Sex and Gender

Question 1

what is sex?

Answer 1

a person’s biological status as either male or female

Question 2

what is sex determined by?

Answer 2

a pair of sex chromosomes

Question 3

what is the chromosomes in females?

Answer 3

XX (like a kiss)

Question 4

what is the chromosomes in males?

Answer 4

XY

Question 5

what do the chromosomes influence?

Answer 5

hormonal differences as well as differences in anatomy such as:
- reproductive organs
- body shape
- hair growth

Question 6

what is gender?

Answer 6

a person’s psychological status as either masculine or feminine
- this includes all the attitudes, roles and behaviours that we associate with ‘being a man’ or ‘being a woman’
- these are heavily influenced by social norms and cultural expectations

Question 7

how can sex and gender be applied to nature and nurture?

Answer 7

• sex is innate and is a result of nature
• gender is partly environmentally determined and due to nurture

Question 8

what is gender dysphoria?

Answer 8

their biologically prescribed sex does not reflect the way that they feel inside and the gender they identify themselves as being

Question 9

what do people who experience gender dysphoria do?

Answer 9

they will get gender reassignment surgery in order to bring their sexual identity in line with their gender identity

Question 10

what are sex role sterotypes?

Answer 10

a set of shared expectations that people within a society or culture hold about what is acceptable or usual behaviour for men or women

Question 11

how are sex-role stereotypes communicated?

Answer 11

they are communicated or transmitted throughout society and may be reinforced by parents, peers, the media or schools

Question 12

what is it called when sex-role stereotypes are transmitted?

Answer 12

by agents of socialisation

Question 13

who is the researcher involved in the research of sex-role stereotypes?

Answer 13

Ingalhalikar et al

Question 14

what did Ingalhalikar et al do?

Answer 14

• supported the stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men
• scanned the brains of 949 young men and women using high tech diffusion MRI imaging to map the connection between different parts of the brain

Question 15

what did Ingalhalikar et al find?

Answer 15

• women’s brains have much better connections between the left and right sides of the brain
• men’s brains show more intense activity within the brain’s individual parts especially the cerebellum(motor skills)

Question 16

what does Ingalhalikar et al’s findings suggest?

Answer 16

• the female brain is hard-wired to cope better with several tasks at once
• whereas the male brain prefers to focus on a single complex task
• therefore there may be a biological basis for sex role stereotypes