Describing Gender and Sex Essay

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Sex and Gender

There are a variety of different perspectives on sex and gender. The four main theoretical perspectives are biological, evolutionary, social constructionist, and psychodynamic perspectives. None of these theoretical perspectives completely explains sex or gender, nor do they claim that they do. Instead, the perspectives inform the idea of the social construct of gender as it relates to the biological sex of a person. Each perspective looks at how biological, social, and cultural factors impact how a person views both sex and gender, and they focus on this from different levels of analysis. It is important to keep in mind that, while there may be some conflicts between the theories, they may be better understood when viewed together. Furthermore, most analysis of sex and gender takes a two-gender (masculine and feminine) and two-sex (male and female) approach to the gender question, even when acknowledging that there is; at the least, a third sex possibility, being intersex, and probably many more possibilities when one looks at sex on a chromosomal level. The issue of gender becomes even more complicated, with gender being far more like a bell-curve than a polar distribution of masculine and feminine traits. This paper will focus on a biological perspective of gender and a social constructionist perspective of gender, because those might be the two perspectives that have the most conflict in their approach to the relationship between gender and sex.

The biological perspective begins with the anatomical differences between males and females and suggests that there are anatomical differences in brain structure due to sex. It also discusses the fact that different means can be used to determine sex. The most basic means of determining sex is by looking at a person's physical characteristics, most notably their genitalia. This is an imperfect means because newborns genitalia may look misleading due to maternal hormones and the stressors of childbirth.

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Furthermore, about 1 in 500 children are born with external genitalia that do not match their chromosomal gender. Sex hormones can also be used to determine sex, however this type of determination is iffy because of the presence of both male and female sex hormones in individuals of both sex at different times during the lifespan. Genetic screening is also an imperfect means of determining biological sex. For example, the typical male has XY chromosomes and the typical female has XX chromosomes. However, it is also possible to have XXY or XY genotypes and still present as female and actually be unaware of any chromosomal abnormalities. Despite these variations, the average male has an XY chromosome, a normal amount of male hormones, and visible male external genitalia, while the average female has XX chromosomes, the normal amount of female hormones, and visible female external genitalia.

The biological approach to gender suggests that there is an anatomical difference to gender-based behavioral differences because of gender-based differences in brain anatomy. These differences, at least in rat studies, appear to be linked to hormone levels. Furthermore, when girls are exposed to testosterone in utero, they exhibit more stereotypically masculine behaviors than girls who did not receive such exposure. There also appear to be gender-based differences in cognitive abilities, which may be attributable to brain lateralization. These differences are based upon looking at boys and girls as groups. It does not mean that each individual girl or boy will fall within the norms for cognitive ability for their gender, but, instead, that when viewed as a group there are sex-based differences in cognitive ability. However, it is difficult to determine whether these anatomical differences in the brain are the result of innate differences or whether they are caused by gendered behavior throughout a lifetime.

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