“Sex refers to a person 's biological status and is typically categorized as male, female or intersex. There are a number of indicators of biological sex, including sex chromosomes, gonads, internal reproductive organs and external genitalia” (Anon 2012). Sex is typically categorized by either male or female. Your sex is your sex and there isn 't much you can do to change that. We are unable to alter our genetic makeup which has a great deal to do with our sex. Every individual is either a male or a female but your gender is somewhat up to you. Your gender can vary and change over time. It could have a different meaning depending on the culture, a geographic location, or even a specific group of individuals. “Gender refers to the …show more content…
But in today 's society, your sex only determines your external genitalia, not who you truly are. Your sex is a physical aspect of your body, while you sex category and gender is your mental aspect. Once you consider yourself or placed yourself into a sex category, you take on the roles of that sex. Some even take it as far taking on the features and dressing like their gender preference. You see this in many homosexual individuals. Males acting and dressing like females and females acting and dressing like males. “According to the sex-role theory, we acquire our gender identity through socialization, and afterward we are socialized to behave in masculine or feminine ways” (Kimmel 2000:131). Society basically shows individuals how to masculine or feminine, whether it is a man being masculine or feminine or a woman being feminine or masculine.
“Doing gender” is performing the activities and exhibiting the traits that are prescribed for us. “A person’s gender is not simply an aspect of what one is, but, more fundamentally, it is something that one does, and does recurrently, in interaction with others” (Kimmel 2000:131). You can appear to be a male or a female, but your actions may appear of the opposite sex. “Heterosexual men, for example, who identify with their sex but not the social characteristics typically associated with dominant masculinity, may find that they are bullied and not considered to be a ‘proper’
Gender identity has changed its definition over time. The psychological definition as stated from the social learning theory is that gender identity is the sense of being male or female. Seems simple but we now know in todays world the definition has broadened. Gender identity is now defined as one 's personal experience of one 's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with assigned sex at birth, or can differ from it completely. All societies have a set of gender categories that can serve as the basis of the formation of a person 's social identity in relation to other members of society. From the past when we had many strong women’s rights activist who fought so what your gender was did not
One who claims any gender other than male or female would be considered taboo or highly unusual by our society. Biological sex is often thought to determine one’s gender identity. Though sex and gender align for the mass of our population, there is a minority group that does not feel that they belong to either male or female genders. To understand gender fluidity, one must recognize that sometimes a person’s gender and sex do not align. A person may not feel that their biological sex reflects who they are, they may feel uncomfortable with the expectations and roles placed on them due to their sex. These gender roles are created by social expectations of our western society. Gender roles are merely social constructs, and if one does not want to conform to societies conjectures placed on them due to their biological sex, they should have the freedom to non-conform.
Without a critical gendered lens, it’s unlikely that one would even consider the concept of “doing gender”. It’s important to understand that people’s actions are a direct result of socially constructed gender norms. Over time, a person’s actions might feel normal and as if they come naturally, but in reality they are learned actions that result from socially constructed gender norms. People typically don’t consciously think about how they are going to perform their gender, unless they are overtly defying norms to challenge constricting gender/sex norms.
The concept of gender is not as cut and dry as you might think. The term gender is often used incorrectly as a synonym for our biological sex. Gender is more of a predetermined set of ideas and characteristics used in identifying socially acceptable behaviors and appearances for the sexes. It is not determined by the biological sex of the person. From an early age we begin to develop ideas of what it means to be male or female by observing others. Gender falls on a spectrum from masculine to feminine with many combinations in between. Gender expression and gender identity are also not the same thing. Gender expression is not related directly to how a person perceives their gender,
According to the Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences of Monash University, “Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine.” (Nobelius, Ann-Marrie, med.monash.edu.au). Sex, says Ann-Maree,“ refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs” (med.monash.edu.au). Sometimes people use these terms interchangeably. Sex has to do with you being biologically male or female, and gender has to do with being masculine, or feminine and is determined by society depending in the culture. The reason these terms are often mistaken is because, usually, if one is born male they are assigned a masculine role in society, and there is a difference in expectations with the masculine and feminine roles. These genders were created by society. There are cases where neither roles apply for a group of people or individuals. These ideals of gender roles being assigned are being challenged by individuals. For example a family member of mine is one of the individuals whom the
First of all I am going to begin with defining sex and gender. Sex in a sociological perspective is defined as the biological and physiological differences between men and women which are contrasted in terms of reproductive function(Abercrombie et al 2000 :313). On the other hand gender is sociologically conceived as the social roles allocated to men and women in society that is to say gender is learned not innate. However previously it was believed that sex determined gender thus the differences between men and
Gender is a complex socially constructed idea. Often people interchangeably use gender to refer to someone’s sex. This is not the case. Sex is the biological characteristics that makes someone a male, female or intersex. Gender however is made up of expression, identity, and sexual orientation. Gender identity is how one views themselves such as a woman, man or transgender. Gender identity does not correspond to the sex of that person. Gender expression is how one expresses their gender identity. This could be through a masculine , feminine or androgynous expression. In Western societies, although there has been a push for change in our gender system, the gender system as been a binary system. This binary system only believes that there are
Throughout the second season of ABC’s American Crime, there were an extreme amount of ways in which race, sexuality, gender, and ethnicity were depicted, troubled, and interrogated. While watching the second season of American Crime in class, it almost seemed as if the entire series was made just to explore each and every component of this course, Ethnics 1010. The series successfully explored through numerous situations with all of these important components that we have discussed throughout the semester. However, there happens to be three specific components that I would like to elaborate on throughout this essay.
More often than not, the sex of a person, is commonly misinterpreted with gender. This is wrong. Your sex is your biological and physiological attributes that define you as male or female. Having “male parts” or “female parts”, strictly make up a person 's sex. Where gender refers to socially constructed roles, or how society defines the components that make up an acceptable male or female. Key word being acceptable. Gender is not something that can be defined solely based off of one’s anatomy.
Nobody is born with a set gender, the way we walk, talk, and dress gives off the impression of being a man or woman and therefore, gender is performative, or in other words nobody possesses a gender from the beginning of their life. In our daily lives we build models of a set gender through repetition. From the moment a baby is born, the gender of the child has already been set by society. Growing up, they perform the gender they believe they should be based on how they have observed these genders to be. They do this by watching it be performed by their parents and those around them. Over and over we have seen gender being performed in more or less in the same way. The repetition gives us the idea that this is why we should be acting according to our gender.
The construction of a self-identity can be a very complex process that every individual is identity is developed through the lenses of cultural influences and how it is expected to given at birth. Through this given identity we are expected to think, speak, and behave in a certain way that fits the mold of societal norms. This paper aims to explain how gender perform gender roles according these cultural values. I intend to analyze the process in which individuals learned and internalized their respective gender identities, through their cultural background. I will be conducting a set of interviews with the intention to compare my experience as a self-identified male of Mexican descent, to the experience of another male character of Japanese heritage in order to understand how we come to self-identify as masculine in diverged cultures. In this paper, I argue that the construction of gender identities is a direct consequence of societal influential factors such as family values; values that reflect the individual’s culture. This analysis will not only utilize evidence from these identity formations, but also in explaining why and how these self-identities were constructed using both theoretical sources and empirical studies as a framework.
Gender, as defined by the United Nations, includes the psychological, social, cultural, and behavioral characteristics associated with being female or male. It further defines acceptable and allowable behavior in for both men and women in a broad cultural sense (United Nations, 2016). Gender identity impacts our development and how we interact with society. Our daily life decisions are impacted by our gender role beliefs.
Sex is the measurable organs (anatomies), hormones and chromosomes that determines us as male, female or intersex. It is what we are born with, a product of biological processes (DNA, evolution, mutation, replication, reproduction, and selection), sex is a biological construct, as opposed to gender which is a social and cultural construct.
There are distinct differences between Sex and Gender. Sex is divided up into two divisions, male or female, based upon their reproductive system. Gender is the notion set by society on what social behaviours are acceptable for males and females, for example the expectation that females are more caring or nurturing than men. Gender can be further divided into two subcategorise: identity and stereotype. Gender identity is the concept that your sex and gender do not have to be the same but can different, i.e. a male at birth can identify as a female. These notions of acceptable behaviour set by society create gender stereotypes for both male and female, which can cause a person to reject their gender identity if they do not conform these gender stereotypes.
You are born with sexual attributes but gender qualities are developed after birth (Tovey and Share, 2003). The variations between the two sexes are an outcome of culture and society (Giddens, 2001). The best way to prove the difference between the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is the situation of transsexuals. These people fit biologically into one sex but feel they belong to the other. Through surgery and hormone treatment they try to change their biological sex and by doing this they also have to learn how to act like the sex they have changed to. They also have to take on new masculine/feminine roles (Browne, 2005). One in every two thousand babies is born intersex which is a baby with mixed female and male characteristics.