Gender

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The gender symbols used to denote a female (left) or male (right) organism, derived from the astrological symbols of Venus and Mars.
For other uses, see Gender (disambiguation).

"Gender", in common usage, refers to the differences between men and women. Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that gender identity is "an individual's self-conception as being male or female, as distinguished from actual biological sex."[1] Although "gender" is commonly used interchangeably with "sex," within the academic fields of cultural studies, gender studies and the social sciences in general, the term "gender" often refers to purely social rather than biological differences. Some view gender as a social construction rather than a biological phenomenon. People whose gender identity feels incongruent with their physical bodies may identify themselves as intersex, transgender or genderqueer.

Many languages have a system of grammatical gender, a type of noun class system — nouns may be classified as masculine or feminine (for example Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic and French) or may also have a neuter grammatical gender (for example Sanskrit, German and Polish). In such languages, this is essentially a convention, which may have little or no connection to the meaning of the words. Likewise, a wide variety of phenomena have characteristics termed gender, by analogy with male and female bodies (such as the gender of connectors and fasteners) or due to societal norms.

Etymology and usage

The word gender in English

Gender = kind

The word gender comes from the Middle English gendre, a loanword from Norman-conquest-era Middle 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 gen-,[2][3] which is also the source of kin, kind, king and many other English words.[4] It appears in Modern French in the word genre (type, kind) 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: Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind. — Leviticus 19:19

Most of the uses of the root gen in Indo-European languages refer either directly to what pertains to birth or, by extension, to natural, innate qualities and their consequent social distinctions (for example gentry, 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. and Pg. genero, 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.
Gender = masculinity or femininity

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
Gender = noun class

According to Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Protagoras used the terms masculine, feminine, and neuter to classify nouns, introducing the concept of grammatical gender.

  • τὰ γένη τῶν ὀνομάτων ἄρρενα καὶ θήλεα καὶ σκεύη
  • The tribes (genē) of the namers are males and 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 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."[5] 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 Mail 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).

Gender = sexual stereotype

Over the course of the 1970s, 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 in both theory and 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.

  • 1998: Today a return to separate single-sex schools may hasten the revival of separate gender roles.
— Wendy Kaminer, 'The Trouble with Single-Sex Schools', The Atlantic Monthly (April)

The American Heritage Dictionary uses the following two sentences to illustrate the difference.[6]

  • 2000: The effectiveness of the medication appears to depend on the sex (not gender) of the patient.
  • 2000: In peasant societies, gender (not sex) roles are likely to be more clearly defined.

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.[7] Frequently, but not exclusively, this indicates acceptance of the feminist theory of human nature. However, in many instances, the term gender still refers to sexual distinction generally without such an assumption.

  • 2004: Among the reasons that working scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use a more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation.
— D Haig, The Inexorable Rise of Gender and the Decline of Sex

In fact, the ideological distinction between sex and gender is only fitfully observed.[7]

The concept of gender in other languages

German and Dutch

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, Geschlecht or Geslacht, to refer not only to biological sex, but social differences and grammatical gender as well, making a distinction between 'sex' and 'gender' 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 'sex', Geschlechtsidentität for 'gender identity' and Geschlechtsrolle for 'gender role', and so on.

Swedish

In Swedish, 'gender' is translated with the linguistically cognate genus, including sociological contexts, thus: Genusstudier (gender studies) and Genusvetenskap (gender science). 'Sex' in Swedish, however, only signifies sexual relations, and not the typical English dichotomy, a concept for which 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. In earlier literature, and occasionally in non-academic contexts, Swedish uses the word könsroll (literally 'sex role', but contextually translated as 'gender role'). These terms can have the same or different meanings depending on the context.

Sex

Male (left) and female fruit flies, D. melanogaster. The female is determined by the presence of two X chromosomes.


Gender can refer to the biological condition of being male or female, or less commonly intersex or "third sex" as applied to humans, or hermaphroditic, as applied to non-human animals and plants.[citation needed] In this sense, the term is a synonym for sex[citation needed], a word that has undergone a usage shift itself, having become a synonym for sexual intercourse.

Biology of gender

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Social category

Since the 1950s, the term gender has been increasingly used to distinguish a social role (gender role) and/or personal identity (gender identity) distinct from biological sex. Sexologist John Money wrote in 1955, "[t]he 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."[8] Elements of such a role include clothing, speech patterns, movement and other factors not solely limited to biological sex.

Many societies categorize all individuals as either male or female—however, this is not universal. Some societies recognise a third gender[9]—for instance, the Two-Spirit people of some indigenous American peoples, and hijras of India and Pakistan[10]—or even a fourth[11] or fifth.[12] Such categories may be an intermediate state between male and female, a state of sexlessness, or a distinct gender not dependent on male and female gender roles. 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.[13]

There is debate over to what extent gender is a social construct and to what extent it is a biological construct. One point of view in the debate is social constructionism, which suggests that gender is entirely a social construct. Contrary to social constructionism is essentialism which suggests that it is entirely a biological construct. Others' opinions on the subject lie somewhere in between.

Some gender associations are changing as society changes, yet much controversy exists over the extent to which gender roles are simply stereotypes, arbitrary social constructions, or natural innate differences.

In feminist and gender theory

During the 1970s there was no consensus about how the terms were to be applied. 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.

The philosopher and feminist Simone de Beauvoir applied existentialism to women's experience of life: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one."[14] 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 biological differences, to focus on cultural differences.[15] This emerged from a number of different areas: in sociology during the 1950s (see Sociology of gender); from the theories of the psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan; and in the work of feminists (such as Judith Butler). Each field came to regard "gender" as a practice, sometimes referred to as "performative."[16]

Gender and development

Main article: Gender identity

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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed] Also, it is claimed that women are more likely to use the money for the benefit of their families.[citation needed]

Some organizations working in developing countries and in the development field have incorporated advocacy and empowerment for women into their work. A notable example is Wangari Maathai's environmental organization, the Green Belt Movement.

Legal status

A person's sex as female or male has legal significance—sex is indicated on government documents, and laws provide differently for women and men. Some examples of how sex and gender are legally relevant: many pension systems have different retirement ages for men or women, and usually marriage is only available to opposite-gender couples, whereas a civil partnership is often only available for same-sex couples.

The question then arises as to what legally determines whether someone is male or female. 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 unknown from birth. Increasingly, jurisdictions also provide a procedure for changes of legal gender for transgender people.

Gender assignment, when there are any indications that genital sex might not be decisive in a particular case, is normally not defined by any 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 recognised 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, a transsexual person could be recognised as the gender they identified with under many areas of the law, e.g., 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 (e.g., suppose the state recognises gender transitions, but the federal government does not).

Spirituality

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

In Christianity, God is described in masculine terms; however, the Church has historically been described in feminine terms.

Of one of the several forms of the Hindu God, Shiva, is Ardhanarishwar (literally half-female God). Here Shiva manifests himself so that the left half is Female and the right half is Male. The left represents Shakti (energy, power) in the form of Goddess Parvati (otherwise his consort) and the right half Shiva. Whereas Parvati is the cause of arousal of Kama (desires), Shiva is the killer. Shiva is pervaded by the power of Parvati and Parvati is pervaded by the power of Shiva. While the stone images may seem to represent a half-male and half-female God, the true symbolic representation is of a being the whole of which is Shiva and the whole of which is Shakti at the same time. It is a 3-D representation of only shakti from one angle and only Shiva from the other. Shiva and Shakti are hence the same being representing a collective of Jnana (knowledge) and Kriya (activity). Adi Shankaracharya, the founder of non-dualistic philosophy (Advaita–"not two") in Hindu thought says in his "Saundaryalahari"—Shivah Shaktayaa yukto yadi bhavati shaktah prabhavitum na che devum devona khalu kushalah spanditam api " i.e., It is only when Shiva is united with Shakti that He acquires the capability of becoming the Lord of the Universe. In the absence of Shakti, He is not even able to stir. In fact, the term "Shiva" originated from "Shva," which implies a dead body. It is only through his inherent shakti that Shiva realizes his true nature.

This mythology projects the inherent view in ancient Hinduism, that each human carries within himself both male and female components, which are forces rather than sexes, and it is the harmony between the creative and the annihilative, the strong and the soft, the proactive and the passive, that makes a true person. Such thought, leave alone entail gender equality, in fact obliterates any material distinction between the male and female altogether. This may explain why in ancient India we find evidence of homosexuality, bisexuality, androgyny, multiple sex partners and open representation of sexual pleasures in artworks like the Khajuraho temples, being accepted within prevalent social frameworks.[17]

Language

Connectors and fasteners

In electrical and mechanical trades and manufacturing, and in electronics, each of a pair of mating connectors or fasteners (such as nuts and bolts) is conventionally assigned the designation male or female. The assignment is by direct analogy with animal genitalia; the part bearing one or more protrusions, or which fits inside the other, being designated male and the part containing the corresponding indentations or fitting outside the other being female.

File:F plug.jpg
An electrical power male plug, left, and matching female socket, of a type common in many European countries.

Music

In western music theory, keys, chords and scales are often described as having major or minor tonality, sometimes related to masculine and feminine. [citation needed] By analogy, the major scales are masculine (clear, open, extroverted), while the minor scales are given feminine qualities (dark, soft, introverted). German uses the word Tongeschlecht ("Tone gender") for tonality, and the words Dur (from Latin durus, hard) for major and moll (from Latin mollis, soft) for minor.

See Major and minor.

Linguistics

Natural languages often make gender distinctions. These may be of various kinds:

  • Grammatical gender, a property of some languages in which every noun is assigned a gender, often with no direct relation to its meaning. For example, Spanish muchacha (grammatically feminine), German Mädchen (grammatically neuter), and Irish cailín (grammatically masculine) all mean "girl". The terms "masculine" and "feminine" are generally preferred to "male" and "female" in reference to grammatical gender.
  • The traditional use of different vocabulary by men and women. See, for instance, Gender differences in spoken Japanese.
  • The asymmetrical use of terms that refer to males and females. Concern that current language may be biased in favor of males has led some authors in recent times to argue for the use of more Gender-neutral language in English and other languages.

See also

  • Androcentrism
  • Androgyny
  • Biology of gender
  • Femininity
  • Gender bender
  • Gender differences
  • Gender studies
  • Genderqueer
  • List of gender names
  • Masculinity
  • Postgenderism
  • Sexism
  • Transgender
  • Two-Spirit

References
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  1. ↑ Gender Identity, Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2007.
  2. ↑ Julius Pokorny, 'gen', in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, (Bern: Francke, 1959, reprinted in 1989), pp. 373-75.
  3. ↑ 'genə-', in 'Appendix I: Indo-European Roots', to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).
  4. ↑ Your Dictionary.com, 'Gen', reformatted from AHD.
  5. ↑ Fowler's Modern English Usage, 1926: p. 211.
  6. ↑ Usage note: Gender, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, (2000).
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Haig, D. (2004). 'The Inexorable Rise of Gender and the Decline of Sex: Social Change in Academic Titles, 1945–2001'. Archives of Sexual Behavior 33: 87–96.
  8. ↑ Money, J. (1955). "Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism: Psychologic findings." Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital 96, 253–264.
  9. ↑ Herdt, Gilbert (ed.) (1996). Third Sex Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. ISBN 0-942299-82-5
  10. ↑ Nanda, Serena (1998). Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India. Wadsworth Publishing. ISBN 0-534-50903-7
    * Reddy, Gayatri (2005). With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India. (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture), University Of Chicago Press (July 1, 2005). ISBN 0-226-70756-3
  11. ↑ Roscoe, Will (2000). Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America. Palgrave Macmillan (June 17, 2000) ISBN 0-312-22479-6
  12. ↑ Graham, Sharyn (2001), Sulawesi's fifth gender, Inside Indonesia, April-June 2001.
  13. ↑ Roughgarden, Joan. (2004) Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24073-1
  14. ↑ de Beauvoir, S. (1949, 1989) "The Second Sex."
  15. ↑ Garrett, S. (1992). "Gender," p. vii.
  16. ↑ Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity," 9.
  17. ↑ "The Male-Female Hologram," Ashok Vohra, Times of India, March 8, 2005, Page 9

Further reading

  • Chafetz, J. S. Masculine/feminine or human? An overview of the sociology of sex roles. 1st ed. 1974, 2nd ed. 178. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock.


External links

Links on gender and development


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