Female Gender Identity in Adolescence.

Abstract

Often gender identity has been studied as the plain certainty of being female or male--a knowledge which develops by 18 months of age. However, this piece of self knowledge launches a continuing process in which gender evolves and takes on meaning throughout development. The experience of one's gender is shaped by biological, psychosocial, and cultural factors. This study focuses on middle adolescence--a life phase which renders the search for self a deliberate and self conscious project. Concerns about who one is and who one will become are pressing and often unresolved. At least for girls, gender appears to be at the center of this quest. Twenty-one 15-16 year-old girls completed the study which included st and ardized questionnaires on sex roles, parental attitudes, and psychosocial adjustment, projective tests to tap unconscious ideas, and personal interviews. The experience of being female varied widely. Criteria were developed to categorize girls into three groups: those who were delighted about being female, positive (N = 6), those who had quite mixed feelings about being female, ambivalent (N = 9), and those who were intensely dissatisfied with being female, negative (N = 6). The positive group obtains significantly healthier scores on measures of psychosocial adjustment. All girls in this group test out as " and rogynous," and many have experienced a less sex-typed upbringing than their ambivalent and negative counterparts. While the ambivalent and negative groups contained girls of varied class backgrounds, the positive group was entirely middle class. Girls of working class and poor backgrounds had less opportunity for enthusiasm about approaching adult female roles. Constraints on female potential were more keenly felt among these girls. Other factors which emerged as determinants in the shaping of female gender identity included marital satisfaction of parents as perceived by a daughter, and parental attitudes toward a girl's gender. The development of autonomy differed across gender identity groups in a way which suggests that the capacity for both intimacy and individuation is critical in optimal female gendering. The experience of the body self proved a significant factor as well: positive girls felt proud of their bodies, had pleasant experiences of menarche and pubertal change, were athletic, and in general, unafraid of sexuality. Implications of the findings, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are discussed.