Sex, gender, and sexual orientation

Gender

Gender refers to a cultural understanding of what constitutes masculinity and femininity in any society. Gender roles are the social and cultural expectations that are associated with a person’s sex and are learned during the socialization process. Gender is social differentiation based on sex. Masculinity, as a gender differentiation, refers to attributes traditionally considered appropriate for males such as aggression, athleticism, high levels of physical activity, logical thinking, dominance in interpersonal relationships; whereas femininity as a gender differentiation, refers to attributes traditionally associated with behavior appropriate for females such as passivity, docility, fragility, emotionality, and subordination in interpersonal relationships. Although many consider gender to be biological, it is not. Gender traits are socially determined, they are not innate. Margaret Mead’s classic studies of sexual practices and gender roles among various ethnic groups in New Guinea demonstrated that among the Arapesh both sexes display what Americans would think of as feminine characteristics; among the Mundugumor both sexes display what Americans would think of as masculine characteristics, and among the Tchambuli Mead documented women engaging in gender roles that most Americans would consider masculine, while men engaged in gender roles that most Americans would consider feminine. As with racial and ethnic stereotypes there are also gender stereotypes: men are instrumental or goal oriented while women are expressive or emotional.

Consider the following story. One night a man and his young son are driving in the car in a terrible rainstorm. It is extremely dark; the father cannot see well enough to drive the car because the rainstorm is so severe. Suddenly, the car stalls on a railroad track just as a freight train is coming. The freight train hits the car and instantly kills the father. The little boy is thrown from the car. The train engineer radios for Life-Flight who transports the child to the nearest trauma center. At the hospital, the little boy is rushed immediately into emergency surgery. The surgeon enters the operating room, looks at the child and says, “I can’t possibly operate on that child, that child is my son.” What, if anything, is wrong with this story? Why? What was your first reaction? Why?

Until they are about 4 or 5, small children believe that they can be a boy one day and a girl the next day. By the time they are 5 or 6, however, children understand and accept their gender identity, which means acknowledging one’s sex and internalizing the norms, values, and behaviors of the accompanying gender expectations. Charles Horton Cooley’s Looking-Glass Self theory explains to us that our recognition of societally acceptable gender role behavior is an important aspect of socialization. In Western industrial societies, both males and females tend not to exhibit traditional gender role behavior but rather express androgynous characteristics—androgyny is a blending of both masculine and feminine attributes based on emotions and behaviors.