Nature Versus Nurture: Gendered Identity in Adolescents

Social constructionism begins with the premise that sexual conduct is social in origin; that is, people learn sexuality as they learn everything else. Sex differences come with birth, gender differences (”masculine” and “feminine”) are entirely a matter of training, and sexual conduct is shaped by social forces….each culture produces its own limits on change by means of the interplay of tradition, religion, politics and other factors.

This argument is flawed in that it does not seek to explain gendered orientation. Instead, it seeks to explain the level of openness which is afforded to homosexual individuals based on the level of tolerance of the society in which they live. Schmidt goes on to also present the biological or nature debate with regard to gendered identity stating such current research as LeVay’s study of homosexual males:

In 1991 neurobiologist S. LeVay dissected the brains of thirty-five male cadavers, including those of nineteen known homosexual men…and discovered that a part of the hypothalamus in the brains of the homosexual men (INAH3) was on average smaller than that of the other men and the same size as that of women.

While this research is in no way conclusive, and does attempt to analyze lesbian identities, it does lend credence to the concept that sexual orientation, like so many other factors that influence development, is not strictly determined by environmental factors. This is just one example of the ramifications of nature versus nurture, and the need for theorists, scholars, researchers and educators alike to be willing to look at both sides of the debate.

A child with a high IQ who is raised in poverty, for example, will not have the schematic background knowledge needed to develop intellectually in an academic sense. Additionally, factors such as culture, access to health care as well as genetic propensities all combine to form the cohesive who of each individual. In essence, it is as Ridley stated in 1999:

Mother Nature has plainly not entrusted the determination of our intellectual capacities to the blind fate of a gene or genes; she gave us parents, learning, language, culture and education to program ourselves with.

It is faulty logic to assume that one or the other is the sole mitigating factor that determines anything with regard to human development.