Sex and Gender: Nature and Nurture?

SEX

A friend of mine likes to say that “gender is between the ears; sex is between the legs.” What he means is that gender is how people perceive themselves, whereas sex is what a person’s body looks like. If that’s really the case, how do we get there?

Our genes, specifically the X and Y-chromosomes, determine sex. XY types for male; XX types for female. Not everyone has these chromosomes, however. For example, some have Kleinfelter’s Syndrome (XXY), or Double Y Syndrome (XYY), or other conditions. Some people exhibit androgen insensitivity, which means that their bodies don’t recognize sex hormones, such as testosterone, that result in secondary sex characteristics (things that typically code for male or female but aren’t necessary for reproduction, like breasts and the deeper male voice). Thus their appearance may not match their chromosomal sex. Individuals with dual or ambiguous sex characteristics are known as intersex. To learn more about the intersex community, go to The Intersex Society of North America. Or, if you’re interested in how the medical profession has previously (and still today) constructs the physical part of the gender-binary, read some of Anne Fausto-Sterling’s literature, such as Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. A great and controversial project would be to research laws pertaining to intersex infants at birth and “genital reconstruction.” (If you do it, send it to YouthResource!)

So, sex, the biological bit, is sometimes ambiguous, and even with the not-so-ambiguous categories of sex, there are individual variations. All males do not have identical reproductive organs; neither do females. What does that say about gender as the mental and cognitive aspect of sex?

GENDER

Psychologists still aren’t sure about how gender comes to be. Some of it is clearly biologically influenced. As a psychology teacher said, if you inject just about anything with testosterone, it becomes more aggressive. (Aggression is a traditionally male trait, which makes life difficult for girls who want to play football and boys who don’t.) There are two primary theories about how individuals are gender-typed (how they acquire masculine or feminine roles).

• Social Learning Theory states that children learn behavior by first observing, then imitating, and then responding to either reward or punishment as a result of their imitation. (Timmy picks up a Barbie doll, but his mother slaps his hand, tells him that dolls aren’t for boys, and hands him a truck. Thus, Timmy learns that he is a boy and cannot play with dolls.)
• Gender Schema Theory states that children learn from their societies what “male” and female” mean and then adjust their behavior to fit those definitions. (A schema is just a framework for how we perceive the world; it’s the lens we develop.) In this model, Susie sees her mother wearing dresses and jewelry and then realizes that since she is female, she should wear a dress and a necklace, not shorts and a baseball cap.

Either way, many of us learn how to fit into traditional gender roles. Many others of us learn that we don’t fit quite right. This isn’t just true of transgender individuals. For example, today many girls and women want careers and independence while some boys and men want to stay at home and raise the kids. Gender roles are determined mostly by cultures and societies. Within that society, how “manly” or “womanly” someone is depends on how well he/she conforms to those standards.

• Back to Feature
• Gender(queer) Politics
• Resources