Gender

Background

As opposed to the biological term sex, the term gender refers to the “social” or “psychological” gender of a person, where “sex” and “gender” should be seen as analytically independent of each other. Gender refers to a historically specific practice of social classification. It focuses on the special perceptions and patterns of interpretation by which the binary structure of “male” and “female” is viewed, dealt with, and institutionalized. In doing so, it deals with the symbolic order of sexes in a society, as well as with the self-attributions and identification of the individual, which focus on it but are not identical to this symbolism. In most societies, categorizing into male and female gender categories takes place on the basis of the shaping of primary and secondary gender characteristics. Disambiguations and the one-sidedness of “male” and “female” are associated with the two-gender classification, as well as with social relations of symmetry and asymmetry, equality and hierarchy, of inclusion and exclusion. These relationships are embedded in concrete social relations and structural connections. At the same time, the fact that classifications do not simply exist but constantly need to be reacquired points to their instability and dependency on having to be updated at a practical level. Based on the realization that social gender differentiation is not based on anthropological, biological, or physiological conditions but on the result of social classifications, it [Page 962]can be inferred that the hierarchical relationship of the sexes to one another is not an expression of a “natural” order that cannot be changed.

Stages in the Discourse

The sociological debate on inequality between women and men and the category of “gender” began around the middle of the 1960s and is closely linked to the so-called second wave of the women's movement emerging at that time in many Western countries. The studies, mainly compiled by female academics, first concentrated on unmasking science as “male oriented” and criticizing the lack of awareness of women's lives and active dealings in research and teaching. A close connection between the women's movement and feminist criticism in science was established, and it resulted in criticism of the discrimination against women in academia and society and of the one-sidedness of research that was mainly conducted by men and that often treated women as objects.

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