Otherwise, all attempts to question the attributed sex roles will fly in the face of 'natural order'. It is therefore useful to distinguish between the concepts of sex and gender. Sex is defined as biological differences in genetic composition and reproductive anatomy and function. All mammalian species have two biological forms - female and male. Human infants are labeled as one sex or the other at birth, based on the appearance of their genitals.
Gender is what culture makes out of the 'raw material' of biological sex.
All known societies recognize biological differentiation and use it as a basis for social distinctions and the process of creating gendered human beings starts at birth. When a baby is born, the presence of a vagina or penis represents sex - but the blue or pink blanket that enfolds the baby represents gender. The blanket serves as a cue that this human is to be treated as a boy or a girl, not as a 'generic human' from the start. Because gender is based on sex, the two terms have come to be used wrongly as interchangeables. Equating them can lead to the belief that differences in the traits or behaviors of men and women are due directly to their biological differences, when the traits or behaviors may actually be shaped by culture, and 2.