Sex & Gender Flashcards
What is the definition of sex?
The biological differences between males and females including chromosomes, hormones and anatomy
What is the definition of gender?
The psychological and cultural differences between males and females including attitudes, behaviours and social roles
What is a sex role stereotype?
A set of beliefs and preconceived ideas about what is expected or appropriate for males and females in a given society
What different features can we expect to find in people of different sexes?
They will have different chromosomes, different hormonal influences and differences in anatomy such as reproductive organs
What influences the concept of gender?
Certain roles and behaviours are associated with being male or being female, these are heavily influenced by social norms and cultural expectations
What are two key ways of distinguishing sex and gender?
Sex is innate and the result of nature where as gender is partly environmentally determined so due to nurture.
An individual sex is a biological fact and cannot be changed (even through gender realignment surgery) gender is a more fluid concept more susceptible to change
What is gender identity disorder?
This is when someones biologically prescribed sex does not reflect the way they feel inside and the gender they identify themselves as being.
There sex and gender don’t align or correspond
What made people suffering from gender identity disorder do?
They may have gender reassignment surgery or become transgender – bring the sexual identity in line with the gender identity
What is the case study of the Batista boys?
Family in Dominican Republic
4 kids - identified as girls & raised as girls
In puberty ‘changed’ - there genitalia had been concealed bc of a missed genetic step
Externalised at puberty
All the boys quickly abandoned there female gender identity & adapted quickly
Suggests gender identity is flexible
What is an evaluation point for sex-role stereotypes?
While some stereotypes may have a grain of biological truth behind them, the vast majority of them are based entirely on social values they may lead to sexist assumptions being formed about one sexes inability to do certain activities.
What was Ingalhalikar et al. ‘s study into sex-role stereotypes?
She scanned the brains of 949 young men and women using high-tech diffusion MRI imaging and then map to the connections between different parts of the brain – the images showed female brains have more connections between the two different side while male brain had more connections with each side. This suggested woman from biological better built for multitasking while men concentrated better on one task
