How would you define your sex? Would you define it the same as you would your gender? In this paper, I will be discussing the common misconception associated with the relationship between sex and gender, and answering the question: “Is gender real?” I will also be relating the answer to this question to the epistemic virtue of wisdom. First, I will begin by giving the definitions of gender and sex, while pointing out the obvious differences between them, and explaining the realist’s, anti-realist’s, and skeptic’s approach to these two terms. I will also give the definition of what a natural kind is in order to make these approaches clearer. After I’ve given the three approaches, I will explain why the anti-realist’s approach is the most …show more content…
Before I explain these approaches, I feel that it will be helpful for me to give you the definition of a ‘natural kind’ because it plays a huge role in all three of the previously mentioned approaches. A natural kind is natural clear-cut grouping of real things – it is a way to naturally categorize a group of things that have one or more specific things in common. Keeping in mind the definition of natural kinds, you will be able to see how they will play a role in the differences of these approaches.
The realist approach is very demanding and traditional. Realists set out to find natural kinds and believe that these natural kinds are real. The reason realists believe in natural kinds is because, being a realist, they are required to demand two things: whatever they’re looking for needs to accurately describe the world, and whatever they’re looking for needs to accurately predict the world. Natural kinds form a sort of natural boundary that shows what is inside and outside of its boundary, and by doing this, it is accurately describing the world through categorizations; this is the reason realists believe in natural kinds. Because they believe in natural kinds, they believe that there is one thing that all women or all men have in common that make them who they are. They also only believe in two gender categories - the two genders being male and female.
The second approach that I will discuss
Gender can be defined as “sex roles” which are conditions that one considers to be for men or women. People tends to mistake it with sex or thinks that they are both the same. We discussed about the patterns of gender which how the authors of The Kaleidoscope of Gender describes it as “regularized, prepackaged ways of thinking, feeling, and acting” (Spade and Valentino,2017). It becomes an identity for us. We believe that there is and can only be two genders, being masculine for men and feminine for women. These roles has been forced onto us since birth: blue for boys, and pink for girls. You can see the roles being push onto a person throughout one’s life, but we don’t notice it since it’s “normal” to us.
‘‘Sex’ is a biological term; ‘gender’ a psychological and cultural one’ (Oakley 1972, p.158). To further expound on Oakley, ‘sex’ refers to the biological framework a person is born with while ‘gender’, an identity that we acquire as a result of social and cultural influence. Sex is naturally constant throughout an individual’s life whereas gender is a variable. Via gender socialisation, men and women constantly learn to adapt to society’s expectations associated with their biological form as society changes. This very concept clearly elucidates the dichotomy between sex and gender. Therefore, coming from such a perspective, it is true to say that we are born as human beings (males, females or intersex) who formulate socially accepted gender identities as a product of social and cultural implications (Abbott, Wallace & Tyler 2005). Conventionally, societies associate the male and female sexes with their definitions of masculinity and femininity respectively.
Gender is actually a set of rules, customs and traditions assigned to people of a particular sex. Gender is not biological but sex is. Rather, according to Lorber, it is influenced by our society and our culture. By proving this claim, Judith Lorber has put forth the example of the man and this example is efficient in distinguishing “gender” as a practice than as an innate attribute.
Gender has been described as masculine or feminine characteristics that encompass gender identity sex as well as social roles (Nobelius 2004). According to sexologist John Money, there is a difference between gender as a role and the biologically of differences in sex (Udry 1994). Within scholarly disciplines, cultures and contexts, gender frequently has its own mean, contextual frame of reference and the manner in which it is used to describe a variety of issues and characteristics. The sociocultural codes, conventions and the suggested and literal rules that accompany the notion of gender are vast and diverse. There has been and continues to be much scholarly debate regarding the idea of gender and how it has been viewed historically; as well as changes in the grammatical use of the
A person’s sex is determined on the basis of three fundamental human physiognomies, chromosomes (XX for a female and XY for a male), gonads (ovaries for females and testes for males) and the obvious being genitals (vagina for a females and a penis for males). However socially, gender identity is formulated on the grounds of stereotypical roles from both
Scott Carpenter displays gender as multilayered and explains “Each layer reveals another, and another, and yet another—until we get to the center of this philosophical onion, only to find that, just maybe, there is no core. Or, at the very least, this core may be less of a precise identity than a kind of biological tether” (109). He explains that gender identity is more than just a mere male and female description, and it has such wide definition that one can have a hard time to think. Female can also be masculine whereas male can be feminine. Therefore, he is emphasizing that even with cultural and traditional bounds, individuals can choose their own interest, and emphasizes that gender studies are great way to figure out “the flexibility of roles, as well as the malaise that this elasticity can elicit” (Carpenter
The distinction of sex and gender that was defined is not easily made in reality. A more realistic view of gender an sex is the example given. It makes it seem as though sex and gender are the same thing instead of separate entities.
Genderism refers to the idea that there are only two ways to fit into socially normative views of gender: male or female. This term also fortifies the notion that gender, and the gender which one identifies with, is inherently connected to the biological makeup of the genitalia they were assigned with at birth. Genderism is seen as a cultural belief, and therefore is a commonly shared perspective amongst people in many regions of the world. For those who were born into a culture where genderism is practiced, it can be difficult to formulate opposing opinions and viewpoints regarding gender. Moreover, this causes individuals to subconsciously place people into categories or a binary, which as a result, excludes multiple individuals and restricts many from being true to who they are. Hall (2013) stated in his work,that while it is necessary for humans to sort new information into ‘types’ in their brains to comprehend meaning, it is critical not to limit individuals to these types. Furthermore, with the knowledge and technology at the hands of scientists and researchers today, limitations of gender and gender identification
The article The Opposite Sex: with Lisa May Stevens excerpted from the book Lousy Sex, by Gerald N. Callahan dives deep into the concept of gender that we humans have deemed a taboo subject. This article sought to question what gender is and why humans feel the need to have it. Callahan explores other species that ignore our strict rules regarding gender and thrive just the same. This article was extremely fascinating and helped me to open up my perception as to what gender truly is. It was also surprising to me that so many other people are confused as to what gender really is. Humans have tried so hard to make gender black and white, but it is often more flowing and unique to each person. Gender is an amazingly interesting topic that seeks
Her section on gender begins with asking the question, what is sex? Mardell then delves into the science of sex’s definition while continually comparing it to the social construct that humans have interpreted sex as. She paints a picture that shows, rather than tells, the difference between sex and gender with why and how it exists. This understanding allows her readers to grasp the more complex topics easier and sets a standard of acceptance for different ways of thinking.
In How to Build a Man, Fausto-Sterling questions the neutrality of scientific works through examinations of scientific interpretations of sex and the practice of sex assignment at birth. Based on evidence and conducted by educated scientists, science is usually seen as truth and authority. However, interpreted by human beings with preconceptions, science, far from telling the truth and liberating people from old social understandings, actively interacts with current social values and reinforces the norms. In the perspective of gender study, a person’s assigned sex is often seen as a stable biological identity as opposed to gender as a personal identification. Fausto-Sterling puts into question the certainty of assigned sex and implies that understanding sex as socially constructed is essential for change. However, how is this new understanding of science indicative of its role in the field of gender study?
Gender is an individual 's natural sense of themselves existing as a male or female, which may hold opposing views from their biological sex. I believe sex and gender are two terms used interchangeably. Sex implies the biological characteristics among females and males. Whereas gender implies the social qualities connected with being a female or male. As Lorber states, “I am arguing that bodies differ physiologically, but they are completely transformed by social practices to fit into the salient categories of a society, the most persuasive of which are’female’ and ‘male’ and ‘women’ and ‘men’.” (pg. 11) An emphasis on gender not only exposes knowledge about women and
The discussion of genes and gender and the respective roles they play in determining sex and identity have been widely discussed in recent decades. The idea that biology can solely determine ones sex, wherein no external factors impact that determination requires further discussion. The topic of whether there are strictly two distinct genders represented in society has been recognized largely as a western cultural viewpoint. While not everyone agrees with this viewpoint, one biologist that plays a role in this discussion is Anne Fausto-Sterling. She is an expert in gender development and wrote extensively on the subject of gene and gender. In this paper I will discuss Fausto-Sterling’s view on sex and gender, and how she undermines the idea of strict universal dimorphism. Being that sexual dimorphism is the favored view of most in the scientific community, this discussion comes with some controversy. She states that with the understanding of intersexed individuals in society, we as a society must abandon the idea that there are only 2 sexes.
The words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are commonly confused with each other in regular, everyday conversations when the two have very different meanings. The term ‘sex’ refers to the biological and physiological characteristics of a person, such as male or female; ‘gender’ is a social construction that refers to masculine or feminine roles in society ( Nordqvist). For
When considering gender and sex, a layman’s idea of these terms might be very different than a sociologist’s. There is an important distinction: sex, in terms of being “male” or “female,” is purely the physical biological characteristic differences – primarily anatomical differences. (There are also rare cases of “intersexual” individuals as outlined in the Navarro article, “When Gender Isn’t a Given”.) Gender, on the other hand, is an often misconstrued concept that is commonly mistaken as synonymous with sex. A non-sociologist might surmise the following, “men act masculine and women act feminine, therefore, it must follow that gender is inherent to sex,” however, this is not necessarily the case.