Distrinction between Sex, Gender, and Society

What is the distinction between sex and gender? Is there even a distinction between the two? How are these concepts shaped? Are these two concepts constructed by the same source? The sex-gender distinction wasn’t popularized until the 1970s, when it became the foundation of Western feminist thought. A traditional feminist definition of sex and gender is included in Ann Oakley book, Sex, Gender, and Society, where sex is defined as a biological feature and gender as a “matter of culture: it refers to the social classification into masculine and feminine” (16). Using Oakley’s definition of “gender,” we begin to consider the difference between masculine and feminine attitudes and behaviors as distinct features of social order. The definition, however, is very limited in understanding the whole concept of gender. Is gender derived from sex? Does sex necessarily determine gender?

Harold Garfinkel, a sociologist, conducted a study on Agnes, who was originally born a man and went through a sex-change surgery in order to be made into a woman. In his article, “Passing and the Managed Achievements of Sex Status in an Intersexed Person,” Agnes claims that she had always felt and been like a girl (65). With this said, we cannot assume that sex (genitalia) is the only source that determine gender, because in Agnes we see a cognizance that seems to have contributed in the construction of her gender identity even before she was physically turned into a woman. This cognizance is further observed in Agnes when she mentions that prior to her surgery, she also tried to go out in society, find a job, go to clubs, and interact with others, by displaying a woman’s appearance like wearing dresses, heels, fixing her hair, and putting makeup on (61). In ...

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...tinues to do gender after leaving their primary Discourse [family life], and how they “come through as a part of socially structured communities that link individuals to social institutions and cultural ideologies” (8). The evolution of gender is an ongoing journey due to certain manifestations that evolve certain aspects of society. As we go through different stages of life, or as we move from our primary Discourse to secondary Discourses [public institutions other than family or keen group], we begin to understand “new” ways of becoming a girl or a boy. By constantly analyzing the “doing of gender” between females and males, we begin to see social reproduction, or in this case, gender norm reproduction, on not only how these gendered practices construct identity, but also how identity constructs and maintains the ideological conception of gender and gendered acts.