Skip to main content

Is gender construction culturally or biologically based?

Gender and sex have long been recognized as being two distinct characteristics. Sex refers to the sex organs with which a person is born, as well as their chromosomes (XX=female, XY=male).


Gender refers to characteristics that distinguish masculinity and femininity, and an individual's gender identity may or may not match the sex organs he or she possesses. That is, males may exhibit characteristics commonly associated with females, and vice versa. 


So the question is, does a person exhibit male or female characteristics because they have a certain biological makeup, or does a person exhibit male or female characteristics because he or she is conforming to the expectations of their culture? 


It is largely agreed that while sex is biological, gender is a function of culture and/or society. 


Arguments for gender being a function of culture: 


-Men and women adhere to different norms in different cultures. If gender were entirely biological, the same behaviors would be observed in men and women throughout every modern and ancient culture. 


-Within any culture, there are individuals who do not conform to the typical characteristics ascribed to their sex. 


-Some individuals are intersex (meaning they posses both male and female sex characteristics) and yet still have a gender identity. 


-Some cultures acknowledge more than two genders. If gender were biologically determined, the gender distinctions would be the same in all human societies. 


In summary, gender construction is determined by the cultural expectations for each biological sex. This is why there are two separate definitions for each concept, even though for the majority of individuals, their sex and gender and the same. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more