How do you define gender? (tradition, experience, sex)

[Jaymes]

To lessen confusion here and so we can get what everyone's talking about, I'd like to ask that you guys use "man" and "woman" to refer to gender roles and "male" and "female" to refer to sex.

What is it that makes someone a man? A woman? Neither? Both?

Is it chromosomes? What happens when you get XXY? XXX? XYY? XO? Androgen insensitivity?

Is it society? What happens when someone doesn't match society's view of what their gender should be?

Is it genetalia? What happens when you get a female with a large labia, or a male with a very small penis?

If you don't feel like answering all those questions: How do you define gender and why?

[jamaesi]

If you don't feel like answering all those questions: How do you define gender and why?

I don't define gender for anyone but myself. Whatever gender someone prefers to be regarded as, no matter their phsyical sex, is fine by me.

[Fluffy]

In my own personal experience I have never knowingly felt like a man or a woman. That is not to say that I do not feel like either one of them, just that I would not know what such a sensation felt like so I cannot accurately tell whether I have experienced such a thing. So when a person tells me that they feel like a woman or a man I have no idea what they mean because I have no identifiable reference point with which I might use to try and sympathise with their experience.

I say that I am a man because I have a penis. I am unsure what my chromosomes are but assumedly they are XY... however my gender identification is largely based off of my genitals since I have never seen my chromosomes.

If there are seperate roles for men and women then I consider them to be the product of society and, along with most things I lump into that category, heed them little.

What further compounds this issue for me is that I have never had much need to differentiate between the sexes in what I would consider a meaningful way. For example, I don't feel attracted to somebody based on their sex nor do I find that I get on with one sex more than the other so a person's gender has generally been something I don't think about till it is mentioned to me directly.

[standing_alone]

The way I see it is that sex is bioligical sex or genetalia one is born with and gender is the sex a person identifies with.

[Fluffy]

The way I see it is that sex is bioligical sex or genetalia one is born with and gender is the sex a person identifies with.

If that is the case then I would say I have no gender and that my sex is male. I have never differentiated between the two before except when studying linguistics.

[YamiB.]

Gender is what society attaches to a person's sex. That person's sex is shown by which bits they have. These are a least what I learned to be the diffrence between the two words.


As to what it actually is that seperates the genders, it would be hard to specify. It really would differ from society to society and you would need to look across the varying levels of traditional and more modern views.

[Shadow Wolf]

I agree with YamiB's definition to an exent. We have gender, which is how society thinks men and women should act and behave. Sex, IMO, is either biologically determined by genetals, or which ever one that person identifies with.

[gnomon]

I would agree with the common sentiment here because I think it is the scientifically valid expression.

Gender is a defined role applied to an individual defined by a society based on that persons sex. Man and woman are the terms to designate basic gender differences.

Sex is dependant on two basic distinctions, one sex which produces eggs and has a womb and the other which produces sperm.

Of course, not every individual will strictly fall into a defined gender role or even a sexual designation. There are a variety of biological reasons for this and I can only recommend checking out a few websites on intersexed individual, kleinfelters syndrome, mosaic genetics, etc.

As far as proper terms I never truly know and just address an individual how they wish to be addressed.

[Tigress]

I don't, if I can help it. It's nothing more than a false social construct.