Feminist Approaches to Working with Complex Trauma

Essentialism/Constructivism• Essentialist assumptions:– Gender (or race, or other characteristics) isinherent, resident within the person– Gender as collection of fundamental, sex-linkedattributes, thus isomorphic with sex• Constructivist Assumptions– Gender not inherent, but a construct thatemerges in social exchanges– Behaviors are gendered by social conventionassigned to them, not by sex of the actor– Power in the role genders the behavior-the morepowerless, the more “feminine”