Without Gender, Without Self

Abstract

(from the chapter) In this chapter, the author addresses the model from the perspective of gender. Gender is not a part of Baltes's theory, and yet it nevertheless enters it because scientific narratives, in narrating the human condition, involve implicit assumptions about the role of gender in such cognitive and emotional aspects of development. Drawing on her previous theoretical work, the author distinguishes between two gendered narratives. One presents an essentially "masculine" view of life course with an emphasis on the rise, growth, and decline of logos, activity, and internal, conscious control. The second presents an essentially "feminine" view with an emphasis on the suppression and eventual liberation of mythos--the intuition, emotional, relational, and experiential. As do many cognitively based theories, Baltes's version of lifespan theory exemplifies a "masculine" prototype with its emphasis on autonomy and internal control, its technical rather than social-interactional view of culture, and its failure to integrate a consistent theory of emotion into his view of development across the lifespan. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).