Describing Gender and Sex

Sex and Gender There are a variety of different perspectives on sex and gender. The four main theoretical perspectives are biological, evolutionary, social constructionist, and psychodynamic perspectives. None of these theoretical perspectives completely explains sex or gender, nor do they claim that they do. Instead, the perspectives inform the idea of the social construct of gender as it relates to the biological sex of a person.

Each perspective looks at how biological, social, and cultural factors impact how a person views both sex and gender, and they focus on this from different levels of analysis. It is important to keep in mind that, while there may be some conflicts between the theories, they may be better understood when viewed together.

Furthermore, most analysis of sex and gender takes a two-gender (masculine and feminine) and two-sex (male and female) approach to the gender question, even when acknowledging that there is; at the least, a third sex possibility, being intersex, and probably many more possibilities when one looks at sex on a chromosomal level. The issue of gender becomes even more complicated, with gender being far more like a bell-curve than a polar distribution of masculine and feminine traits.

This paper will focus on a biological perspective of gender and a social constructionist perspective of gender, because those might be the two perspectives that have the most conflict in their approach to the relationship between gender and sex. The biological perspective begins with the anatomical differences between males and females and suggests that there are anatomical differences in brain structure due to sex. It also discusses the fact that different means can be used to determine sex.

The most basic means of determining sex is by looking at a person's physical characteristics, most notably their genitalia. This is an imperfect means because newborns genitalia may look misleading due to maternal hormones and the stressors of childbirth. Furthermore, about 1 in 500 children are born with external genitalia that do not match their chromosomal gender.

Sex hormones can also be used to determine sex, however this type of determination is iffy because of the presence of both male and female sex hormones in individuals of both sex at different times during the lifespan. Genetic screening is also an imperfect means of determining biological sex. For example, the typical male has XY chromosomes and the typical female has XX chromosomes. However, it is also possible to have XXY or XY genotypes and still present as female and actually be unaware of any chromosomal abnormalities.

Despite these variations, the average male has an XY chromosome, a normal amount of male hormones, and visible male external genitalia, while the average female has XX chromosomes, the normal amount of female hormones, and visible female external genitalia. The biological approach to gender suggests that there is an anatomical difference to gender-based behavioral differences because of gender-based differences in brain anatomy. These differences, at least in rat studies, appear to be linked to hormone levels.

Furthermore, when girls are exposed to testosterone in utero, they exhibit more stereotypically masculine behaviors than girls who did not receive such exposure. There also appear to be gender-based differences in cognitive abilities, which may be attributable to brain lateralization. These differences are based upon looking at boys and girls as groups. It does not mean that each individual girl or boy will fall within the norms for cognitive ability for their gender, but, instead, that when viewed as a group there are sex-based differences in cognitive ability.

However, it is difficult to determine whether these anatomical differences in the brain are the result of innate differences or whether they are caused by gendered behavior throughout a lifetime. The social constructionist perspective about gender begins with the perspective that males and females are more innately same than different. They do acknowledge that there are, generally, external sex-based differences between male and female that lead to the early assignment of a biological sex to a child.

However, they look at those differences as merely a foundation for the gendered expectations that are linked to the child's behavior. The constructivists find support for their position of gender as a construct by examining social traditions that seem to have a more fluid approach to gender construction. For example, biological females may live as males under certain conditions, and are, in turn, treated as males by the rest of their culture.

This concept of gender suggests that biological sex is not determinative of gender, but is merely the starting point for gender. Each individual uses social discourses, including expectations and norms, to create their own meaning of what it means to be masculine or feminine. As a result, one expects some variation in what it means to be masculine or feminine depending upon underlying cultural norms. Not only does culture influence how someone interprets gender, but gender, in turn, influences how people perceive their social status within their culture.

Moreover, under the social constructivist approach, gender is fluid over the course of a lifetime. Furthermore, gender is seen as a continuously produced throughout a lifetime because people construct their behavior and experience as a cultural lens of gender. Furthermore, gender segregation becomes an intentional part of gender, both through cultural expectations and through self-selection by members of different sexes. For example, in modern U.S. society, academic achievement has become feminized, so that boys may reject academic achievement.

Some people would suggest that biological and social construct perspectives are diametrically opposed because one of them suggests that gender is innate while the other suggests that gender is the result of social conditioning. However, neither of these approaches suggests that either biology or culture is entirely responsible for gender. The nature vs. nurture debate is, in fact, not really a debate. Modern theorists from both perspectives realize that the question is not nature or nurture, but "how do nature and nurture each impact gendered behavior?".