The shaping of masculinity: Revisioning boys turning away from their mothers to construct male gender identity

Abstract

This paper offers an understanding of the nature of the internalization processes involved in the shaping of male gender identity founded on the boy's unique struggles in separating from his mother. The underpinning for the initial development of a sense of masculinity is reconsidered as the author questions the widely held idea of Greenson and Stoller that a boy normatively has to ‘dis‐identify’ from his mother to create his gender identity. Import rather is placed on the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mother's (and father's) pre‐oedipal and oedipal relationship with their little boy in order better to understand the nature of the boy's unique identifications and subsequent sense of masculinity. Both the security of the boy's attachment to his mother, in providing the foundation for a transitional turning to an ‘other’, and the mother's capacity to reflect upon and recognize her own, as well as the father's and her son's, subjectivity and maleness, are crucial in comprehending boys' ‘attachment‐individuation’ process. Likewise, the unconscious paternal and maternal imagos and identifications of both the boy's mother and father, as well as the father's pre‐oedipal relationship with his little boy and the boy's mother, are extremely significant in shaping a son's gender identity. The author argues that these early maternal (and paternal) identifications live on in every male and continue to impact the sense of maleness in a dialectical interplay throughout the life span. A maturing gender identity develops from integrating these early, pre‐oedipal maternal identifications that no longer need be repudiated nor defensively organized as polarized gender splitting.

Meaning Making in Growing Up Without a Father: Narratives of Young Adolescent Boys

“…Psychoanalytic literature regards identification with a father as an important aspect of masculine gender identity development [19]. In our study, Benny also wanted to identify with his father by taking his surname, recognizing that this holds some symbolic meaning.…”

“…By taking good care of his baby boy, he seemed to be vicariously fulfilling some of his unmet emotional needs as a boy child [19]. The interview revealed that the birth of his boy child also reactivated some of his unresolved childhood issues with regard to his absent father.…”

The Psychoanalytic Mode of Thought and its Application To the Non-Normative Analysis of Sexuality and Gender

“…The complexity of this terrain only increases 3 In "Ego and Reality," Loewald (1951) calls into question these kinds of schematic simplifications of the roles of the mother and the father in psychic development. Diamond (2004) offers a more recent analysis of schematic notions about boys and their complex bonds to their mothers.…”

Masculinity Unraveled: The Roots of Male Gender Identity and the Shifting of Male Ego Ideals Throughout Life

“…In contrast, under "good enough" conditions, the boy's turning away from his mother is transitional (Diamond 1998;Fast 1999). This transitional turning away from the mother helps the boy to differentiate and separate from his primary external object.…”

“…These challenges emerge particularly during the oedipal and latency phases, in adolescence and young adulthood, and again in mid-and later life. Though it is beyond my scope here to examine each of these critical junctures, it is pertinent nonetheless to note the main gender identity-related factors operating throughout these other phases (see Freud 1924;Erikson 1963;Blos 1978;Levinson et al 1978;Schalin 1983;Colarusso 1995;Diamond 1998Diamond , 2004a.…”