Sex vs Gender: a Critical Distinction in the Feminist Discourse
There are some pre-existing core beliefs and value systems that govern the dynamics of society. By analysing these, one can understand society and the need for reformation of the ideologies that have become outdated. Patriarchy is one such concept that has been dominant in society ever since its inception and needs a complete transformation. The concept sex VS gender is explored in this essay throught the lens of sociology and feminism.
The Role of Patriarchal Gender Inequality in the Feminism Movement
Patriarchy is important to understand the distribution of power, resources and opportunities between men and women. Sylvia Walby defines patriarchy as a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women. She highlights that men are not biologically superior to women. The subjugation of women was a result of the social construction which reduces the women to a mere object of possession because of the reproductive capability of women. They have been exploited for both their physical labour and sexuality. Shulamith Firestone suggests that the exploitation of women’s reproductive capability can be done away with by technical advancements and breaking the dependency of the child on the mother.
The inequalities that exist among the sexes is more pervasive in the patriarchal settings where it is not only evident in fact but also seen in daily practicalities. The meaning of sex, in the basic sense, is the biological differences between men women. It is now viewed as a complex interplay of genes, hormones, physiology, environment, and behaviour, with loop-back effects. However, the feminists have argued that the inequalities that exist aren’t a result of biology but are the product of culture and thus emerged the concept of gender. Gender is social status, a personal identity, and a set of relationships between women and men, and among women and men. This concept aids the study of differential behaviour of men and women and its reason- biological or social constructions. Sexuality is a social construction based on physiology and expressed emotionally.
Robert Stoller highlighted the differences between the two. He used the word 'sex' to categories population into male and female according to their physical characteristics such as external genitalia, internal genitalia i.e. the organ that produce the sex cells, hormonal states and secondary sexual characteristics. On the contrary, the word 'gender' is used to explain socio-psychological and cultural differences between men and women and hence decides what would be considered as masculine and what as feminine. Bella Abzug has argued that this sex-gender distinction manifests in the evolving reality which highlights that roles and status of both men and women are socially constructed and subject to change over time. To counter these problematic conceptions, a movement known as feminism was initiated.
Feminism is a movement that is aimed to realise the belief of social, economic and political equality of the sexes. It originated in the West but has now taken a global form. Many feminist theories developed as a source of gender inequality. Different viewpoints emerged in the form of feminist approaches to understand feminist discourse, each providing valuable contribution to the upliftment of women. Thus began the gender politics aimed at remedying gender inequality by developing more complex views of sex, gender and sexuality. The main point raised by feminists is that gender is not an individual matter but is deeply ingrained in the different structures of society. It is revealed through the organization of marriage and families, work and the economy, politics, religions, the arts and other cultural productions, and the very language we speak. Their initial step was to establish the meaning that gender had a vast range of cultural meanings attached to the basic biological differences in the sexes which are natural and therefore unchangeable. This distinction is important for feminists to make since women have been subjugated on these grounds of biological determinism.
Sociological View on the Concept of Gender Differences
Margaret Mead brought to notice how different societies have identified a set of characters as masculine and others as feminine and assigned diverse gender roles which have no biological basis. Some feminists have also argued that gender roles are socially embedded in our minds ever since we were children. We are subtly reared and sometimes even punished to conform to the gender stereotypes even in terms of clothing, play, behaviours and so on. The attribution of traits to specific sexes is largely a result of societal institutions and beliefs just like Simon de Beauvoir says “One is not born, but is made a woman.” She elaborates that due to the bread-winning role of men, they have a superior position of power both in family and in society. Judith Butler, another feminist has argued that though sex is the primary and the natural construct, is overpowered by the secondary construct of gender, thereby becoming a social category itself. It is not only an analytical category but also a normative category since it stipulates what men and women are, what they should be like and the rules that govern their behaviour.
Some theorists suggest that men are physically and mentally superior to women because of their biological differences, while others feel that this difference is overly exaggerated and the differences are a social construction brought about by the patriarchal understanding that men are superior to women and hence they should be subordinated. Ann Oakley has argued that even in the western cultures, women are assigned the roles of a ‘housewife’ or a ‘mother’ and any changes in the roles would damage the social fabric of the society. Recent literature on sex-gender suggests that feminists have relied immensely on the polarization of sex and gender distinctions which signify that the meanings interpreted from these differences are socially constructed and dynamic. However, in reality, it depends upon our understanding and interpretations of these biological “facts” within our cultural-historical context.
Judith Butler’s views on gender also introduced the notion of performativity, i.e., gender is performed involuntarily within the dominant discourses. She further states that “sex/gender distinction suggests a radical discontinuity between sexed bodies and culturally constructed gender”, thus questioning the premise of making gender identities. This shows that there can not be a clear, rigid distinction between sex-gender as wholly biological or cultural. There is a constant shift in these conceptualizations due to the changes in the roles with the evolution of society.
The Sexual Division of Labour
There exists a dual explanation for the division of labour based on one’s sex. According to the biological perspective, the physical differences between men and women pertaining to their brain structures and its chemistry, their reproductive anatomies and hormones and their musculature is the primary reason for the differential division of labour. George Murdock states that since men have more muscular strength and potential, they’ll be better at performing strenuous tasks while women can perform lighter tasks near the realm of their household. Similarly, Talcott Person has said that women are better suited for socializing the young since they bear and nurse the children while men perform the task of earning money, thus ensuring the family functions smoothly. This view that due to the inherent bodily limitations of the two sexes, roles are assigned to each, where men do work away from home and women are burdened with household responsibilities, highlights the process that undergoes the formulation of ‘gender roles’ in the social structure which creates sex-differentiated behaviour.
On the other hand, the cultural perspective states that culture overrides biology hence gender roles are culturally produced. Nivedita Menon in her book states that apart from the process of pregnancy, all other household work of cleaning, washing, nursing and so on can be done by men as well. Women’s labour is undervalued and poorly paid, hence making them economically disadvantageous. The men, on the contrary, are expected to go for more science-oriented career pathways and hold authoritarian positions. The understanding that household work is a ‘women’s work’ and professions like nursing, teaching, gardening, receptionist and others in the public sphere is better suited for women is troubled and does not originate from biological factors but rather is culturally determined. Menon highlights that all the mechanised and technical work that can be easily performed now by the men was traditionally full of manual labour which was carried out by the women. This transformation from handmade to machine-made goods devalued women’s handwork and hence led to their subordination. Every society assigns roles and responsibilities based on gender and there is no such society where women are superior to men.
The degree of gender differentiation depends on the level of patriarchy and sexism that exist in society. Socialization and biases in assigning gender roles lead women to acquire traits like submissiveness, weakness and self-sacrifice which are constantly reinforced so much so that they are unable to retaliate against the system or the injustice. Thus, the culture, society and traditions limit the potential of a woman to the role of caring, nursing and household duties. According to scholars like Oakley and Bakams, the mother roles are also culturally sanctioned since studies show that there is no detrimental impact of a woman’s profession on her child. They have also stated that since women generally behave affectionately and communally, i.e, friendly and empathetic and men behave in an agnatic way, i.e., independent, assertive and competent, they are assigned roles culturally associated with familial and household responsibilities in case of women and positions of power and prestige in case of men.
Gender Socialisation and Identity
Gender is learned and re-learned by the medium of socialization. Socialization is the process by which one learns to understand self and others in the purview of norms that govern the social group which are to be conformed to at all times. These are an efficient way to impose the gendered identity and stereotypes on the individuals. West and Zimmerman say that one learns the gender-specific roles while one is doing ‘gender’ like in the case of a child concludes the norms and rules based on the way the adults near him conduct themselves. These gender stereotypes manifest themselves in the simple behaviours of giving a doll to a girl and a racing car to a boy for play. The males are encouraged to be more strong, adventurous and independent whereas females are restricted to indoor activities.
Gender Identity refers to those aspects of an individual’s personalities which are about his/her group membership ascribed to one at birth. It is a label and a means of grouping individuals together based on certain shared characteristics which differ as per ethnicity, religion, gender, etc. There are many implications associated with these identities which are manifested in terms of personality traits like being competitive or being sacrificing, role behaviour like leadership roles or even physical characteristics like having broad shoulders or soft voice. Thus it can be seen that its culture that assigns, teaches and fosters gender roles through institutional structures and practices. Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalyst, proposed that infants learn about gender differences in terms of presence or absence of the male genitalia. This distinction isn’t anatomical but a symbolic one since sexual organs are seen as the major basis of gender identity. On the other hand, Nancy Chodorow, a sociologist, argued that it's how the attachment between the mother and the child is broken that leads to the formation of gender identity. While the girls remain close to the mother and can express their affections, boys have to maintain distance from their mothers, have a sense of self and get a radical understanding of what is masculine, thus developing analytical and achievement-oriented skills.
The sex-gender distinction is getting all the more complex in the feminist viewpoint and the entire premise of sex relating to nature and gender being related to culture has been entirely reworked. Broadly, there are four major vantage points of the feminist critique. The first being Nature-Culture understanding. Scholars like Alison Jaggar argue that both ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are dialectically related and inseparable, hence their distinction isn’t sustainable. This liberal understanding highlights that biology is linked with the human environment and technological advancements in society. As Jaggar puts it, ‘the hand is as much the product of labour as the tool of labour’ which implies that biology and culture are interlinked, i.e., human actions influence the natural environment which in turn causes changes in the human body. This can be interpreted in terms of women’s biology being shaped by social norms, restrictions and standards of beauty. An example of this can be seen in the improvements of women’s athletic records over years. This shows that it was due to social and cultural restrictions enforced upon women that prevented them from participating in athletics which led them to be biologically weaker in performance. Hence, in this liberal view, it might be said that sex isn’t the static basis on which gender is construed but rather both are interrelated.
Another view that exists is Radical Feminism which argues that there does exist some credibility to the fact that biological differences between the sexes are important to understand the sex-gender distinction and culture alone isn’t enough. They are critical of the idea that in a utopian world, men and women would be similar. The proponents of this view state that feminism should aim to restore the denigrated 'feminine' qualities. Women are considered to be more sensitive, instinctive and closer to nature’s fecundity and nurturing because of their reproductive ability to bear children. Carol Gilligan is a major supporter of this perspective. She focused on how the fact that a child is reared invariably by the mother, affects their gender roles where men become more objective and rational, guided by morality and women became more subjective and relational guided by empathy and concern. She concludes that if we deny the existence of the biological difference, we would be accepting the patriarchal notion of femininity being worthless.
The third recent view of postmodern feminism takes the opposite stance to that of radical feminism. This school of thought holds that the biological basis of sex-gender distinction is overemphasized. Judith Butler states that ‘gender’ as a concept gives birth to the idea of sex and not vice-versa. She thus suggests a ‘radical discontinuity’ between biological sexes and cultural genders. She goes on to propose the ‘heterosexual matrix’ that states that all humans possess either of the two sexual identities and are only sexually attracted to the ‘opposite sex’. The removal of this idea is essential to establish that sexual identity and orientation are fluid and that gender is a product of relations of power and series of norms and constraints as to what is masculine and what is feminine. This is very problematic since people born with no clear gender or those who choose not to follow these conventional roles or eunuchs are made an invisible and an illegitimate part of society. They are marginalized, criminalized and forced to fit into the binary sexes. However, recent studies have now focussed upon hormonal contraception as a basis of sex differences and as Oudshoorn mentions, this can be used to break the traditional binary system. Therefore, the post-modern feminists deny the need for exploration of facts about the body and propose that they are present in society and culture, constructed by human practices.
The fourth and final view is that of intersectionality. This view locates gender in terms of caste, class, race and religion. This means that ‘women’ do not necessarily share the same ideas, beliefs and interests. This view originated from the understanding that women are not pre-existing subjects mobilised by feminist movements but they also identify with the different categories of race, religion, ethnicity and others.
Final Thoughts
This brings us to the main point that sex is biological and gender is culturally constructed. There exist multiple debates upon what are the masculine and feminine traits, what is nature and what is a product of nurture and what exactly is the basis of the sex-gender divide. However, what remains the same is that no society allocates a superior position to women and each society assigns roles based on gender. Socialization leads to gender identity formation which thereby causes the development of gendered stereotypes. It is thus important to deconstruct the sex-gender divide. There is a need for change in the way genders and their specific roles are assigned to an individual at the very birth. The practice of making the social components like gender identity, sexual orientation, marriage and procreation, work and familial roles and personality structure to be congruent with one’s biological sex is indeed the root cause of many problems and needs to be transformed. A critical exploration is required to overcome the shortcomings of both patriarchy and sex-gender distinction.
