Sex and Gender

Question 1

Sex

Answer 1

The biological differences between males and females including chromosomes, hormones and anatomy

Question 2

Gender

Answer 2

The psychological, social and cultural differences between men and women including attitudes, behaviours and social roles

Question 3

Sex-role stereotypes

Answer 3

A set of beliefs and preconceived ideas about what is expected or appropriate for men and women in a given society or social group

Question 4

Research into sex and gender

Answer 4

• Batista family study
• 4 children born as females however as they grew older they changed into males due to the absence of a particular hormone in prenatal development (so their biological sex was male)

Question 5

Research into sex-role stereotypes

Answer 5

• Ingalhalikar
• Scanned brains of young men and women using MRIs
• The mapped different connections between different parts of the brain - discovered that females have better connections between left and right hemisphere - but men had more activity within individual parts of the brain
• Concluded that a woman’s brain is wired to cope better with several tasks at once whereas a man’s brain prefers to focus on a single task