"Sex" versus "Gender"

PAGE 2 OF 2

I'm hoping some of you can point me to studies which measure differences
between the sexes, and which analyze the amount of overlap (the point
being that we can just as easily argue for our similarities as for our
differences).

It doesn't really matter which of the differences are measured, but
ideally they would be physical differences. I remember seeing figures a
long time ago for what % of men are taller than ALL women, and how
much taller that is, and what % of women are shorter than ALL men and by
how much.  I have heard that IQ scores vary so widely among men that a
% of men have higher IQ's than ALL women, and some men also have
lower IQ's than ALL women! (I have not seen a study for this; it comes
from a questionable source that I need to be able to respond to.)

It would be more than I could hope for if different cultural and racial
groups were taken into account!

I need statistics and analyses of them for research on gender essentialism
so any suggestions will be vastly appreciated.
Thanks!

Vashti Braha:  braha  AT  virtu.sar.usf.edu
New College of USF (Florida)

    |"I am going into the desert where human beings are free like |
    | lions...Since the rebellion of Lilith, I am the first free  |
    | woman...Thinking of my glorious rebellion, they will say,   |
    | Vashti disdained being a queen that she might be free."     |
                "The Veil of Vashti" Renee Vivien (1904)

You might ask the students to define the latest buzzword "gender."  This
is now  used with all kinds of meanings.  For example, you use it as
synonymous with "sex," that is, the male and femmale of the species.
Actually, the dictionary meaning is that "gender is a subclass within a
grammatical class."  The feminist meaning is that gender is the social
fdormation of roles, the roles that the society imposes on male and
female.  It is being used so broadly that the meaning iw either obscured
or confused.  Ruby Rohrlich
rohrlich  AT  gwis2.circ.gwu.edu

Good point about the term "gender" (as in the difference between
the sexes rather than gender/specie categorizations) --

My recollection is that the term was substituted for "sex" because
sex also has a very different meaning -- which still gets giggles
when someone fills out a form where they ask name, age, sex?
(the obvious answer being yes or no).  "Gender" as a term doesn't
get giggles -- the original concern was that it was more "polite".

One I'm fascinated with is the propensity in the late 19th century
and early 20th for the term "race" to be applied to ANYBODY who
was "different", the "other".  My two favorite references are
Samuel Gompers, the founder/head of the AFL (American Federation of
Labor, the only American national labor organization to survive the
bloodbaths that killed the IWW, the American Railway Union,
the Socialist Workers Party, and the original steelworkers' union)
-- I don't have the precise quote with me, but it is from the 1920s,
and he was asssuring his audience that members of the AFL were
"real Americans" -- no one of a difference "race" (that is the
term he used) and he went on to list those of different "races"
that were not a part of the AFL (not quite accurately either)
-- "Negroes", foreigners, and women.

Thre is also a line in Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again"
where he imagines his love interest admiring herself in the
mirror and being caught in the act by her adult daughter, and
then, realizing she had been caught, she laughed along with her
daughter, "a laugh unknown to the race of man."

Colleagues who have studied the term tell me that its use
(and the use of the concept) peaked around World War I -- but
they were surprised to find it had been applied to women.

I wonder if anyone else has examples of the use of the term
"race" the way we use the term "the other" now -- specifically,
the use of the term to mean "women" as a different "race" from
"men".

Mary Schweitzer, Assoc. Prof., Dept. of History, Villanova University
(on medical leave since January 1995)
<schweit2  AT  ix.netcom.com>
http://www2.netcom.com/~schweit2/homt.html

At 11:27 AM -0400 7/22/97, Mary Schweitzer wrote:
>Good point about the term "gender" (as in the difference between
>the sexes rather than gender/specie categorizations) --
>
>My recollection is that the term was substituted for "sex" because
>sex also has a very different meaning -- which still gets giggles
>when someone fills out a form where they ask name, age, sex?
>(the obvious answer being yes or no).  "Gender" as a term doesn't
>get giggles -- the original concern was that it was more "polite".
>

In the  60's and 70's feminists, especially feminist academics, made this
distinction.  This discussion was a piece of our views on nature vs
nurture, similar to the views now espoused on essentialism vs.
constructivism.  It seems to me that the postmodernists have largely
ignored these contributions and indeed often claim that feminists are
essentialists.

Your info on the use of 'race' is fascinating.

Jackie

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Jacqueline Thomason                510-547-1518
jackiet  AT  sirius.com

I, too, have been annoyed, angered, frustrated, and bewildered by people
who substitute "gender" for "sex." When, for example, I'm talking or
writing about "sex discrimination," I mean disparate treatment because
someone has a vulva instead of a penis (or vice versa in some cases).
That's very different--it seems to me--from "gender discrimination" which
refers to inequality based on roles and expectations because of one's sex.
For example, I may be assigned to a university committee regardless of my
sex (i.e., neither a vulva nor a penis wants to go through the aggravation
of attending boring and meaningless meetings but we are "chosen" and
serve as directed/requested/appointed). No sex discrimination there
because (almost) everyone would like to be someplace else. Once I'm on the
committee, however, and especially if I'm the token woman, I might be
treated very differently because I have a vulva ("You're too tough"
instead of "You've done your homework" or "Are you bitching again?"
instead of "This problem has come up before").

If I had a buck for every time that a journal reviewer, journalist,
academic editor, publisher, student, and/or colleague (including some
feminists, both women and men) changed my "sex discrimination" to "gender
discrimination" in my writing during the last 2-3 years, I could upgrade
some of my software or replace my obstreperous printer.

I've sometimes wondered, btw, if the U.S. Bureau of the Census will start
using "gender" as a category when the Bureau is really collecting data on
"sex."

niki Benokraitis, Sociology, U of Baltimore
nbenokraitis  AT  ubmail.ubalt.edu

P.S. Another related issue that annoys me is why many of us use
"challenges" instead of "problems," "obstacles," or "barriers." For
example, "One of the challenges that many women face in the future is to
balance work and family responsibilities." I don't know about anyone else,
but balancing my work and my family responsibilities has ALWAYS been a
PROBLEM, not a "challenge." Whether it's "sex" vs "gender" or "challenges"
vs "problems," I, for one, don't think it'd hurt for people (feminist or
not) to choose their words more carefully and think about what they say.

A quick comment about about the use of gender as a construct. I'm of
the understanding that the shift to sudying `gender' relations is the
fact that women are discriminated against through the agency of
patriarchy, capitalist production, whatever, and that men are in
protagonists (sp?) etc of these activities. Therefore it is necessary to
understand what is happening in this relationship that is constituted
around ideas about what men and women are about and the power
relationships that exist within this relationship.

I can't remember the direct quote, but Doreen Massey says something
about the study of gendered relations and discrimination being a much
about why men are found in Research and Development as women are found
on the assembly line.

Of course this is sometimes difficulty to be this objective when one is
on the assembly line.

Janet Forbes
jforbes  AT  yorku.ca
York University
Graduate Geography

I disagree with this analysis. There are many people who have ambiguous
genitalia, whose chromosomal makeups do not match their genitals, or who are
transsexual. Those who appear female, not because the have vulvas - they
may, in fact, not have vulvas - but due to the outward trappings of female
gender, often encounter discrimination. Therefore I consider the
discrimination to be about societal gender rather than about biological sex.

Chris

*******************************************************************
*  S. Chris Saad, PhD     *  "a passion for books and a fondness  *
*                         *  for cats are very often points of    *
*  saad  AT  dolphin.upenn.edu *  intersection on the ven diagram of   *
*  saad  AT  alumni.upenn.edu  *  personality."                        *
*                         *                     -Bill Richardson  *
*******************************************************************

Niki and others,

In a recent publication by the state of Washington in conjunction
with the Dept of Health, gender is DEFINED as the difference between
the sexes. Not only does this ignore important distinctions between
gender and sexual issues, roles and assignments but it also avoids
any discussion of the cultural impact on behavior. Welfare reform
language is riddled with this confusion that I think will be
ultimately disadvantageous to women.

Stephanie
chastsg  AT  dshs.wa

Chris and Niki may be arguing about different aspects of the same phenomena.
Sex is the stimulus to which people respond (frequently by discrimination
although sex is by no means the only source of discrimination).  As Holly
Devor has noted in her ground-breaking work on gender-bending, we have little
direct information about people's anatomical or physiological sex only about
their self-presentation.  People are, therefore, as likely to infer sex from
gender as they are to infer gender from sex.  They are also more likely to
discriminate against anyone whose gendered attributes violate societal norms
for their "appropriate" or labelled sex.  Sometimes, however, women do not
have to do anything "wrong" to be discriminated against since just being in
the wrong place (a formally or informally designated all-male environment)
can provoke hostility and/or harassment.  In other words, both sex and gender
can be sources of discrimination.  And, although I and other feminists have
tried to maintain the distinction between the two terms (c.f., Unger, 1979;
Unger & Crawford, 1993), I think it is impossible to do so both because the
distinction can be subtle and because there may be socio-political forces
interested in "maintaining the confusion."
Rhoda Unger
unger  AT  binah.cc.brandeis.edu

in linguistics gender is a grammatical category term for differentiating
between animate and inanimate, fe/male mostly in nominals (nouns,
pronouns,).
perhaps replacing  "sex" with "gender" has to do with our cultural
prudery as well.
dina dahbany-miraglia

On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Mary Schweitzer wrote:

> THINKING about the implicit assumptions in the way we use language,
> and the way that power relationships are reinforced through
> language, and the way that cultural norms are also enforced
> through language, was a major part of the "women's liberation
> movement" -- but postmodernists tend to credit the male Marxist


"WHAT'S FIRST AND THIRD GOT TO DO WITH IT? WHAT'S LANGUAGE BUT
A SECOND HAND EMOTION?" (1)

        While no one would mind a course entitled: "Migration Patterns of
Third World Women," I wonder what would happen if the same course were
called: "Migration Patterns of Second Sex, Third Class, Fourth Race, Third
World beings."  Would it be considered sexist? Classist? Racist?  It is
interesting to note that current language debates focus on words that
refer to conflicts within a local or national boundary, leaving
constructions such as First, Second, Third, and Fourth World unquestioned.
That debate remains conspicuously silent.  I find it striking that such
words are continuously used not only by people who obviously embrace the
dominant ideological constructs regarding inter-relations amongst
different countries, but also by those who oppose an
unjust and imperialist world (dis)order. This article is a critique of
this use of language.

(snip)


From a paper in academese I wrote some time ago. if anyone is interested,
please email me directly.

Vera
fiatlux  AT  umich.edu

I would like to enter some information into the 'gender vs. sex' thread that
might help clear some confusions. From  my research  on  the use of sex and
gender as synonymous or not  (part of a larger  research project on
sexology as science) I  have found that some of this confusion of the terms
arises from  some confusion about the source of the concept of gender.
'Gender' was not a feminist invention.

John Money (psychologist, pediatric neuroendocrinologist)  coined the term
gender (as gender role) in the  early 1950s from his research with
hermaphrodites (intersexed) ; by early-mid 1960s he had incorporated the
notion of identity  (as gender identity)  into the concept of gender role
from research with Richard Green on transsesuals, and from his knowledge of
Hooker's work on de-pathologizing homosexuality. Money's work did not
initially separate sex (body) from gender role. That separation was
accomplished by Robert Stoller (psychoanalyst)  1964-1968 based on research
with transsexuals as people with gender identity disorders (with some
reference to Money's work with hermaphrodites). It was Stoller who said, sex
is biology, gender is social.

This idea was appropriated into feminism by Kate Millet in 1969, followed by
Germaine Greer, Michele Barret, Dorothy Dinnerstein and made most explicit
by Ann  Oakley in 1972, and Chodorow  in 1978 ... all with  specific
reference to Stoller (but seldom to Money's 1950s work which Stoller had
reinterpreted via psychoanalytic theory). As 'gender' became central to
feminist analysis, the sources were forgotten. Gender theory (identity and
role) originated within bio-medical/psychiatric sexology and then was
imported into the study of women's oppression without a clear analysis of
the assumptions that informed the invention of the concepts gender, gender
role, gender identity and core gender identity, or any follow-up on where
those assumptions  have led sexologists. (sexology  is not confined to the
study of sexuality, it is also the  'scientific' study of gender)

The separation or non separation of sex and gender needs to be traced back
as a complex effect of discourses aimed at maintaining the premises of
Darwinian theories of sex-selection and sex dimorphism  (Money's
foundational assumptions), and the maintenance of the sex dimorphism
necessary for psychoanalytic (oedipal)  theory  (Stoller's foundational
assumptions)., with some attention given to the development of eugenics and
sociobiology  The current proliferation of transgender/transsexual/intersex
discourses may be more useful than  'postmodern' or 'queer' theory  in
understanding why any theory would make sex and gender synonymous or keep
them separate, because the concept of gender originated from research on
those populations.

Hope this provides a line of thought. Sheryl
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Sheryl McInnes
    University of Alberta
    smcinnes  AT  gpu.srv.ualberta.ca

    "If every woman told the truth about her life,
    the world would split open." Muriel Rukeyser
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

People interested in the idea of gender might be interested in Sandra
Bem's work. Bem suggests that there are many, many genders, not just two.

Chris

*******************************************************************
*  S. Chris Saad, PhD     *  "a passion for books and a fondness  *
*                         *  for cats are very often points of    *
*  saad  AT  dolphin.upenn.edu *  intersection on the ven diagram of   *
*  saad  AT  alumni.upenn.edu  *  personality."                        *
*                         *                     -Bill Richardson  *
*******************************************************************

Another chestnut to throw into the "fire" here: a question: to what
extent has the division in the category of gender between sex and gender
also implied a division between gender/sex and (male)*power*?
In some ways, in some strains of thought (influenced by the "postmodern"
theories that Mary mentions probably), the category of gender has
shifted, in feminism, from  a focus on analyzing relations of power--ie.
gender as a category of *hierarchy*--to gender as (sheer) ideology, a
move which, in my opinion, deprives ideology critique of its force--as a
critique of reality (to reinforce Mary's point about how feminist
critique of gendered language originally aimed at unmasking language to
unamsk reality!), a critique of the power relations at stake in
ideology/gender/sex.
also, I see the separation between gender and sex as dulling the feminist
critique of heterosexuality as a naturalization of male power--how
sexuality is gendered and vice-versa.  I agree that there is a need for
some analytic (and empirical?) distinction between sex and gender for
reasons noted by Chris and others--to account for a complexity that has
been denied by ideological binary divisions between "man" and "woman."
however i'm wary of invoking this distinction in a way that *loses* the
relation to (hetero)sexual power and systemic patriarchy.

Kathy Miriam
kmiriam  AT  cats.ucsc.edu

Jackie Thomason made a good point here:
 
>In the  60's and 70's feminists, especially feminist academics, made
>this distinction.  This discussion was a piece of our views on nature
>vs nurture, similar to the views now espoused on essentialism vs.
>constructivism.  It seems to me that the postmodernists have largely
>ignored these contributions and indeed often claim that feminists are
>essentialists.
 
I believe that postmodernism has ignored more than that.
The whole concept of "gendered" language came from the feminist
movement of the late 1960s -- with concerns about the use of
words such as "chairman", "policeman", etc. etc., finally to the
use of the word "man" to mean, in general, "humankind".
 
THINKING about the implicit assumptions in the way we use language,
and the way that power relationships are reinforced through
language, and the way that cultural norms are also enforced
through language, was a major part of the "women's liberation
movement" -- but postmodernists tend to credit the male Marxist
gensis of these theories via Levi-Straus and Foucault -- via
MALE thinkers.
 
Although both traditions landed in the same place with regard to
the concept of gendered language, French postmodernist placed a
far greater emphasis on the ephemeral (sp?) nature of reality.
In contrast, the  ultimate purpose of feminism was to create a
NEW reality, to make REAL change in the REAL world.
 
At a time when, in the U.S. at least, women had been told for a
generation that they were "free", analyzing the language of
gender and gender in language was a way to lift the veils and
see that the power imbalances not only remained, but were firmly
embedded in every aspect of our daily lives.  It was a path
to ANALYZING REALITY.
 
Even in the example above as Jackie explained it, it's a neat
twist to transform the nature/nurture argument from one about
whether biology really is destiny, to one that insists there
is no there, there -- only perception.  OUR essentialist/
constructivism debate was about how much of our lives, as
women, was bordered by society's expectations of what a "woman"
WAS and should BE -- with discussions of women's ways of
knowing and women's ways of thinking permitting a sophisticated
understanding of how women could have inherently different
approaches, yet these be the result of generations of cultural
constraints rather than a biological imperative.  That women
could have, within our constraints and different societies,
created something positive worth saving -- and yet it not
be caused by something inherent in being handed XX at
conception instead of XY.
 
I do not think there is anything comparable in the postmodernist's
conceptualization of essentialism/constructivism.  The debate
tends to be presented as an either/or.  No concept of an
interelationship, or the role of history, or iterations, or
that both ultimately can be the same.
 
To adopt constructivism in this dichotomous model is to deny
that there is any reality at all behind the language, behind
the perception.  EVERYTHING becomes perception -- we can
change perceptions, but not reality.
 
The early discussions of gendered language would use that as
a window into the way society has structured power relationships,
with an eye to awakening us to our realities and then empowering
us to CHANGE THEM.
 
But it has devolved to the point where I find younger students
who believe that the purpose is to change the way we talk, period.
The means becomes the ends.  Speaking in gendered language is as
bad as, is the ESSENCE of, the act of battering women; it is no
different from rape.  We do not focus on the statistics of women's
lives, or the personal accounts of what gender roles and barriers
mean to an individual -- just on how we talk about it.  Whereas it
was supposed to be the other way around -- we thought about how we
talked about it so we could free ourselves to SEE what was REALLY
THERE.
 
The postmodernist take (from the French philosophical tradition)
does not see language as a window to reality, but only as what
it is, which is perceptions.  And if you change the perceptions,
then you have changed what is important.
 
So you really have two traditions here, the one leading to activism
and change, the other to passivity and the status quo.
 
Thus it makes a difference which tradition you choose in referencing
the concept of gendered language, of the significance of language
itself.
 
And the insights that feminism provided the academic world via
analysis of gendered language -- intended as a tool for women's
LIBERATION, becomes instead a tool for the trivialization of
feminist issues, a tool for the continuation of male dominance.
 
Mary Schweitzer, Assoc. Prof., Dept. of History, Villanova Univ.
(on medical leave since January 1995)
<schweit2  AT  ix.netcom.com>
http://www2.netcom.com/~schweit2/home.html

        In addition to the good books mentioned, another is  Ruth Bleier's
Science and Gender. It includes an excellent chapter on brain development
and its relevance to 'intellgence'. A few more points to keep in mind in
research and teaching.
        One is the construction of IQ tests. They start with a hypothesis
that human mental abilities are naturally distributed in a particular way: a
continuum along the bell-shaped curve. If the hypothesis were confirmed, it
would mean that only a few people are biologically endowed with possession
of a lot of something called intelligence, a few hold a very little bit, and
most people have amounts somewhere in between. This would demonstrate
justify a hierarchically ordered distribution of social status, social
goods, power, and so on. So, to confirm (or reject) the hypothesis, a test
is administered experimentally. In science, if you believe in your
hypothesis you don't give up when your first or second or third, etc
experiment fails. So you tinker with variables, in this case the test
questions - until you confirm your hypothesis, only a guess, after all. When
you do, you claim there's a 'thing' (inteliegence) people have a lot, a
little or some of! And, the biological base is ASSUMED.
        A second point to keep in mind is that score distributions can be
repaired. An example: when Louis Terman translated Binet's French IQ test
for the US market and tried it out here, he found that girls on average
scored higher than boys. Couldn't be that females are inherently smarter
than boys! So he fixed the test 'to avoid accidental test bias'
        A third point is the question: why the passion to find differences
based on sex? There is so much evidence of more differences within sex
groups than between them, why go on with these sex diff?
        Fourth point. Since people in higher classes (socioeco) and more
favored race/ethnic groups in the US usually score higher than those in
lower groups, the tests are convenient handles for perpetuating classism and
racism.
        Finally, on height. It strikes me as interesting that there's a
larger difference in height between European and North American females and
males than between Southeast Asian females and males. I wonder what that
tells us?
                beatrice        bkachuck  AT  cuny.campus.mci.net
At 02:31 PM 7/21/97 EST, you wrote:
>Two books that I always use with students to talk about gender difference and
>what statistical arguments mean are Anne Fausto-Sterling's _Myths of Gender_
>and Carol Tavris's _Mismeasure of Women_.
>
>Laurie Finke
>finkel  AT  kenyon.edu

I agree that Mary Schweitzer's analysis on "gender" was very informative
and clears up a lot of misconceptions about "essentialism". More
insightful discussions on this topic can be found in
RADICALLY SPEAKING
FEMINISM RECLAIMED
ed. Diane Bell and Renate Klein
Spinifex Press

>I agree that Mary Schweitzer's analysis on "gender" was very informative
>and clears up a lot of misconceptions about "essentialism". More
>insightful discussions on this topic can be found in
>RADICALLY SPEAKING
>FEMINISM RECLAIMED
>ed. Diane Bell and Renate Klein
>Spinifex Press
 
yes and spinifex have a homepage if you have trouble getting this book
http://www.publishaust.net.au/~spinifex
happy surfing
laurel