Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes that they possess. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity. Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word "gender" to refer to anything but grammatical categories. However, Money's meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. Today, the distinction is strictly followed in some contexts, like feminist literature, and in documents written by organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), but in most contexts, even in some areas of social sciences, the meaning of gender has expanded to include "sex" or even to replace the latter word. Although this gradual change in the meaning of gender can be traced to the 1980s, a small acceleration of the process in the scientific literature was observed when the Food and Drug Administration started to use "gender" instead of "sex" in 1993. "Gender" is now commonly used even to refer to the physiology of non-human animals, without any implication of social gender roles (for example dogs or cats).
In the English literature, the trichotomy between biological sex, psychological gender, and social sex role first appeared in a feminist paper on transsexualism in 1978. Some cultures have specific gender-related social roles that can be considered distinct from male and female, such as the hijra of India and Pakistan.
While the social sciences sometimes approach gender as a social construct, and gender studies particularly do, research in the natural sciences investigates whether biological differences in males and females influence the development of gender in humans; both inform debate about how far biological differences influence gender identity formation.
The historical meaning of ''gender'' is "things we treat differently because of their inherent differences".
It has three common applications in contemporary English. Most commonly, it is applied to the general differences between male and female entities, without any overt assumptions regarding biology or sociology. Sometimes, however, the usage is technical or overtly assumes a particular theory of human nature, which is usually made clear from the context. Finally, ''gender'' is also commonly applied to the independent concept of distinctive word categories in certain languages. Grammatical gender has little or nothing to do with differences between female and male.
The word ''gender'' comes from the
Middle English ''gendre'', a
loanword from
Norman-conquest-era
Old French. This, in turn, came from
Latin ''
genus''. Both words mean 'kind', 'type', or 'sort'. They derive ultimately from a widely attested
Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
root ''g
en-'',
which is also the source of ''kin'', ''kind'', ''king'', and many other English words.
It appears in Modern
French in the word ''
genre'' (type, kind, also ''
genre sexuel'') and is related to the
Greek root ''gen-'' (to produce), appearing in ''
gene'', ''
genesis'', and ''
oxygen''.
As a verb, it means ''breed'' in the
King James Bible:
|1616}}
Most uses of the root ''gen-'' in Indo-European languages refer either directly to what pertains to birth (for example ''pre-gn-ant'') or, by extension, to natural, innate qualities and their consequent social distinctions
(for example ''gentry'', ''generation'', ''gentile'', ''genocide'' and ''eugenics'').
The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED1, Volume 4, 1900) notes the original meaning of ''gender'' as 'kind' had already become obsolete.
Gender (dʒe'ndəɹ), ''sb''. Also 4 gendre. [a. OF. ''gen(d)re'' (F. ''genre'') = Sp. ''género'', Pg. ''gênero'', It. ''genere'', ad. L. ''gener''- stem form of ''genus'' race, kind = Gr. γένος, Skr. ''jánas'':— OAryan *''genes''-, f. root γεν- to produce; cf. KIN.]†1. Kind, sort, class; also, genus as opposed to species. ''The general gender'': the common sort (of people). ''Obs.''13.. ''E.E.Allit. P.'' P. 434 Alle gendrez so ioyst wern ioyned wyth-inne. ''c'' 1384 CHAUSER ''H. Fame''* 1. 18 To knowe of hir signifiaunce The gendres. 1398 TREVISA ''Barth. De P. K.'' VIII. xxix. (1495) 34I Byshynynge and lyghte ben dyuers as species and gendre, for suery shinyng is lyght, but not ayenwarde. 1602 SHAKES. ''Ham''. IV. vii. 18 The great loue the generall gender beare him. 1604 — ''Oth''. I. iii. 326 Supplie it with one gender of Hearbes, or distract it with many. 1643 and so on.
According to Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Protagoras used the terms "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter" to classify nouns, introducing the concept of grammatical gender.
}}
The classes (''genē'') of the nouns are males, females and things.|Aristotle|''The Technique of Rhetoric'' III v
The words for this concept are not related to ''gen-'' in all Indo-European languages (for example, ''rod'' in Slavic languages).
The usage of ''gender'' in the context of grammatical distinctions is a specific and technical usage.
However, in English, the word became attested more widely in the context of grammar, than in making sexual distinctions.
This was noted in OED1, prompting Henry Watson Fowler in 1926 to recommend this usage as the primary and preferable meaning of ''gender'' in English.
"Gender...is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons...of the masculine or feminine g[ender], meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."
The sense of this can be felt by analogy with a modern expression like "persons of the female persuasion." It should be noted, however, that this was a recommendation, neither the ''Daily News'' nor Henry James citations (above) are "jocular" nor "blunders." Additionally, patterns of usage of ''gender'' have substantially changed since Fowler's day (''noun class'' above, and ''sexual stereotype'' below).
;English
The use of ''gender'' to refer to
masculinity and
femininity as types is attested throughout the history of
Modern English (from about the 14th century).
1387-8 - No mo genders been there but masculine, and femynyne, all the remnaunte been no genders but of grace, in facultie of grammar — Thomas Usk, ''The Testament of Love'' II iii (Walter William Skeat) 13.
c. 1460 - Has thou oght written there of the femynyn gendere? — ''Towneley Mystery Plays'' xxx 161 Act One.
1632 - Here's a woman! The soul of Hercules has got into her. She has a spirit, is more masculine Than the first gender — Shackerley Marmion, ''Holland's Leaguer'' III iv.
1658 - The Psyche, or soul, of Tiresias is of the masculine gender — Thomas Browne, ''Hydriotaphia''.
1709 - Of the fair sex ... my only consolation for being of that gender has been the assurance it gave me of never being married to any one among them — Mary Wortley Montagu, ''Letters to Mrs Wortley'' lxvi 108.
1768 - I may add the gender too of the person I am to govern — Laurence Sterne, ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy''.
1859 - Black divinities of the feminine gender — Charles Dickens, ''A Tale of Two Cities''.
1874 - It is exactly as if there were a sex in mountains, and their contours and curves and complexions were here all of the feminine gender — Henry James, 'A Chain of Italian Cities', ''The Atlantic Monthly'' 33 (February, p. 162.)
1892 - She was uncertain as to his gender — Robert Grant, 'Reflections of a Married Man', ''Scribner's Magazine'' 11 (March, p. 376.)
1896 - As to one's success in the work one does, surely that is not a question of gender either — ''Daily News'' 17 July.
c. 1900 - Our most lively impression is that the sun is there assumed to be of the feminine gender — Henry James, ''Essays on Literature''.
The word ''sex'' is sometimes used in the context of social roles of men and women — for example, the British ''Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919'' that ended exclusion of women from various official positions. Such usage was more common before the 1970s, over the course of which the feminist movement took the word ''gender'' into their own usage to describe their theory of human nature. Early in that decade, ''gender'' was used in ways consistent with both the history of English and the history of attestation of the root. However, by the end of the decade consensus was achieved among feminists regarding this theory and its terminology. The theory was that human nature is essentially epicene and social distinctions based on sex are arbitrarily constructed. Matters pertaining to this theoretical process of social construction were labelled matters of ''gender''.
The American Heritage Dictionary (2000) uses the following two sentences to illustrate the difference, noting that the distinction "is useful in principle, but it is by no means widely observed, and considerable variation in usage occurs at all levels."
In the last two decades of the 20th century, the use of ''gender'' in academia increased greatly, outnumbering uses of ''sex'' in the social sciences. While the spread of the word in science publications can be attributed to the influence of feminism, its use as a euphemism for sex is attributed to the failure to grasp the distinction made in feminist theory, and the distinction has sometimes become blurred with the theory itself. A recent Publication by the Australian Human Rights Commission on "sexual orientation and gender identity" uses "sex and/or gender identity" as a broad term to refer to diverse sex and/or gender identities and expressions, including being "transgender, trans, transsexual and intersex. It also includes being androgynous, agender, a cross dresser, a drag king, a drag queen, genderfluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, a third gender, and a third sex. It also includes culturally specific terms, such as sistergirl and brotherboy, which are used by some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples."
;Urdu
Urdu recognizes hijra as a third gender in India and Pakistan since the mid to late 2000s.
;Greek
Greek distinguishes biological from sociological in adjectives.
In Greek, male biology and masculine grammatical inflection are denoted by ''arsenikos'' (), in distinction to sociological masculinity, which is denoted by ''andrikos'' (). Likewise, female biology and feminine grammatical inflection are denoted by ''thēlukos'' (θηλυκός); and sociological femininity is denoted by ''gunaikeios'' (γυναικείος, compare English gynaecology). This distinction is at least as old as Aristotle (see above). It is a different distinction to English, where 'female' and 'male' refer to animals as well as humans, but not to grammatical categories; whereas, 'feminine' and 'masculine' refer to grammatical categories as well as humans, but not properly to animals, except as anthropomorphism.
;German and Dutch
German and Dutch make no distinction in nouns.
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
Swedish makes clear distinction in nouns
''genus''
''kön''
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 ''gen-'') 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
French has no distinction in noun: "''sexe''", but the distinction is supplied by the neologistic coinage "''genre''".
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).
Gender identity is the gender a person self-identifies as. One's biological sex is directly tied to specific social roles and expectations. The concept of being a woman is considered to have more challenges, due to society not only viewing women as a social category but also as a felt sense of self, a culturally conditioned or constructed subjective identity. The term "woman" has chronically been used as a reference to and for the female body; this usage has been viewed as controversial by feminists, in the definement of "woman". There are qualitative analyses that explore and present the representations of gender; feminists challenge the dominant ideologies concerning gender roles and sex. Social identity refers to the common identification with a
collectivity or social category which creates a common culture among participants concerned. According to social identity theory, an important component of the self-concept is derived from memberships in social groups and categories; this is demonstrated by group processes and how inter-group relationships impact significantly on individuals' self perception and behaviors. The groups to which people belong will therefore provide their members with the definition of who they are and how they should behave in the social sphere.
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.
According to Kate Bornstein, gender can have ambiguity and fluidity. There are two contrasting ideas regarding the definition of gender, and the intersection of both of them is definable as below:
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.
Sexologist John Money
coined the term ''gender role'' in 1955. "The term ''
gender role'' is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not restricted to, sexuality in the sense of eroticism."
Elements of such a role include clothing, speech patterns, movement, occupations, and other factors not limited to biological sex. Because social aspects of gender can normally be presumed to be the ones of interest in sociology and closely related disciplines, ''gender role'' is often abbreviated to ''gender'' in their literature.
Most societies have only two distinct, broad classes of gender roles, masculine and feminine, that correspond with the biological sexes of 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.
Early gender identity research hypothesized a single bipolar dimension of masculinity/femininity; that is masculinity and femininity were opposites on one continuum. As societal stereotypes changed, however, the assumptions of the unidimensional model were challenged. This led to the development of a two-dimensional gender identity model, in which masculinity and femininity were conceptualized as two separate, orthogonal dimensions, coexisting in varying degrees within an individual. This conceptualization on femininity and masculinity remains the accepted standard today.
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.
Biologist and feminist academic
Anne Fausto-Sterling rejects the discourse of biological versus social determinism and advocates a deeper analysis of how interactions between the biological being and the social environment influence individuals' capacities. The philosopher and feminist
Simone de Beauvoir applied
existentialism to women's experience of life: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one." In context, this is a philosophical statement. However, it may be analyzed in terms of biology — a girl must pass
puberty to become a woman — and sociology, as a great deal of mature relating in social contexts is learned rather than instinctive.
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.
HBO has recently produced a documentary of the life and work of Gloria Steinem, perhaps the name most associated with the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Gloria: In Her OWN Words shows rare video footage from the time that reshaped feminism and the understanding of gender once again.
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, and which differ widely between cultures and historical periods. There are differences of opinion as to whether observed differences in behavior and personality between genders are entirely due to cultural or social factors, and are therefore the product of socialization, or to what extent gender differences are due to biological and physiological differences.
The
sexual dimorphism became the subject of an expanding number of studies over the course of the late 20th century. One of the earliest areas of interest was what is now called
gender identity disorder (GID). Studies in this, and related areas, inform the following summary of the subject by
John Money, a pioneer and controversial sex and gender researcher. He stated:
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.
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.
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.
The following systematic list (
gender taxonomy) illustrates the kinds of diversity that have been studied and reported in medical literature. It is placed in roughly chronological order of biological and social development in the human
life cycle. The earlier stages are more purely biological and the latter are more dominantly social. Causation is known to operate from chromosome to gonads, and from gonads to hormones. It is also significant from brain structure to gender identity (see Money quote above). Brain structure and processing (biological) that may explain erotic preference (social), however, is an area of ongoing research. Terminology in some areas changes quite rapidly to accommodate the constantly growing knowledge base.
chromosomes
: 46xx, 46xy, 47xxy (
Klinefelter's syndrome), 45xo (
Turner's syndrome), 47xyy, 47xxx, 48xxyy, 46xx/xy
mosaic, other mosaic, and others
gonads
:
testicles,
ovaries, one of each (
hermaphrodites),
ovotestes, or other
gonadal dysgenesis
hormones
:
androgens including testosterone;
estrogens — including
estradiol,
estriol,
estrone;
antiandrogens and others
genitals
:
primary sexual characteristics (six class system)
secondary sexual characteristics
: dimorphic physical characteristics, other than primary characteristics (most prominently
breasts or their absence)
brain structure
: special kinds of secondary characteristics, due to their influence on
psychology and behaviour
gender identity
: psychological identification with either of the two main sexes
gender role
: social conformity with expectations for either of the two main sexes
erotic preference
: gynophilia, androphilia,
bisexuality,
asexuality and various
paraphilias.
Although sexual reproduction is ''defined'' at the cellular level, key features of sexual reproduction operate ''within'' the structures of the gamete cells themselves. Notably, gametes carry very long molecules called
DNA that the biological processes of reproduction can "read" like a book of instructions. In fact, there are typically many of these "books", called ''chromosomes''. Human gametes usually have 23 chromosomes, 22 of which are common to both sexes. The final chromosomes in the two human gametes are called ''sex'' chromosomes because of their role in
sex determination.
Ova always have the same sex chromosome, labelled ''
X''. About half of
spermatozoa also have this same X chromosome, the rest have a
Y-chromosome. At fertilization the gametes fuse to form a cell, usually with 46 chromosomes, and either XX female or XY male, depending on whether the sperm carried an X or a Y chromosome. Some of the other possibilities are listed
above.
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.
Gender studies is a
field of
interdisciplinary study and
academic field devoted to
gender,
gender identity and gendered
representation as central categories of analysis. This field includes
Women's studies (concerning
women,
feminity, their
gender roles and politics, and
feminism),
Men's studies (concerning
men,
masculinity, their
gender roles, and politics), and
LGBT studies.
Sometimes Gender studies is offered together with Study of
Sexuality.
These disciplines study
gender and sexuality in the fields of literature and language,
history,
political science,
sociology,
anthropology,
cinema and
media studies, human development, law, and medicine.
It also analyses
race,
ethnicity,
location,
nationality, and
disability.
Chromosomes were likened to books (above), also like books they have been studied at more detailed levels. They contain "sentences" called ''genes''. In fact, many of these sentences are common to multiple species. Sometimes they are organized in the same order, other times they have been "edited" — deleted, copied, changed, moved, even relocated to another "book", as species evolve. Genes are a particularly important part of understanding biological processes because they are directly associated with observable objects, outside chromosomes, called ''
proteins'', whose influence on cell
chemistry can be measured. In some cases genes can also be directly associated with differences clear to the naked eye, like eye-color itself. Some of these differences are sex specific, like hairy ears. The "hairy ear" gene might be found on the Y chromosome, which explains why only men tend to have hairy ears. However,
sex-limited genes on ''any'' chromosome can be expressed and "say", for example, "''if'' you are in a male body do X, otherwise do not." The same principle explains why
chimpanzees and humans are distinct, despite sharing nearly all their 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.
"It is well established that men have a larger cerebrum than women by about 8–10% (Filipek et al., 1994; Nopoulos et al.,
2000; Passe et al., 1997a,b; Rabinowicz et al., 1999; Witelson et al., 1995)."
However, what is functionally relevant are differences in composition and "wiring", some of these differences are very pronounced.
Richard J. Haier and colleagues at the universities of
New Mexico and
California (Irvine) found, using
brain mapping, that men have more than six times the amount of
grey matter related to general
intelligence than women, and women have nearly ten times the amount of
white matter related to intelligence than men.
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.
Many of the more complicated human behaviors are influenced by both innate factors and by environmental ones, which include everything from genes, gene expression, and body chemistry, through diet and social pressures. A large area of research in
behavioral psychology collates evidence in an effort to discover
correlations between behavior and various possible antecedents such as genetics, gene regulation, access to food and vitamins, culture, gender, hormones, physical and social development, and physical and social environments.
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:
The construction of divisions along the lines of gender, such as those which are produced by labor, power, family, the state, even allowed behaviors and locations in physical space
The construction of symbols and images such as language, ideology, dress and the media, that explain, express and reinforce, or sometimes oppose, those divisions
Interactions between men and women, women and women and men and men which involve any form of dominance and submission. Conversational theorists, for example, have studied the way in which interruptions, turn taking and the setting of topics re-create gender inequality in the flow of ordinary talk
The way in which the preceding three processes help to produce gendered components of individual identity. i.e. the way in which they create and maintain an image of a gendered self
Gender is implicated in the fundamental, ongoing processes of creating and conceptualising social structures.
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.
A person's sex as male or female has legal significance — sex is indicated on government documents, and laws provide differently for men and women. Many pension systems have different retirement ages for men or women. Marriage is usually only available to opposite-sex couples.
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 particularly the role of women is widely recognized as vitally important to
international development issues. This often means a focus on gender-equality, ensuring
participation, but includes an understanding of the different roles and expectation of the genders within the community.
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 inequality has a great impact especially on women and poverty. In poverty stricken countries it is more likely that men have more opportunities to have an income, have more political and social rights than women. Women experience more poverty than men do due to gender discrimination.
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.
In many countries, the financial sector largely neglects women even though they play an important role in the economy, as Nena Stoiljkovic pointed out in D+C Development and Cooperation
According to contemporary views of researchers, women are universally more religious than men. This result is true for every culture. Because cultural explanation for this has not been found, researchers believe that the difference in religiousity between genders is due to biological differences.
In Taoism, yin and yang are considered feminine and masculine, respectively:
| +yin and yang semantics
|
!Tao
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!semantic
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|
lightness
|
| sun
|
| sunshine
|
| god
|
| heaven
|
|
darkness
|
| dark
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| ghost
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| hell
|
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
Natural languages often make gender distinctions. These may be of various kinds, more or less loosely associated by analogy with various actual or perceived differences between men and women.
Most languages include terms that are used asymmetrically in reference to men and women. Concern that current language may be biased in favor of men has led some authors in recent times to argue for the use of a more Gender-neutral vocabulary in English and other languages.
Several languages attest the use of different vocabulary by men and women, to differing degrees. See, for instance, Gender differences in spoken Japanese. The oldest documented language, Sumerian, records a distinctive sub-language only used by female speakers. Conversely, many Indigenous Australian languages have distinctive registers with limited lexis used by men in the presence of their mothers-in-law (see Avoidance speech).
Grammatical gender is a property of some languages in which every noun is assigned a gender, often with no direct relation to its meaning. For example, the word for "girl" is ''muchacha'' (grammatically feminine) in Spanish, ''Mädchen'' (grammatically neuter) in German, and ''cailín'' (grammatically masculine) in Irish.
The term "grammatical gender" is often applied to more complex noun class systems. This is especially true when a noun class system includes masculine and feminine as well as some other non-gender features like animate, edible, manufactured, and so forth. An example of the latter is found in the Dyirbal language. A system traditionally called "gender" is found in the Ojibwe language which distinguishes between animate and inanimate, but since this does not exhibit a masculine/feminine distinction it might be better described by "noun class." Likewise, Sumerian distinguishes between personal (human and divine) and impersonal (all other) noun classes, but these classes have traditionally been known as ''genders''.
Androcentrism
Androgyny
Biological determinism
Epicene
Femininity
Gender bender
Gender differences
Gender equality
Gender identity
Gender inequality
Gender narcissism
Gender role
Gynocentrism
Masculinity
Misandry
Misogyny
Postgenderism
Sexism
Sexual identity
Transgender
'' Brain Sex'', Anne Moir and David Jessel, 1989.
'' The Female Brain'', Louann Brizendine, 2006.
List of animal names — Animal: female, male; horse: mare, stallion; human: woman, man; etc..
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Thinking Gender. New York & London: Routledge, 1990.
Chafetz, JS. ''Masculine/Feminine or Human? An Overview of the Sociology of Sex Roles''. Itasca, Illinois: F. E. Peacock, 1974 (1st ed.), 1978 (2nd ed.)
Lepowsky, Maria. ''
Fruit of the Motherland: Gender in an Egalitarian Society.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1993
Lerro, Bruce "Power in Eden: The Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World", 2005, Trafford Publishing
Lockheed, Marlaine. ''Gender and social exclusion''. Education Policy series, Booklet N° 12, Paris: IIEP-UNESCO, 2010.
IIEP Education Policy series
Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook
Children's Gender Beliefs
WikEd—Gender Differences
WikEd—Gender Inequities in the Classroom
Gender Museum
Gender in agriculture and rural development
Gender evaluation methodology
The Gender Society
Gender Stereotypes – Changes in People's Thoughts
Transnational and transdisciplinary network on intersectionality for young scholars : www.intersectionality.org
Category:Biology
am:ፆታ
ar:جندر
az:Gender
be:Гендар
be-x-old:Гендэр
ca:Gènere (sociologia)
cs:Gender
de:Gender
es:Género (ciencias sociales)
eo:Seksa identeco
fa:جنسیت
fr:Genre (sciences sociales)
gan:性別
ko:젠더
io:Genro
id:Gender (sosial)
is:Kynferði
it:Genere (scienze sociali)
he:מגדר
kk:Гендер
ln:Emoto
mk:Род
ms:Jantina
nl:Sekse
new:लिंग
ja:ジェンダー
pl:Gender
pt:Género (sociedade)
ru:Гендер
simple:Gender
sk:Gender (rod)
sh:Rod (sociologija)
fi:Sosiaalinen sukupuoli
sv:Socialt kön
tl:Kasarian
ta:பாலினம்
th:เพศภาวะ
tr:Cinsiyet
uk:Гендер
war:Kinatawo
yi:מין (אידענטיטעט)
zh:性別 (文化)
