his or her own gender. How gender identity develops has remained a topic of much debate since long. Often gender identity is shaped early in life. It denotes the extent to which someone identifies as being either masculine or feminine. The formation of gender identity is yet to be completely understood. The factors which have been suggested as influencing the development of gender identity include biological, social, and a number of other factors like language, social and economic power. The biological factors influencing the development of gender identity are pre and post natal hormone levels and genetic
The framework of a continuum describes the two genders from extremely masculine to extremely feminine.(differenceworks, n.d.) However, masculine in each case does not equal men and feminine does not equal women because no woman is exclusively feminine and no man is exclusively masculine. A mixture of masculine and feminine perspectives, behaviour and values is found in every man and woman. Women can be masculine in many more ways than feminine and especially the ones working in offices. In certain environments like a work environment a woman will be seen as weak if she operates in feminine ways. It is why many working woman would be found operating in more masculine ways than feminine ways. Masculine and feminine in this sense have an empirical meaning, and on the continuum they are used as qualities to define certain qualities which in a given culture are perceived as more closely associated with males or females.(Stats & Burke,
First of all, it was the women around me. Second it is the environment around me and the third is the society including my family church. The women around me remained an important influence and they helped me learn magnificent things about myself. To a great extent if I feel comfortable as a woman, then the credit goes to them. I carry myself as a women at all times. I was born a women and comfortable in the women I am. All the women in my life has shown me the characteristics of being a women. Most like myself grew up thinking a man is the provider and took care of home although I’ve seen this growing up I’m very independent and I will attempt to do everything on my own whether it taking out the trash, mowing the lawn putting antifreeze in my car. These are things I was told was a man’s job. This is called life and I can do these things on my own and it may even require assistance but as a women I will get the job done. But my environment is made of men and women both and I got a chance to learn from men too and I would not say they did not have a major influence on how my gender identity has