To wish people wouldn’t say gender when they mean sex?

[AngeloMysterioso]

I am utterly convinced that half the reason this whole gender thing grew roots in the first place was because people who were too squeamish to utter the word sex just used gender instead. Now we have a situation where the two words have very different and distinct meanings which are having a great impact on women’s social and political position and people still continue to conflate the two. On the first page of the pregnancy board alone there are three threads discussing baby’s gender. I don’t want to be that killjoy who goes round correcting people but it’s really starting to grate!

Anyone else?

in other languages, gender and sex is the same word. No confusion. You cannot be a male "woman"

To most people gender means sex

And therein lies the problem. Gender does not mean sex.

"Doesn't help that the word sex has two meanings, too.

1. What your chromosomes are.
2. The act of shagging."

Sorry if already mentioned, but I think in America 'his sex' and 'her sex' can also mean the genitals.

Anyway yes I agree that the distinction is useful and people should probably use the one they mean. Most people pay little attention because 99% of the time it doesn't matter.

Gender stereotypes- sex stereotypes

See, that's not straightforward either, because surely gender is a sex stereotype?

This is something I've turned over in my mind for many years, not just since transactivism became a thing.

When an unknown man walked into the office and spoke patronisingly to me and my female colleagues, then made a beeline for the only visible male colleague to have his Serious Conversation, was this because of sex or gender?

Patronising Man was not interacting with my biology. He was interacting with his idea in his head about what men and women are and do.

So he was reacting to gender. What's more my gender was a construct in his head! Didn't matter what I thought or felt or how I behaved!

However, he had attributed that gender-construct-in-his-head to me, because he had identified my biological sex as female and therefore applied his Gender = Woman label. So it was indirectly because of my sex.

I'm never sure whether to use "sex" or "gender" when talking about circumstances like this.

Also, I've had to be quite careful writing the above and phrase it as "Gender = Woman", because one can't write "woman gender" – woman not being an adjective.

I've noticed that this leads people to write "female gender", just because "female" can be a noun or an adjective, when elsewhere they're trying to strongly make the case that "female" refers to biology only.

So there are artifacts of the English language which aren't deliberate in origin but which nudge us down unwanted routes.

Those who get annoyed at questionnaires asking for gender... if they are after your gender not sex why would you cross it out and change it? Agree medical forms for sex. But shopping questionnaires- gender seems more appropriate (like e.g. they don't care if you were born a man, they want to know what you shop for now)

Female gender is wrong. Should be feminine gender. But is suspect that most people aren't aware of the difference between female and feminine (and male/masculine), just as they aren't aware of the difference between sex and gender.

Female sex, feminine gender.

YANBU. Sex is a biological fact and gender is a construct.

I've only known anyone to have an issue of gender v sex on Mumsnet.

Tell the Passport office, filled in a form last night - Gender - two choices, male or female.

And the aisle for feminine hygiene products? The ultimate manifestation of biology?

Sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult, I've just been thinking of this for a long time and realised thhere are a lot of hills to climb. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though!

I think gender instead of sex is one of those incorrect things that children are taught, like 'ize' spellings being American, and it just becomes 'fact' by default.

YANBU, by the way.

Female sex, feminine gender.

Yes, I think that's the way to go. At least on MN, so we can understand what each other is talking about.

(All words to do with man and woman are immensely freighted with additional meanings, some going back millennia, so I'm not optimistic about our precise usages being applied universally.)

Well gender and sex are the same thing imo.
That's why the scan is a gender scan.

It's not a question of opinion though. It's about terminology and definitions.

Well gender and sex are the same thing imo.

You'd be wrong then.

Here's what the ONS (of thousands of results) define "difference between gender and sex" as:

"The UK government defines sex as:
referring to the biological aspects of an individual as determined by their anatomy, which is produced by their chromosomes, hormones and their interactions
generally male or female
something that is assigned at birth"

"The UK government defines gender as:
a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity; gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match the sex they were assigned at birth
where an individual may see themselves as a man, a woman, as having no gender, or as having a non-binary gender – where people identify as somewhere on a spectrum between man and woman"

Or more succinctly:
"The World Health Organisation regional office for Europe describes sex as characteristics that are biologically defined, whereas gender is based on socially constructed features."

www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/whatisthedifferencebetweensexandgender/2019-02-21

Here is an example, of how problematic it is, both with the issue itself and the use of language in newspapers.

This is an article in the Guardian. Of course it’s the Guardian, because if the words are going to be conflated it will be there . It’s not high brow, but it’s a review of John Oliver’s show, which talks about the very serious issue of sex bias in medicine. But throughout this article sex and gender are used interchangeably. Women are not discriminated against because of how they identify. Oliver says in the actual show “sex and gender bias”, using both! And then to top it all off, Oliver himself felt the need to add that when talking about male bodies he means “assigned males at birth”.

www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/aug/19/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-recap-medical-care-bias

I have to say it really doesn't bother me. People use a variety of words to explain the same thing, should I demand one word is correct and the rest shouldn't be used?
You know exactly what they mean so the word ( whatever it is) has worked.

HELL YES!

Mm. I'm not sure whether that article about John Oliver is about sex rather than gender.

Just like my Patronising Man, whose behaviour to me was influenced by the gender construct in his head, isn't it the case that doctors' attitudes to women's pain and other self-reported symptoms are about the gender constructs in the doctors' heads?

So the doctor mentally assigns a gender from observing the patient's sex, and then responds to their own internal gender model?

This is quite different from, say, only testing car crash dummies of male subjects. There is no gender construct there. They just don't give a shit about biological females.

I'm part of the 99% of people who couldn't give a toss
You're assuming 99% of people don't care. You don't know that though.

I've only known anyone to have an issue of gender v sex on Mumsnet this

I don't care. When its written on a form or asked in a question, whether they say sex or gender, I know what they are asking.

Yawn. This thread has been done so many times. Everyone knows what everyone means and it’s only the pedants on MN who give a shit.

PerkingFaintly

isn't it the case that doctors' attitudes to women's pain and other self-reported symptoms are about the gender constructs in the doctors' heads?

I would disagree. It’s sexist constructs in doctors’ head I would say. Plus it’s biology that means women present with symptoms differently, like heart attacks for instance, that leads to bias.

Biological sex differences + sexist constructs (“silly women”) = sex bias in medicine.

A woman couldn’t identify out of that.

Everyone knows what everyone means and it’s only the pedants on MN who give a shit

Should sports be segregated by sex or gender?
Should toilets be segregated by sex or gender?
Should prisons be segregated by sex or gender?

These are not the same questions as:
Should sports be segregated by sex/gender?
Should toilets be segregated by sex/gender?
Should prisons be segregated by sex/gender?

So yes it matters more than just to “pedants on MN”.

YANBU at all.

It matters.