In English, both 'sex' and 'gender' can be used in contexts where they could not be substituted — 'sexual intercourse', 'safe sex', 'sex worker', or on the other hand, 'grammatical gender'. Other languages, like German or Dutch, use the same word, '':de:Geschlecht'' or '':nl:geslacht'', to refer not only to biological sex, but social differences as well, making a distinction between biological 'sex' and 'gender' identity difficult. In some contexts, German has adopted the English loanword ''Gender'' to achieve this distinction. Sometimes ''Geschlechtsidentität'' is used for 'gender' (although it literally means 'gender identity') and ''Geschlecht'' for 'sex'. More common is the use of modifiers: ''biologisches Geschlecht'' for 'biological sex', ''Geschlechtsidentität'' for 'gender identity' and ''Geschlechtsrolle'' for 'gender role', and so on.

Swedish

In Swedish, 'gender' is translated with the linguistically cognate '':sv:genus'', including sociological contexts, thus: ''Genusstudier'' (gender studies) and ''Genusvetenskap'' (gender science). 'Sex' in Swedish, however, only signifies sexual relations, and not the proposed English dichotomy, a concept for which '':sv:kön'' (also from PIE ''g^en-'') is used. A common distinction is then made between ''kön'' (sex) and ''genus'' (gender), where the former refers only to biological sex. There are different opinions whether ''genus'' should involve biology but within the ''genusvetenskap'' which is strongly influenced by feminism it usually does not. Sweden uses the words ''sv:könsroll'' and '':sv:könsidentitet'' (literally 'sex role' and 'sex-identity') for the English terms 'gender role' and 'gender identity'.

French

In French, the word ''sexe'' is most widely used for both "sex" and "gender" in everyday contexts. However, the word ''genre'' is increasingly used to refer to gender in queer or academic contexts, such as the word ''transgenre'' (transgender) or the translation of Judith Butler's book ''Gender Trouble'' as ''Trouble dans le genre''. The term ''identité sexuelle'' was proposed for "gender" or "gender identity," although it can be confused with "sexual identity" (one's identity as it relates to one's sexual life).

Social gender

Categorizing males and females into social roles creates binaries in which individuals feel they have to be at one end of a linear spectrum and must identify themselves as man or woman. Globally, communities interpret biological differences between men and women to create a set of social expectations that define the behaviors that are "appropriate" for men and women and determine women’s and men’s different access to rights, resources, power in society and even health behaviors. Although the specific nature and degree of these differences vary from one society to the next, they typically favor men, creating an imbalance in power and gender inequalities in all countries.

Western philosopher Michel Foucault, claimed that as sexual subjects, humans are the object of power, which is not an institution or structure, rather it is a signifier or name attributed to "complex strategical situation". Because of this, "power" is what determines individual attributes, behaviors, etc. and people are a part of an ontologically and epistemologically constructed set of names and labels. Such as, being female characterizes one as a woman, and being a woman signifies one as weak, emotional, and irrational, and is incapable of actions attributed to a "man". Judith Butler said that gender and sex are more like verbs than nouns. She reasoned that her actions are limited because she is female. "I am not permitted to construct my gender and sex willy-nilly," she said. "[This] is so because gender is politically and therefore socially controlled. Rather than 'woman' being something one is, it is something one does." There are more recent criticisms of Judith Butler's theories which critique her writing for reinforcing the very conventional dichotomies of gender.

Social assignment and the idea of gender fluidity

The World Health Organization defines gender as the result of socially constructed ideas about the behavior, actions, and roles a particular sex performs. The beliefs, values and attitude taken up and exhibited by them is as per the agreeable norms of the society and the personal opinions of the person is not taken into the primary consideration of assignment of gender and imposition of gender roles as per the assigned gender. Intersections and crossing of the prescribed boundaries have no place in the arena of the social construct of the term "gender".

The assignment of gender involves taking into account the physiological and biological attributes assigned by nature followed by the imposition of the socially constructed conduct. The social label of being classified into one or the other sex is obligatory to the medical stamp on the birth certificate. The cultural traits typically coupled to a particular sex finalize the assignment of gender and the biological differences which play a role in classifying either sex is interchangeable with the definition of gender within the social context.

In this context, the socially constructed rules are at a cross road with the assignment of a particular gender to a person. Gender ambiguity deals with having the freedom to choose, manipulate and create a personal niche within any defined socially constructed code of conduct while gender fluidity is outlawing all the rules of cultural gender assignment. It does not accept the prevalence of two rigidly defined genders "Female and Male" and believes in freedom to choose any kind of gender with no rules, no defined boundaries and no fulfilling of expectations associated with any particular gender.

Both these definitions are facing opposite directionalities with their own defined set of rules and criteria on which the said systems are based.

Social categories

Most societies have only two distinct, broad classes of gender roles—masculine and feminine—and these correspond with biological sexes male and female. However, some societies explicitly incorporate people who adopt the gender role opposite to their biological sex, for example the Two-Spirit people of some indigenous American peoples. Other societies include well-developed roles that are explicitly considered more or less distinct from archetypal female and male roles in those societies. In the language of the sociology of gender they comprise a third gender, more or less distinct from biological sex (sometimes the basis for the role does include intersexuality or incorporates eunuchs). One such gender role is that adopted by the hijras of India and Pakistan. Another example may be the Muxe (pronounced ), found in the state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, "beyond gay and straight."

The Bugis people of Sulawesi, Indonesia have a tradition incorporating all of the features above. Joan Roughgarden argues that in some non-human animal species, there can also be said to be more than two genders, in that there might be multiple templates for behavior available to individual organisms with a given biological sex.

Measurement of gender identity

Two instruments incorporating the multidimensional of masculinity and femininity have dominated gender identity research: The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ). Both instruments categorize individuals as either being sex typed (males report themselves as identifying primarily with masculine traits, females report themselves as identifying primarily with feminine traits), cross sex-typed (males report themselves as identifying primarily with feminine traits, females report themselves as identifying primarily with masculine traits), androgynous (either males or females who report themselves as high on both masculine and feminine traits) or undifferentiated (either males or females who report themselves as low on both masculine and feminine traits). Twenge (1997) noted that, although men are generally more masculine than women and women generally more feminine than men, the association between biological sex and masculinity/femininity is waning.

Feminism and gender studies

Within feminist theory, terminology for gender issues developed over the 1970s. In the 1974 edition of ''Masculine/Feminine or Human'', the author uses "innate gender" and "learned sex roles", but in the 1978 edition, the use of ''sex'' and ''gender'' is reversed. By 1980, most feminist writings had agreed on using ''gender'' only for socioculturally adapted traits.

In gender studies the term ''gender'' is used to refer to proposed social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities. In this context, ''gender'' explicitly excludes reference to biological differences, to focus on cultural differences. This emerged from a number of different areas: in sociology during the 1950s; from the theories of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; and in the work of French psychoanalysts like Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and American feminists such as Judith Butler. Those who followed Butler came to regard gender roles as a practice, sometimes referred to as "performative".

Hurst states that some people think sex will “automatically determine one’s gender demeanor and role (social) as well as one’s sexual orientation (sexual attractions and behavior).” Gender sociologists believe that people have cultural origins and habits for dealing with gender. For example, Michael Schwalbe believes that humans must be taught how to act appropriately in their designated gender in order to properly fill the role and that the way people behave as masculine or feminine interacts with social expectations. Schwalbe comments that humans "are the results of many people embracing and acting on similar ideas". People do this through everything from clothing and hairstyle to relationship and employment choices. Schwalbe believes that these distinctions are important, because society wants to identify and categorize people as soon as we see them. They need to place people into distinct categories in order to know how we should feel about them.

Hurst comments that in a society where we present our genders so distinctly, there can often be severe consequences for breaking these cultural norms. Many of these consequences are rooted in discrimination based on sexual orientation. Gays and lesbians are often discriminated against in our legal system due to societal prejudices. Hurst describes how this discrimination works against people for breaking gender norms, no matter what their sexual orientation is. He says that "courts often confuse sex, gender, and sexual orientation, and confuse them in a way that results in denying the rights not only of gays and lesbians, but also of those who do not present themselves or act in a manner traditionally expected of their sex". This prejudice plays out in our legal system when a man or woman is judged differently because he or she does not present the "correct" gender.

Recent critiques of feminist theory by Warren Farrell have given broader consideration to findings from a ten-year study of courtship by Buss. Both perspectives on gendering are integrated in ''Attraction Theory'', a theoretical framework developed by Dr Rory Ridley-Duff illustrating how courtship and parenting obligations (rather than male dominance) act as a generative mechanism that produces and reproduces a range of gender identities.

Biological gender

Money refers to attempts to distinguish a difference between biological sex and social gender as "scientifically debased", because of our increased knowledge of a ''continuum'' of dimorphic features (Money's word is "dipolar") that link biological and behavioral differences. These extend from the exclusively biological "genetic" and "prenatal hormonal" differences between men and women, to "postnatal" features, some of which are social, but others have been shown to result from "postpubertal hormonal" effects.

Prior to recent technology that made study of brain differences possible, observable differences in ''behaviour'' between men and women could not be adequately explained solely on the basis of the limited observable ''physical'' differences between them. Hence the then-plausible theory that these differences might be explained by arbitrary cultural assignments of roles. However, Money notes concisely that masculine or feminine self-identity is now seen as essentially an expression of dimorphic brain structure (Money's word is "coding"). The new discoveries have an additional advantage over the theory of cultural arbitrariness of gender roles, as they help explain the ''similarities'' between these roles in widely divergent cultures

Although causation from the biological — genetic and hormonal — to the behavioural has been broadly demonstrated and accepted, Money is careful to also note that understanding of the causal chains from biology to behaviour in sex and gender issues is very far from complete. For example, the existence of a "gay gene" has not been proven, but such a gene remains an acknowledged possibility.

There are studies concerning women who have a diagnosis called ''congenital adrenal hyperplasia'' which leads to the overproduction of masculinizing sex hormones, androgens. These women usually have normal female appearances (though nearly all girls with CAH have corrective surgery performed on their genitals) but despite of hormone-balancing medication that they are given since birth, they are statistically more likely to be interested in activities traditionally linked to males than females. Psychology professor and CAH researcher Dr. Sheri Berenbaum attributes these differences to exposure to higher levels of male sex hormones in utero.

Gender taxonomy

Sexual reproduction

Sexual reproduction is a common method of producing a new individual within various species. In sexually reproducing species, individuals produce special kinds of cells (called ''gametes'') whose function is specifically to fuse with one ''unlike'' gamete and thereby to form a new individual. This fusion of two unlike gametes is called fertilization. By convention, where one type of gamete cell is physically larger than the other, it is associated with female sex. Thus an individual that produces exclusively large gametes (ova in humans) is said to be ''female'', and one that produces exclusively small gametes (spermatozoa in humans) is said to be ''male''.

An individual that produces both types of gametes is called ''hermaphrodite'' (a name applicable also to people with one testis and one ovary). In some species hermaphrodites can self-fertilize (see Selfing), in others they can achieve fertilization with females, males or both. Some species, like the Japanese Ash, ''Fraxinus lanuginosa'', only have males and hermaphrodites, a rare reproductive system called ''androdioecy''. Gynodioecy is also found in several species. Human hermaphrodites are typically, but not always, infertile.

What is considered defining of sexual reproduction is the ''difference'' between the gametes and the ''binary'' nature of fertilization. Multiplicity of gamete ''types'' within a species would still be considered a form of sexual reproduction. However, of more than 1.5 million living species, recorded up to about the year 2000, "no third sex cell — and so no third sex — has appeared in multicellular animals." Why sexual reproduction has an exclusively binary gamete system is not yet known. A few rare species that push the boundaries of the definitions are the subject of active research for light they may shed on the mechanisms of the evolution of sex. For example, the most toxic insect, the harvester ant ''Pogonomyrmex'', has two kinds of female and two kinds of male. One hypothesis is that the species is a hybrid, evolved from two closely related preceding species.

Fossil records indicate that sexual reproduction has been occurring for at least one billion years. However, the reason for the initial evolution of sex, and the reason it has survived to the present are still matters of debate, there are many plausible theories. It appears that the ability to reproduce sexually has evolved independently in various species on many occasions. There are cases where it has also been lost, notably among the Fungi Imperfecti. The blacktip shark (''Carcharhinus limbatus''), flatworm (''Dugesia tigrina'') and some other species can reproduce either sexually or asexually depending on various conditions.

Sexual differentiation

In humans, the "default" processes of reproduction result in an individual with female characteristics. An intact Y-chromosome contains what is needed to "reprogram" the processes sufficiently to produce male characteristics, leading to sexual differentiation. Part of the Y-chromosome, the Sex-determining Region Y (SRY), causes what would normally become ovaries to become testes. These, in turn, produce male hormones called ''androgens''. However, several points in the processes have been identified where variations can result in people with atypical characteristics, including atypical sexual characteristics. Terminology for atypical sexual characteristics has not stabilized. ''Disorder of sexual development'' (DSD) is used by some in preference to ''intersex'', which is used by others in preference to ''pseudohermaphroditism''.

Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is an example of a DSD that also illustrates that female development is the default for humans. Although having one X and one Y chromosome, some people are biologically insensitive to the androgens produced by their testes. As a result they follow the normal human processes which result in a person of female sex. Women who are XY report identifying as a woman — feeling and thinking like a woman — and, where their biology is ''completely'' insensitive to masculinizing factors, externally they look identical to other women. Unlike other women, however, they cannot produce ova, because they do not have ovaries.

The human XY system is not the only sex determination system. Birds typically have a reverse, ZW system — males are ZZ and females ZW. Whether male or female birds influence the sex of offspring is not known for all species. Several species of butterfly are known to have female parent sex determination.

The platypus has a complex hybrid system, the male has ten sex chromosomes, half X and half Y.

General studies

Genes

The study of genetics is particularly inter-disciplinary. It is relevant to almost every biological science. It is investigated in detail by molecular level sciences, and itself contributes details to high level abstractions like evolutionary theory.

Brains

Gray matter is used for information processing, while white matter consists of the connections between processing centers. Other differences are measurable but less pronounced. Most of these differences are known to be produced by the activity of hormones, hence ultimately derived from the Y chromosome and sexual differentiation. However, differences arising from the activity of genes directly have also been observed.

[[File:Brain Surface Gyri.SVG|thumb|Language areas of the brain ]]

It has also been demonstrated that brain processing responds to the external environment. Learning, both of ideas and behaviors, appears to be coded in brain processes. It also appears that in several simplified cases this coding operates differently, but in some ways equivalently, in the brains of men and women. For example, both men and women learn and use language; however, bio-chemically, they appear to process it differently. Differences in female and male use of language are likely reflections ''both'' of biological preferences and aptitudes, ''and'' of learned patterns.

Two of the main fields that study brain structure, biological (and other) causes and behavioral (and other) results are brain neurology and biological psychology. Cognitive science is another important discipline in the field of brain research.

Society and behaviors

A core research area within sociology is the way human behavior operates on ''itself'', in other words, how the behavior of one group or individual influences the behavior of other groups or individuals. Starting in the late 20th century, the feminist movement has contributed extensive study of gender and theories about it, notably within sociology but not restricted to it.

Social theorists have sought to determine the specific nature of gender in relation to biological sex and sexuality, with the result being that culturally established gender and sex have become interchangeable identifications which signify the allocation of a specific 'biological' sex within a categorical gender. The second wave feminist view that gender is socially constructed and hegemonic in all societies, remains current in some literary theoretical circles, Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz publishing new perspectives as recently as 2008.

Contemporary socialisation theory proposes the notion that when a child is first born it has a biological sex but no social gender. As the child grows, "society provides a string of prescriptions, templates, or models of behaviors appropriate to the one sex or the other" which socialises the child into belonging to a culturally specific gender. There is huge incentive for a child to concede to their socialisation with gender shaping the individual’s opportunities for education, work, family, sexuality, reproduction, authority, and to make an impact on the production of culture and knowledge. Adults who do not perform these ascribed roles are perceived from this perspective as deviant and improperly socialised.

Some believe society is constructed in a way in which gender is split into a dichotomy by social organisations which constantly invent and reproduce cultural images of gender. Joan Ackner (''The Gendered Society Reader'') believes gendering occurs in at least five different interacting social processes:

Looking at gender through a Foucauldian lens, gender is transfigured into a vehicle for the social division of power. Gender difference is merely a construct of society used to enforce the distinctions made between that which is assumed to be female and male, and allow for the domination of masculinity over femininity through the attribution of specific gender-related characteristics. "The idea that men and women are more different from one another than either is from anything else, must come from something other than nature… far from being an expression of natural differences, exclusive gender identity is the suppression of natural similarities."

Gender conventions play a large role in attributing masculine and feminine characteristics to a fundamental biological sex. Socio-cultural codes and conventions, the rules by which society functions, and which are both a creation of society as well as a constituting element of it, determine the allocation of these specific traits to the sexes. These traits provide the foundations for the creation of hegemonic gender difference. It follows then, that gender can be assumed as the acquisition and internalisation of social norms. Individuals are therefore socialised through their receipt of society’s expectations of ‘acceptable’ gender attributes which are flaunted within institutions such as the family, the state and the media. Such a notion of ‘gender’ then becomes naturalised into a person’s sense of self or identity, effectively imposing a gendered social category upon a sexed body.

The conception that people are gendered rather than sexed also coincides with Judith Butler’s theories of gender performativity. Butler argues that gender is not an expression of what one is, but rather something that one does. It follows then, that if gender is acted out in a repetitive manner it is in fact re-creating and effectively embedding itself within the social consciousness. Contemporary sociological reference to male and female gender roles typically uses ''masculinities'' and ''femininities'' in the plural rather than singular, suggesting diversity both within cultures as well as across them.

From the evidence, it can only be concluded that gender is socially constructed and each individual is unique in their gender characteristics, regardless of which biological sex they are as every child is socialised to behave a certain way and have the ‘proper’ gender attributes. If individuals in society do not conform to this pressure, they are destined to be treated as abnormal; therefore it is personally greatly beneficial for them to cooperate in the determined ‘correct’ ordering of the world. In fact, the very construct of society is a product of and produces gender norms. There is bias in applying the word ‘gender’ to anyone in a finite way; rather each person is endowed with certain gender characteristics. The world cannot be egalitarian while there are ‘assigned’ genders and individuals are not given the right to express any gender characteristic they desire.

The difference between the sociological and popular definitions of gender involve a different dichotomy and focus. For example the sociological approach to "gender" (social roles: female versus male) will focus on the difference in (economic/ power) position between a male CEO (disregarding the fact that he is heterosexual or homosexual) to female workers in his employ (disregarding whether they are straight or gay). However the popular sexual self-conception approach (self-conception: gay versus straight) will focus on the different self-conceptions and social conceptions of those who are gay/straight, in comparison with those who are straight (disregarding what might be vastly differing economic and power positions between female and male groups in each category). There is then, in relation to definition of and approaches to "gender", a tension between historic feminist sociology and contemporary homosexual sociology.

Legal status

The question then arises as to what legally determines whether someone is female or male. In most cases this can appear obvious, but the matter is complicated for intersexual or transgender people. Different jurisdictions have adopted different answers to this question. Almost all countries permit changes of legal gender status in cases of intersexualism, when the gender assignment made at birth is determined upon further investigation to be biologically inaccurate — technically, however, this is not a change of status ''per se''. Rather, it is recognition of a status which was deemed to exist, but unknown, from birth. Increasingly, jurisdictions also provide a procedure for changes of legal gender for transgendered people.

Gender assignment, when there are indications that genital sex might not be decisive in a particular case, is normally not defined by a single definition, but by a combination of conditions, including chromosomes and gonads. Thus, for example, in many jurisdictions a person with XY chromosomes but female gonads could be recognized as female at birth.

The ability to change legal gender for transgender people in particular has given rise to the phenomena in some jurisdictions of the same person having different genders for the purposes of different areas of the law. For example, in Australia prior to the Re Kevin decisions, transsexual people could be recognized as having the genders they identified with under many areas of the law, including social security law, but not for the law of marriage. Thus, for a period, it was possible for the same person to have two different genders under Australian law.

It is also possible in federal systems for the same person to have one gender under state law and a different gender under federal law.

The first person of "neutral" gender (that is, neither man or woman in legal terms) is Norrie May-Welby, from Australia, whose status was set on March, 2010.

Gender and development

Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute have highlighted that policy dialogue on the Millennium Development Goals needs to recognise that the gender dynamics of power, poverty, vulnerability and care link all the goals. Gender explicit issues are only explicit in MDG 3 and 5, however gender impacts all the goals: # Discriminatory laws can limit women's access to education and ownership # Women make up the majority of those working in agriculture or in insecure employment # Women's dual responsibilities as carers and income earners leaves them suffering from time poverty and thus unable to access health and education services # Role as carers particularly impacts MDG4 on child mortality # Gender-based discrimination particularly affects MDG8 (Partnerships for Development).

As well as directly addressing inequality, attention to gender issues is regarded as important to the success of development programs, for all participants. For example, in microfinance it is common to target women, as besides the fact that women tend to be over-represented in the poorest segments of the population, they are also regarded as more reliable at repaying the loans.

Gender Equality is also strongly linked to education. The Dakar Framework for Action (2000) set out ambitious goals: to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and to achieve gender equality in education by 2015. The focus was on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in good quality basic education. The gender objective of the Dakar Framework for Action is somewhat different from the MDG Goal 3 (Target 1): “Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015”. MDG Goal 3 does not comprise a reference to learner achievement and good quality basic education, but goes beyond the school level. Studies demonstrate the positive impact of girls’ education on child and maternal health, fertility rates, poverty reduction and economic growth. Educated mothers are more likely to send their children to school.

In the arena of natural resource management, women in developing countries frequently have principal responsibilities for uncompensated functions that directly impact their and their families’ lives, including agricultural chores and obtaining clean water and cooking fuels. For these tasks, calls for women to “participate” in development are not enough, since they can serve as a pretext to foist undesirable duties on women. Hence, empowerment, and not merely participation, must be core aims in gender and development policies and programs.

Some organizations working in developing countries and in the development field have incorporated advocacy and empowerment for women into their work. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization adopted in November 2009 a 10-year strategic framework that includes the strategic objective of gender equity in access to resources, goods, services and decision-making in rural areas, and mainstreams gender equity in all FAO's programmes for agriculture and rural development. The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has developed a Gender Evaluation Methodology for planning and evaluating development projects to ensure they benefit all sectors of society including women.

The Gender-related Development Index (GDI), developed by the United Nations (UN), aims to show the inequalities between men and women in the following areas: long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living.

Gender and poverty

Gender and Development (GAD) is a holistic approach to give aid to countries where gender inequality has a great effect of not improving the social and economic development. It is to empower women and decrease the level of inequality between men and women.

Spirituality

In Taoism, yin and yang are considered feminine and masculine, respectively:

In Judaism, God is traditionally described in the masculine, but in the mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, the Shekhinah represents the feminine aspect of God's essence. However, Judaism traditionally holds that God is completely non-corporeal, and thus neither male nor female. Conceptions of the gender of God notwithstanding, traditional Judaism places a strong emphasis on individuals following traditional gender roles, though many modern denominations of Judaism strive for greater egalitarianism.

In Christianity, God is described in masculine terms and the Church has historically been described in feminine terms. On the other hand, Christian theology in many churches distinguishes between the masculine images used of God (Father, King, God the Son) and the reality they signify, which transcends gender, embodies all the virtues of both genders perfectly, and is the creator of both human sexes. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is treated with the neuter pronoun. Hebrew speaking Christians like the Ebionites used the female gender for the Holy Spirit.

In Hinduism

Language

See also

Books

Lists

References

Footnotes

Notations

Further reading

External links

Category:Biology Category:Sociology