Freud’s Oedipus complex refers to the small boy’s need to separate “male self” from “female mother” and yet still retain “female” as an object of sexual desire. Freud thought that boys could accomplish this separation by competing with the father for the mother’s affection. By defeating the father with whom they identified, boys secured their sexual identity. Cross-cultural research reveals the competition can be with a father figure (e.g., an uncle or older brother), suggesting that a boy is testing himself against the cultural power structure into which he is being socialized.

Freud’s attempts to explain the corollary Electra complex in girls were inadequate. While little girls may express a desire to marry their father and get rid of their mother, they must continue to identify with their mother’s gender role. That is, in Freud’s view, girls are left to identify with the vanquished. Researchers at the Stone Center at Wellesley College, unlike Freud, believe that women’s sense of self is based on their relationships with others, not on being separate from them. In forming a self, a young girl differentiates—rather than separates—her femaleness from that of her mother.

Children first notice physical differences between the sexes and then begin to understand the behavior expected of male and female. What influences this process?