NAME- Harshita Singh

DEPT- Sociology

ROLL NO- 22/0448

Que-Sex and Gender are two different concepts. Do you agree? Discuss the Conceptual difference
between the two keeping in view the feminist discourse?

Answer-For too long, the belief in fundamental differences between men

and women, like thedifferences in their roles, their aptitudes, their very natures, has been an
article of faith in both law and culture. It is time we disestablish gender from one’s sex. Nivedita Menon
talks about how sex initially was just referred to the biological differences between men and women
while gender implied to a vast range of cultural meanings attached to that basic difference. Although
most ordinary language users appear to treat the two interchangeably,
manyfeminists have historically understood ‘woman’ not as a sex term, but as a gender term that
depends on social and cultural factors. In doing so, they distinguished sex, i.e., being femaleor male,
from gender i.e., being a woman or a man. In feminist philosophy, this distinction has generated a lively
debate. This distinction has to be made because the subordination of women has been fundamentally
justified on the grounds of the biological differences that lay between men and women. Over the
centuries, biological determinism has been one of the most important legitimizing mechanism
of women’s oppression, the challenge to this is therefore crucial for feminism.The
term gender has been explored by Ann Oakley in her book, ‘Sex, Gender and Society’.Oakley says that in
the Western culture women play the roles of the ‘housewife’ and ‘mother’because of their biological
capacities. She points out how in the Western societies today, sexis an organising principle of social
structure, and despite popular belief to the contrary, itplays a great part in determining social roles.
Gayle Rubin uses the phrase ‘sex/gender system’ in order to describe a set of arrangements bywhich the
biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention.
Rubin’s thought was that although biological differences are fixed, gender
differences are the oppressive results of social interventions that dictate how women and men should
behave. Women are oppressed as women and “by having to be women”. However,since gender is
social, it is thought to be mutable and alterable by political and social reform that would ultimately bring
an end to women’s subordination. The concept of gender, particularly as a demographic
construct, actually embodies threeseparate but overlapping, correlated, and distinct components. In
other words, when political scientists refer to "gender" in a survey, they are
referring to and conflating several overlapping and meaningfully distinct underlying
constructs. These elements remain linked,but they differ in critical ways. The first
component encompasses biological sex, which remains constant for most
individuals throughout their life span. While there are some individuals who
undergo sex changes and a not-trivial number who are born intersex, most people possess biological
organs of reproduction that distinguish them as male or female.The second aspect of categorization
incorporates the notion of gender and relates to the traits of masculinity or femininity. The concept of
gender is assumed to correlate with various role definitions, personality traits, and components of
identity. These constructs become infused with cultural values that differ across time and place and are
historically assumed to have resulted from processes of socialization. However,
modern examinations provide much stronger support for biological foundations of gender.A
third aspect of categorization regards sexual preference, these notions are often conflated inthe public
discourse, whether intentionally or not. The notions of gender nonconformity and homosexuality are
often linked in societal assumptions and political punditry, but they are not at all the same. Maria
Mies, a feminist activist and scholar, writes in The Social Origins of
the Sexual Division of Labour, that male-ness and female-ness are not biological givens, but rather
theresult of a long historical process. In each historic epoch male-ness and female-ness have been
differently defined, the definition mostly depended on the principal mode of productionin those epochs.
The specific process of socialisation that teaches children their gender rolesare called gendering or
gender indoctrination. According to Ruth Hartley, this process of socialisation takes place through four
processes,namely, manipulation, canalisation, verbal appellation and activity exposure. It is through
constant and active reinforcement of the social norms on the sexes that the two genders are made to
behave the way they do. Kamla Bhasin cites an ill-fated example of three young women from a village in
Kerala who dared to deviate from their gender roles and decided to visit the pub like their male
counterparts. They were socially ridiculed and harassed to a point leading them to dying by
suicide.Although a great deal of work has explored the biological basis of sexuality, the distinction
between biological sex and gender in terms of existential perceptions of masculinity and
femininity has often been overlooked. However, gender identity can develop independently of sex, and it
can exert different influences on political outcomes of interest.Menon brings forth the point about how
the bipolar model of masculinity and femininity andthe active devaluation of femininity is a characteristic
of the Modern Western Civilization. Substantiating her argument, Anne Fausto-Sterling points out how
Europe in the Middle Agestried to compel hermaphrodites from choosing and
established gender role and any transgression from that would lead to a penalty of death.
India, before being colonised, had societal space of various sexual identities which has been lost in the
contemporary times. Sufism and Bhakti traditions trace to traditions that drew upon notions of
androgyny and often rejected the two-sex model. In the pre-colonised India,as pointed out by Ashis
Nandy, a great value was accorded to femininity.The understanding of sex and gender disparity is made
easy to us by Nivedita Menon who has categorically analysed the feminist discourse on sex and gender
individuals who undergo sex changes and a not-trivial number who are born intersex, most people
possess biological organs of reproduction that distinguish them as male or female.The second aspect of
categorization incorporates the notion of gender and relates to the traits of masculinity or femininity.
The concept of gender is assumed to correlate with various role definitions, personality traits, and
components of identity. These constructs become infused with cultural values that differ across time and
place and are historically assumed to have resulted from processes of socialization.
However, modern examinations provide muchstronger support for biological foundations of
gender.A third aspect of categorization regards sexual preference, these notions are often conflated
inthe public discourse, whether intentionally or not. The notions of gender nonconformity and
homosexuality are often linked in societal assumptions and political punditry, but they are notat all the
same. Maria Mies, a feminist activist and scholar, writes in The Social
Origins of the Sexual Division of Labour, that male-ness and female-ness are not biological givens,
but rather theresult of a long historical process. In each historic epoch male-ness and female-ness
havebeen differently defined, the definition mostly depended on the principal mode of production in
those epochs. The specific process of socialisation that teaches children their gender rolesare called
gendering or gender indoctrination. According to Ruth Hartley, this process of socialisation takes place
through four processes,namely, manipulation, canalisation, verbal appellation and activity exposure. It is
through constant and active reinforcement of the social norms on the sexes that the two genders are
made to behave the way they do. Kamla Bhasin cites an ill-fated example of three young women from a
village in Kerala who dared to deviate from their gender roles and decided to visit the pub like their male
counter parts. They were socially ridiculed and harassed to a point leading them to dying by
suicide.Although a great deal of work has explored the biological basis of sexuality, the distinction
between biological sex and gender in terms of existential perceptions of masculinity and
femininity has often been overlooked. However, gender identity can develop independently of sex, and it
can exert different influences on political outcomes of interest.Menon brings forth the point about how
the bipolar model of masculinity and femininity andthe active devaluation of femininity is a characteristic
of the Modern Western Civilization. Substantiating her argument, Anne Fausto-Sterling points out how
Europe in the Middle Agestried to compel hermaphrodites from choosing and
established gender role and any transgression from that would lead to a penalty of death.
India, before being colonised, had societal space of various sexual identities which has been lost in the
contemporary times. Sufism and Bhakti traditions trace to traditions that drew upon notions of
androgyny and often rejected the two-sex model. In the pre-colonised India,as pointed out by Ashis
Nandy, a great value was accorded to femininity.The understanding of sex and gender disparity is made
easy to us by Nivedita Menon who hascategorically analysed the feminist discourse on sex and gender
This discourse is led by feminist anthropologists, particularly Margaret Mead, who talks
about how the understanding of masculinity and femininity varies across cultures. On this ground the
feminists argue the biology of men and women and their qualities of masculine and feminine. It comes to
the child rearing practises that perpetuate these differences between the two sexes. Or as Simone de
Beauvior puts it, ‘One is not born, but is made a woman and that “social discrimination produces in
women moral and intellectual effects so profoundthat they appear to be caused by nature” Menon
discerns four main ways in which the sex/gender distinction can be developed infeminist theory.
The first is Alison Jaggar who argues about the inseparability of the
conceptions of sex and gender. Her understanding conveys that the physical environment andthe state
of development of technology has its effects on human body. Human intervention changes the
external environment and simultaneously, the changes in the external
environment shape and change the human body. She thus tries to interrelate the biology and culture to
the sex/gender distinction and says that the body has been formed as much by 'culture' as by
'nature'. She reasons her statement, with the example of how the
rapid improvements in women's athletic records over the past two decades is an indication that social
norms have shaped biology. Feminist anthropologists have also pointed out how some ethnic groups
have little physical differentiation between men and women. Concluding that there are two equally
powerful factors at work one, there is a range of inter related ways in which society produces
sex differences, and two, sex differences structure society in particular ways.
Sex therefore is not an unchanging base upon which society constructs gender
meanings, rather, sex itself has been affected by various factors external to it. The second line
of thinkers are the radical feminists who believe that minimizing the
biological difference between the sexes and attributing all the differences to 'culture' alone islike
accepting the devaluation of the female reproductive roles. They do not stand by theliberal feminists’
claim that in an ideal world, men and women would be more or less alike.According to them, the task of
feminists is to recover the denigrated feminine qualities.Radical feminists such as Susan
Griffin and Andrea Dworkin believe that women'sreproductive biology and
the experience of mothering, fundamentally affects their relationship to the external
world which makes them closer to nature. These attributes must be revalued by feminists. Carol Gilligan
in her book, In A Different Voice, has talked about how men and women take moral decisions. While
men take the normative notions of right and wrong women are influenced by factors
like empathy, concern and sensitivity. The Western moral Philosophy talks
about rationality and autonomy reflecting the male experience of the world,
meanwhile, the female experience tends to be invisible. The radical feminists are of the belief that to
deny difference is to agree with the patriarchal negations offemininity as worthless.The post-modernist
line of thought takes a view contradictory to the radical feminists. They believe that the sex/gender
distinction over-emphasizes the biological body. Judith Butler, a philosopher, feminist and
queer theorist, suggests a radical discontinuity between sexedbodies and
culturally constructed genders. According to her, 'gender' is not the
culturalinscription of meaning on a pre-given 'sex', rather, gender as a way of thinking and as a
concept, produces the category of biological sex. Butler talks about the heterosexual matrix produced by
institutions to fixate two sexual identities. Through such norms, a wide range of bodies are rendered
invisible and/or illegitimate, these individuals are either marginalized,criminalized or forced to fit into
the existing two-sex model. Alison Jaggar discusses a studyof children7 whose sex had been inaccurately
assigned at birth due to such ambiguity. When the 'real' sex of the child emerged
at a later stage, both the parents and the medical practitioners decided on
a surgery to confirm the sex attributed at birth. This was invariably desired over simply accepting that
the child's sex was different from that attributed at birth.The removal of the heterosexual matrix will
reveal that sexuality and human bodies are fluidand have no necessary fixed sexual identity or
orientation. Feminist scientists such as Ruth Bleier and Evelyn Fox Keller have
argued that a rigidsex/gender distinction on biological sex and cultural gender
takes for granted that while cultural notions of gender may change, the body remains as an
unchanging biological reality that needs no further explanation. These scientists argue that on the
contrary, our perceptions and interpretations of the body are mediated through
language, and biomedical sciences function as a major provider of this language. Males and
females therefore are not only culturally different, they are not even biologically stable at
times.Nelly Oudshoorn's work explores on the different understanding of sex over the centuries.The
ancient Greeks until the late 18th century complied with 'one-sex' model of humanity,with the woman as
a lesser version of the male body. Every part of the human body wassexualized, and physiological facts
were used to prove the lesser intelligence of women. The jury for the female body has been up since a
long time, the search of the female ‘essence’ was sought to be located in different parts of the body. In
the 18th century, the uterus was thoughtto be ‘the seat of femaleness’8, in the 19th century, it was the
ovaries and by the 20th century,the essence of femininity was understood to be
located in chemical substances called hormones.The hormonal conception has been
dominantly made the root of sexual differences, against which Oudshroon points out that
if bodies have both female and male hormones, then maleness and
femaleness are not restricted to one kind of body alone. The
biomedical sciences have tried to portray the female body as the only one influenced by hormones
andnot the male body.The post-modern feminist, on this ground reject the idea that scientific facts
about the body simply exist to be discovered. Rather, scientific facts in themselves are deeply
entrenched in society and culture. 'Sex' itself is fabricated by human practices.A fourth kind of rethinking
of the sex/gender distinction comes from locating gender in a gridof identities-caste, class, race, and
religion. This understanding mainly emerges from the political practices of women's movements all over
the world which revealed that 'women'have not existed as a subject in the society to be simply organized
by the women's movement.In other words, women identify themselves not only in terms of their
gender, but as black, or Muslim, or Dalit. So, in many cases, women may be easily
mobilized in terms of their religion, for example, than by the women's movement.The terms ‘sex’
and ‘gender’ mean different things to different feminist theorists and none ofit is easy or straight
forward to characterise. Gender roles, the relation of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’with the body, the
impossibility of clearly defining categories of ‘sex’ in scientific orbiological
terms, all of these lead us to think about the actual complexity of these concepts. The biological
determinist view of Patrick Geddes and John Arthur Thompson stating thatwomen conserve
energy which in turn makes them passive and unfit to make political
decisions was questioned by many feminists. They argued that this was a commonly observed
behavioural trait associated with women and men, not caused by anatomy or chromosomes rather are
culturally learned or acquired. While some attach gender to culture and biological configurations to sex,
others (radical feminists) stand by their opinions to acknowledge and empower the biological gift their
‘gender’ has. Amidst this stand the ones (post-modernists)with the notion that neither the male nor the
female bodies are biologically stable at all times and that even the scientific reasonings have deep rooted
societal fabrications. Many feminists,hence, have historically disagreed and have endorsed the
sex/gender distinction. One thing has always remained constant, through time, it was always women
whose bodies were up forjudgement, whether to decide their political indulgence or their wage
allotment. It is required of us that we question the separation between Economics and Ethics, politics
and morality,Science and religion, so that the variable of biology, existent or non-existent, never acts
likefactor in the treatment one receives in society.