"Mom, I'm doing boy's stuff with Dad. You just go hang clothes." A Complementary Hegelian and psychoanalytic analysis of the acquisition of gender in childhood and its societal repercussions.

Gender is so pervasive in our lives that until we encounter a situation which is not the "norm" we hardly question it at all. However, gender constructs carry with them a power which determines the roles of men and women in society. This paper will examine the psychoanalytic work on gender acquisition and complement this with Hegel's master/slave dialectic which shows how even without gender, any two self-conscious beings will engage with each other with force. Both the work of Nancy Chodorow and Sigmund Freud offer a psychoanalysis of early childhood notions of recognition and separation and the tension between the two. This essay will argue how infant relationships with their parents subconsciously influence the child's construction of gender, which they carry through to adulthood permeating through all aspects of adult life. It will also offer suggestions of how the sexes can break free, in some respects, of the bonds of gender.