Communication, Gender Differences In

Sex

Sex is a biological category—male or female—that is determined genetically. Most individuals are designated as male or female based on external genitalia (penis and testes in males, clitoris and vagina in females) and internal sex organs (ovaries and uterus in females, prostate gland in males). Genitalia and secondary sex markers such as hair growth and muscle mass are controlled by chromosomes and hormones. Most humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, one of which determines sex. Although there are variations in sex chromosome patterns, typically, those people society labels male have XY sex chromosomes and those that society labels female have XX chromosomes.

Gender

Gender is a more complex concept than sex. In the 1970s, researchers began to draw a clear distinction between sex (male, female) and gender (masculine, feminine). They defined gender as a social construction in sharp contrast to sex as a biological phenomenon. Put another way, gender involves the social meanings attached to sex within a particular culture and in a particular era.

Because gender is central to social order, society works very hard to convince its members that its definitions and expectations of women and men are natural, normal, and right. From birth, most individuals are socialized into society's views of what it means to be a man or woman—what each sex should and should not do. Pervasive practices reflect and aim to reproduce social definitions of gender: pink and blue blankets, toys marketed to boys (active, adventure toys) and girls (dolls and play stoves), chores parents typically assign to sons (outdoor tasks) and daughters (indoor tasks), elementary teachers' tendencies to allow boys to play rougher and be less attentive than girls are expected to be, workplace norms that make it more acceptable for female than male workers to take parental leave.

It is important to realize that gender includes both femininity and masculinity. Gender is often perceived as a synonym for women or for women's interests. Just as the study of race is commonly, but mistakenly, perceived as not having anything to do with Caucasians, the study of gender is routinely perceived as having nothing to do with men and masculinity. However, Western culture recognizes two genders, and some other cultures recognize more than two. Masculinity is just as socially constructed as femininity, and understanding how and why masculinity has been constructed as it has [Page 253]helps researchers understand how many men define themselves and which attitudes and behaviors they do and do not consider appropriate for themselves. Studying gender gives insight into the processes by which each (and all) genders are constructed and—by extension—the ways in which existing constructions of each (and all) genders might be challenged and changed.

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