Please explain gender/sex/biological sex differences

[delilabell]

I cannot get my head round these! I feel I can't be a strong feminist if I can't even understand this

I can help, sex is science, gender is made up bollocks.

Gender is the mechanism by which those of the female sex (women and girls) are oppressed. Gender is those repressive sex stereotypes that say women are responsible for caring, are not capable of leadership or offering serious opinion, that they should look appealing to men, that they are there to support men.

Gender is the rules of society associated with sex

Sex is the simple like for all mammals , expected biological reproduction capabilities which fundamentally are genetically encoded

So where people feel that those rules are constraining and stifling , they either try to ditch gender ( treat the problem as external ) ( feminist ) or they internalise it that there is something wrong with them ( trans identity)

sex is about what sort of body you have. Do you have the type that produces large gametes (eggs) and can gestate live young (get pregnant), or do you have the type that produces small, mobile gametes (sperm).

That makes you a man or a woman.

Radical feminists believe that the root of women's oppression is because of our bodies, because we have the type that get pregnant.

Gender is about personality and compliance with societal expectations of your sex. It's about saying 'women are like this, men are like that'. It's sexist as fuck.

There is no difference between sex and biological sex. They are one and the same. There is a different between sex and gender. Sex is WHAT you are - observable by cells, chromosomes, gametes, external indicators such as genitalia is etc. Even intersex people are either of the male or female sex - their external genitalia doesn’t affect their biological sex.

Gender however is different. It boils down to the stereotypes such as girls like pink and boys like blue etc, and the extent to which a person does or does not want to go along with that view.

You really need biological sex explaining to you?

Gender is a set of outdated, unnecessary sex role stereotypes used mostly to the detriment of females.

'Gender' has no relevance or influence on a person's sex, which cannot be changed.

Sex = fact

Gender = made up by society

You will know the obvious biological sexual differences between men and women, unless you missed out on a significant amount of school/learning or had parents that didn't talk to you about puberty and sex. Sex and biological sex are the same thing.

The problem with "gender" is that some people use it as a straight synonym for sex, so for example on a form you might see a question asking "what is your gender?" with the answers being "male/female/prefer not to say". Clearly, they are asking about someone's sex.

Other people use gender to mean either "gender identity" or sometimes "gender expression". "Gender identity" is poorly defined and usually comes down to an individuals personal and idiosyncratic belief about their own identity eg they "feel" like a woman/man/other (non-binary, or other alternative descriptions). This isn't based on any physical attributes, behaviours or way of being. Simply an internally held belief.

"Gender expression" usually means how someone presents in terms of clothes, hair, make up, behaviour, etc. It's rooted in stereotypes about how men/women typically behave in that person's culture. So some behaviours are considered feminine and others masculine,

That's my thoughts on it, others probably have a different explanation!

Either way, feminism is about liberating women and girls from patriarchal societies and from misogyny in all its forms.

Sex in mammals is pretty straightforward. Females produce large stationary gametes (the ova) and males produce small mobile gametes (sperm).

Gender stereotypes are the social expectations and rules associated with being members of either sex.

Some people believe that even if you strip away all the stereotypes, there would still be differences in abilities/outlook/personality that are based on sex, this could also be called gender.

Gender identity is what gender you feel you are (you will have to ask someone who has one to explain this better.)

Sex is biological
Gender is social

Top’s first comment is revelatory:

From Oxford Dictionary:
bollocks
/ˈbɒləks/

nounVULGAR SLANG•BRITISH

1. the testicles.
2. nonsense; rubbish (used to express contempt or disagreement, or as an exclamation of annoyance).

Sex is how your body is constructed and functions as a result of the chromosomes in your parents' sperms and egg, the hormones secreted by your mother in the womb and then by yourself. So it's completely unbiased, it's nature, which has no opinions. Sometimes it functions normally (or in accordance with the vast majority of the billions of other people in the world), sometimes it doesn't quite work, but fundamentally, it's what your body IS. There is no right or wrong, it just is.

Gender is how you are expected to behave on the basis of your sex. It's a combination of expectations based upon biology of both male and female, behaviours that are reasonable in the light of being historically just a slightly smarter and less hairy ape with a particular ability for communication and those that are unreasonable in terms of us not still scuttling around the grasslands in fear of a sabretooth eating us. It's fundamentally, what other people think you should BE. So it may be wrong, because it's an opinion.

Gender identity is how you feel about yourself in terms of what is expected of you on the basis of Gender roles. It's fundamentally, what You think you ARE. So it's an opinion, which may be wrong in terms of biological fact, or right in terms of knowing you do not conform to those narrow roles other people have set for you.

Gender expectations can change because it's an opinion.
Gender identity can change because its an opinion.
Behaviour can change.
Appearance can change.
Sex cannot change because it's a biological fact.

Apart from the first comment, gender has been the polite way to say sex, particularly on forms. This used to be ok when gender/sex were taken to be the same thing. But it is increasingly not. Because the language is changing rapidly, older/less exposed people are speaking a different version than younger people. And leads to confusion but can also be exploited.

Sex in mammals is pretty straightforward. Females produce large stationary gametes (the ova) and males produce small mobile gametes (sperm).

Females producing large gametes and males producing small mobile gametes is used define sex in all organisms, not just mammels. A male courgette plant produces small mobile gametes (pollen) whereas a female courgette plant has large immobile gametes (ovules). The only difference is many plants and some animals are haemaphrodites - they produce both gametes. This is not the case with mammels and no human has ever (or could ever) produce fertile male and female gametes.

@Zandathepanda

Apart from the first comment, gender has been the polite way to say sex, particularly on forms. This used to be ok when gender/sex were taken to be the same thing. But it is increasingly not. Because the language is changing rapidly, older/less exposed people are speaking a different version than younger people. And leads to confusion but can also be exploited.

Nope, biological sex has always meant biological sex. No issue there.

I did not know that. Plant biology was never my thing. I was thinking more of insects where things can get a bit complicated!

Sex and gender were clearly differentiated concepts - they have become more blurred recently- I can’t imagine how that has happened!

Thank you all so much!!
Obvs I was at school tobkearn about sex. It was the use of the term biological sex thar confused me.
So sex is how you're born, gender is stereotypes , gender identity is heterosexual, honosexual, non binary etc?
So I would say my sex was female brand my gender identity was heterosexual?

Do you know what a cat is? Do you know what a dog is? That's biology. That's sex. It can be observed and scientifically proven.

All cats are selfish and would eat your face off if you died. All dogs are friendly and would die for you. That's stereotyping. That's gender. A bunch of often harmful, sometimes ridiculous assumptions,stereotypes and prejudices. "Oh my cat follows me everywhere, she thinks it's a dog!". Regardless of behaviours, nothing can make a cat into a dog. Just like regardless of presentation and behaviours, someone can't change their sex.

Sex is biological male or female.

Gender is social the idea that men and women must perform to certain stereotypes of masculine or feminine. (Men can't cry women have long hair etc)These vary from culture to culture and around the world.

Gender identity is psychology or personality. The belief held by some people that they have an innate sense of gender (sexist social stereotypes).

The problem is you can't have a gender identity without believing in sexist stereotypes.

Nope, biological sex has always meant biological sex. No issue there.

True, and ‘sex’ by itself means biological sex. But this doesn’t contradict what Zanda said.

For a few decades, people sometimes said ‘gender’ instead of ‘sex’ because I suppose they thought ‘sex’ sounded too sexy. Or to make it clear they were talking about physiology, not copulation. Previously ‘gender’ only referred to things such as nouns in foreign languages, eg in French a table has feminine gender but a book has masculine gender.

But in the past decade or two, the gender-identity movement has taken over the word ‘gender’ to mean sex stereotypes.

Top that autocorrected ‘away’ to apart. I love the fact your ‘bollocks’ comment could be taken literally as well with both meanings. It made me . I am a science teacher by profession and have taught hundreds of children about biological sex. But I was talking about the language. Gender is something many older people would write if they were devising a form for people. They wouldn’t write ‘sex’ because of its connotations with ‘intercourse’. I designed a form putting Sex:
for a course once. I got a few ‘no thanks’ ‘yes please’ ‘twice a week’ type responses and this wasn’t even at a school. It shows how language can be a problem.

Do you know what a cat is? Do you know what a dog is? That's biology. That's sex. It can be observed and scientifically proven. All cats are selfish and would eat your face off if you died. All dogs are friendly and would die for you. That's stereotyping. That's gender. ... Regardless of behaviours, nothing can make a cat into a dog. Just like regardless of presentation and behaviours, someone can't change their sex.

Best analogy I’ve heard, Accidentally.

@TopBitchoftheWitches

I can help, sex is science, gender is made up bollocks.

Science is messy and complicated, so it’s best to steer clear of it and stick to a few slogans, such as “Sex is real.” (This one has the advantage of implying that trans people deny that sex is real, which makes them seem unreasonable.)

Don’t, whatever you do, talk to actual biologists or psychologists currently working on the subjects of sex or gender. They are obviously interested in maintaining the trans-friendly status quo, and their testimony can be ignored.

(Side note: you may have wondered whether people with intersex conditions complicate the issue. My advice? Acknowledge they exist, but in the next breath make sure to dismiss them as a negligible minority.)

Gender theory.

Just as philosophy was once said to be footnotes to Plato, so for you, all real gender theory is footnotes to Janice Raymond. You can safely dismiss developments such as intersectionality (suggested phrase: “a distraction from the real issues”), and thinkers such as Judith Butler (“bloviated postmodern nonsense”).

Mostly, of course, you can and should absolutely ignore what actual trans people have to say about their own experience. “Nothing about us without us” doesn’t apply here! You definitely shouldn’t read Julia Serano or Susan Stryker, any more than you’d listen to gay people on sexuality or Black people on racism.

Some people believe that even if you strip away all the stereotypes, there would still be differences in abilities/outlook/personality that are based on sex, this could also be called gender.

I think that is biology not gender.