Gender - Definitional.

What is the difference between a boy and a girl? 

What is the difference between a female and a male? 

What is the difference between a man and a woman? 

What is the difference between being masculine and feminine? 

What is the difference between acting manly and womanly? 

All of these questions certainly seem interconnected to the common eye, and in essence, they kind of are connected. While the first three questions relate solely to sex, the last two questions relate solely to gender. It is commonly mistaken for these two terms to be used as synonyms for one another. 

When referring to sex, we simply mean male or female, man or woman, boy or girl. According to Julia Wood, sex is the "biological quality that is determined by genetics and hormones." In essence, it is the "stuff" we are born with. We cannot change our sex unless we do so with scientific and medical procedures. Depending on the chromosomes we are given, either XX or XY, our sex varies. While sex may determine what we are biologically, it is our gender that influences the person we become. 

According to Wood, "gender is learned, and it varies in response to experiences over a lifetime." Our gender is either our masculinity or femininity created through social construction. Depending on our culture, time, space, and environment, our gender may be shaped differently than others. The meaning of gender for a person changes depending on these variables (time, space, culture, experience). 

One of the main influences of our gender is the media and our culture around us. Whatever is socially accepted at the time for a man or for a woman will most likely determine how we act. If it is socially acceptable that a woman stays home with the kids and cooks, she will most likely do that. If it is socially acceptable for a man to enlist in the army and defend his country, he will most likely do that. Once people learn to step outside the boundaries, we can create new gender stereotypes, either broadening or lessening the horizon for each gender. 

"If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out." 

- Marian Wright Edelman