Sameness and Difference: Toward an “Overinclusive” Model of Gender Development

The idea of gender development has of necessity been linked to the notion of coming to terms with difference. What has changed in contemporary thinking is the meaning of sexual difference, which is no longer equated with anatomical difference. Assimilating the meaning of sexual difference(s) and assuming a position in relation to it are no longer seen as triggered by the discovery of anatomical facts. To some degree, however, psychoanalytic assumptions about the character of gender difference have not wholly been liberated from the naturalizing tendency in Freud's thought, although in a more covert and subtle form. This form consists of a tendency to view the realization of difference as if it were more significant than, or detached from, the realization of likeness. The implicit assumption in differentiation theory is that acknowledging difference has a higher value, is a later achievement, and is more difficult than recognizing likeness. The neglected point is that the difficulty lies in assimilating difference without repudiating likeness, that is, in straddling the space between the opposites. It is easy enough to give up one side of a polarity in order to oscillate toward the other side. What is difficult is to attain a notion of difference—being unlike—without giving up a sense of commonality, of being “like.”