Gender is a range of characteristics of femininity, masculinity[1] and others described as third gender. Depending on the context, the describing characteristics vary from sex to social roles (gender roles) to gender identity. The academic interdisciplinary field gender studies focuses on gender. Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word "gender" to refer to anything but grammatical categories.[2][3] However, Money's meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. Today, the distinction is strictly followed in some contexts, like medicine,[4][1] social sciences,[5][6] feminist literature,[7] documents written by organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO),[8] and in some dictionaries,[9] but in many contexts, even in some areas of social sciences, the meaning of gender has expanded to include "sex" or even to replace the latter word.[2][3] Although this gradual change in the meaning of gender can be traced to the 1980s, a small acceleration of the process in the scientific literature was observed when the Food and Drug Administration started to use "gender" instead of "sex" in 1993.[10] "Gender" is now commonly used even to refer to the physiology of non-human animals, without any implication of social gender roles.[3]
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1. ^ a b Ann-Maree Nobelius (23 June 2004). "What is the difference between sex and gender?". Monash University. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
2. ^ a b Udry, J. Richard (November 1994). "The Nature of Gender". Demography 31 (4): 561–573. doi:10.2307/2061790. JSTOR 2061790. PMID 7890091.
3. ^ a b c d e f Haig, David (April 2004). "The Inexorable Rise of Gender and the Decline of Sex: Social Change in Academic Titles, 1945–2001". Archives of Sexual Behavior 33 (2): 87–96. doi:10.1023/B:ASEB.0000014323.56281.0d. PMID 15146141.
4. ^ "What Is The Difference Between Sex And Gender?". Medical News Today. 05 Aug 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
5. ^ "GENDER". Social Science Dictionary. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
6. ^ THE SOCIOLOGY OF GENDER.
7. ^ For example, the definition and use of the term in G. Argyrous and Frank Stilwell, Economics as a Social Science: Readings in Political Economy, 2nd ed., (Pluto Press, 2003), in the feminist economics section, pages 238–243, especially pages 233 and 234.
8. ^ a b c "What do we mean by "sex" and "gender"?". World Health Organization. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
9. ^ "Definition of Gender". Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved 01 May 2012.
10. ^ Guideline for the Study and Evaluation of Gender Differences in the Clinical Evaluation of Drugs
