page_title: Gender
section_title: Social construction of sex hypotheses
hierarchical_section_title: Gender / Gender identity and gender roles / Social construction of sex hypotheses
caption_attribution_description: English: Turret lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas, USA. Deutsch: Arbeiterin fertigt Flugzeugteile an einer Drehbank in einer Fabrik der Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, Fort Worth, USA. Español: Operaria labra piezas para aviones en un torno revólver en una fábrica de Consolidated Aircraft Corporation en Fort Worth, Texas, Estados Unidos. Français&#160;: Ouvrière-tourneuse usinant des pièces d'avion de transport dans l'usine de la compagnie Consolidated Aircraft, à Fort Worth, dans le Texas, aux USA. Norsk (bokmål)‎: Blåsnipparbeider, kvinne lager maskindeler i en flyfabrikk i Texas 1942. Română: În timpul războiului, femeile au lucrat în uzinele din toate ţările implicate în război.
context_page_description: Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and femininity. Depending on the context, these characteristics may include biological sex, sex-based social structures, or gender identity. Most cultures use a gender binary, having two genders; those who exist outside these groups fall under the umbrella term non-binary or genderqueer. Some societies have specific genders besides "man" and "woman", such as the hijras of South Asia; these are often referred to as third genders.
  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. However, Money's meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. Today, the distinction is followed in some contexts, especially the social sciences and documents written by the World Health Organization.
  In other contexts, including some areas of the social sciences, gender includes sex or replaces it.
context_section_description: Sociologists generally regard gender as a social construct, and various researchers, including many feminists, consider sex to only be a matter of biology and something that is not about social or cultural construction. For instance, sexologist John Money suggests the distinction between biological sex and gender as a role. Moreover, Ann Oakley, a professor of sociology and social policy, says "the constancy of sex must be admitted, but so also must the variability of gender." The World Health Organization states, "'[s]ex' refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women," and "'gender' refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women." Thus, sex is regarded as a category studied in biology (natural sciences), while gender is studied in humanities and social sciences. Lynda Birke, a feminist biologist, maintains "'biology' is not seen as something which might change." Therefore, it is stated that sex is something that does not change, while gender can change according to social structure.
  However, there are scholars who argue that sex is also socially constructed. For example, gender theorist Judith Butler states that "perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all."
  
  She continues:
  It would make no sense, then, to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex, if sex is itself a gender-centered category. Gender should not be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning based on a given sex (a juridical conception); gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established. [...] This production of sex as the pre-discursive should be understood as the effect of the apparatus of cultural construction designated by gender.
  Butler argues that "bodies only appear, only endure, only live within the productive constraints of certain highly gendered regulatory schemas," and sex is "no longer as a bodily given on which the construct of gender is artificially imposed, but as a cultural norm which governs the materialization of bodies."
  With regard to history, Linda Nicholson, a professor of history and women's studies, argues that the understanding of human bodies as sexually dimorphic was historically not recognised. She states that male and female genitals were considered inherently the same in Western society until the 18th century. At that time, female genitals were regarded as incomplete male genitals, and the difference between the two was conceived as a matter of degree. In other words, there was a belief in a gradation of physical forms, or a spectrum. Scholars such as Helen King, Joan Cadden, and Michael Stolberg have criticized this interpretation of history.
  
  In addition, drawing from the empirical research of intersex children, Anne Fausto-Sterling, a professor of biology and gender studies, describes how the doctors address the issues of intersexuality. She starts her argument with an example of the birth of an intersexual individual and maintains "our conceptions of the nature of gender difference shape, even as they reflect, the ways we structure our social system and polity; they also shape and reflect our understanding of our physical bodies." Then she adds how gender assumptions affects the scientific study of sex by presenting the research of intersexuals by John Money et al., and she concludes that "they never questioned the fundamental assumption that there are only two sexes, because their goal in studying intersexuals was to find out more about 'normal' development." She also mentions the language the doctors use when they talk with the parents of the intersexuals. After describing how the doctors inform parents about the intersexuality, she asserts that because the doctors believe that the intersexuals are actually male or female, they tell t
caption: "Rosie the Riveter" was an iconic symbol of the American homefront in WWII and a departure from restrictive, "feminine", gender roles due to wartime necessity.
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