Editing Gender (section)

== Etymology and usage ==

=== Derivation ===

The modern English word ''gender'' comes from the [[Middle English]] ''gender'', ''gendre'', a [[loanword]] from [[Anglo-Norman language|Anglo-Norman]] and [[Middle French]] ''gendre''. This, in turn, came from [[Latin]] ''[[wikt:genus#Latin|genus]]''. Both words mean "kind", "type", or "sort". They derive ultimately from a [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] (PIE) [[Root (linguistics)|root]] *''ǵénh₁-'' 'to beget',<ref>{{cite Q |Q131605459 |first=Don |last=Ringe |author-link=Donald Ringe |page=61 |access-date=16 October 2021 |mode=cs1 }}</ref> which is also the source of ''kin'', ''kind'', ''king'', and many other English words, with [[cognate]]s widely attested in many [[Indo-European languages]].<ref>[https://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzg00600.html 'Gen'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091019143951/https://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzg00600.html |date=19 October 2009 }}. Your Dictionary.com</ref> It appears in Modern [[French language|French]] in the word ''[[genre]]'' (type, kind, also ''[[:fr:genre sexuel|genre sexuel]]'') and is related to the [[Greek language|Greek]] root ''gen-'' (to produce), appearing in ''[[gene]]'', ''[[wikt:genesis|genesis]]'', and ''[[oxygen]]''. The ''Oxford Etymological Dictionary of the English Language'' of 1882 defined ''gender'' as ''kind, breed, sex'', derived from the Latin ablative case of ''genus'', like ''genere natus'', which refers to birth.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/etymologicaldict00skeauoft/page/n5|title=An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language|last=Skeat|first=Walter William|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=1882|location=Oxford|pages=230}}</ref> The first edition of the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' (OED1, Volume 4, 1900) notes the original meaning of ''gender'' as "kind" had already become obsolete.

=== History of the concept ===
The concept of gender, in the modern social science sense, is a recent invention in human history.<ref name="holmes antiquity" /> The ancient world had no basis of understanding gender as it has been understood in the humanities and social sciences for the past few decades.<ref name="holmes antiquity">{{cite book |last1=Holmes |first1=Brooke |title=Gender: Antiquity and its Legacy |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195380828 |pages=1–2 |chapter=Introduction |quote=For as it turns out, what we call gender is a fairly recent concept. It's not that people in Ancient Greece and Rome didn't talk and think and argue about the categories of male and female, masculine and feminine and the nature and extent of sexual difference. They did in [ways] both similar to and very different from our own. The problem is that they didn't have the concept of gender that has grown so influential in the humanities and the social sciences over the past four decades.}}</ref> The term ''gender'' had been associated with grammar for most of history and only started to move towards it being a malleable cultural construct in the 1950s and 1960s.<ref name="holmes antiquity2">{{cite book |last1=Holmes |first1=Brooke |title=Gender: Antiquity and its Legacy |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195380828 |pages=3–4 |chapter=Introduction |quote=The concept of gender, as I've just said, is recent. So what is it and where does it come from? Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote: 'one is not born, but rather becomes, woman'...But the term 'gender', which had long been associated with grammar, only started to move towards what she was describing in the later 1950s and 1960s.}}</ref>

Before the terminological distinction between [[Sex and gender distinction|biological sex and gender as a role]] developed, it was uncommon to use the word ''gender'' to refer to anything but [[grammatical gender|grammatical categories]].<ref name=udry /><ref name="haig" /> For example, in a bibliography of 12,000 references on marriage and family from 1900 to 1964, the term ''gender'' does not even emerge once.<ref name=udry /> Analysis of more than 30 million academic article titles from 1945 to 2001 showed that the uses of the term ''"gender"'', were much rarer than uses of ''"sex"'', was often used as a grammatical category early in this period. By the end of this period, uses of ''"gender"'' outnumbered uses of ''"sex"'' in the social sciences, arts, and humanities.<ref name="haig" /> It was in the 1970s that feminist scholars adopted the term ''gender'' as way of distinguishing "socially constructed" aspects of male–female differences (gender) from "biologically determined" aspects (sex).<ref name="haig" />

As of 2024, many dictionaries list "synonym for 'sex{{'"}} as one of ''gender''{{'}}s meanings, alongside its sociocultural meaning.<ref name=AHD>{{cite dictionary|title=gender|url=https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=gender|accessdate=August 9, 2024|dictionary=American Heritage Dictionary}}</ref><ref name=CD>{{cite dictionary|title=gender|accessdate=August 9, 2024|url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/gender|dictionary=Cambridge English Dictionary}}</ref> According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ''gender'' came into use as a synonym for ''sex'' during the twentieth century, initially as a euphemism, as ''sex'' was undergoing its own usage shift toward referring to sexual intercourse rather than male/female categories.<ref name=OED>{{cite dictionary|url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/gender_n?tab=meaning_and_use#3045140|accessdate=August 11, 2024|dictionary=Oxford English Dictionary|title=Gender}}</ref> During the last two decades of the 20th century, ''gender'' was often used as a synonym for ''sex'' in its non-copulatory senses, especially outside the social sciences. [[David Haig (biologist)|David Haig]], writing in 2003, said "the sex/gender distinction is now only fitfully observed."<ref name=haig /> Within the social sciences, however, use of ''gender'' in academia increased greatly, outnumbering uses of ''sex'' during that same period. In the natural sciences, ''gender'' was more often used as a synonym for ''sex''. This can be attributed to the influence of feminism. Haig stated, "Among the reasons that working [natural] scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use a more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation." Haig also notes that "gender" became the preferred term when discussing phenomena for which the social versus biological cause was unknown, disputed, or actually an interaction between the two.<ref name="haig" /> In 1993, the US [[Food and Drug Administration]] (FDA) started to use ''gender'' instead of ''sex'' to avoid confusion with [[sexual intercourse]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fda.gov/downloads/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/UCM126835.pdf|title=Guideline for the Study and Evaluation of Gender Differences in the Clinical Evaluation of Drugs|website=[[Food and Drug Administration]]|access-date=3 August 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150406164205/https://www.fda.gov/downloads/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/UCM126835.pdf|archive-date=6 April 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> Later, in 2011, the FDA reversed its position and began using ''sex ''as the biological classification and ''gender'' as "a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions based on the individual's gender presentation."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/deviceregulationandguidance/guidancedocuments/ucm283453.htm|title=Evaluation of Sex-Specific Data in Medical Device Clinical Studies – Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff|date=22 August 2014|website=U.S. Food and Drug Administration|access-date=26 February 2019|archive-date=9 August 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140809152800/https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/GuidanceDocuments/ucm283453.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> 

In legal cases alleging [[discrimination]], a 2006 law review article by Meredith Render notes "as notions of gender and sexuality have evolved over the last few decades, legal theories concerning what it means to discriminate "because of sex" under [[Civil Rights Act of 1964#Title VII—equal employment opportunity|Title VII]] have experienced a similar evolution".<ref name="Render 2006">{{cite journal |last1=Render |first1=Meredith |title=Misogyny, Androgyny and Sexual Harassment: Sex Discrimination in a Gender-Deconstructed World |journal=Harvard Journal of Law & Gender |date=December 2006 |volume=29 |pages=99–150 |url=https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1213&context=fac_pubs |access-date=24 December 2022}}</ref>{{rp|135}} In a 1999 law review article proposing a legal definition of ''sex'' that "emphasizes gender self-identification," Julie Greenberg writes, "Most legislation utilizes the word 'sex,' yet courts, legislators, and administrative agencies often substitute the word 'gender' for 'sex' when they interpret these statutes."<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Greenberg | first1 = Julie A | year = 1999 | title = Defining Male and Female: Intersexuality and the Collision Between Law and Biology|url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=896307 | journal = Arizona Law Review | volume = 41 | pages = 265–328 | ssrn = 896307 }}</ref>{{rp|270, 274}} In ''[[J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B.]]'', a 1994 [[United States Supreme Court]] case addressing "whether the [[Equal Protection Clause]] forbids intentional discrimination on the basis of gender", the majority opinion noted that with regard to gender, "It is necessary only to acknowledge that 'our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination,' ''id.'', at 684, 93 S.Ct., at 1769, a history which warrants the heightened scrutiny we afford all gender-based classifications today", and stated "When state actors exercise [[peremptory challenge]]s in reliance on gender stereotypes, they ratify and reinforce prejudicial views of the relative abilities of men and women."<ref name="J.E.B. 1994">{{cite web |title=J.E.B., Petitioner v. ALABAMA ex rel. T.B. |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/511/127 |website=Legal Information Institute |publisher=[[Cornell Law School]] |access-date=24 December 2022}}</ref>

==== As a grammatical category ====

The word was still widely used, however, in the specific sense of [[grammatical gender]] (the assignment of nouns to categories such as ''masculine'', ''feminine'' and ''neuter''). According to [[Aristotle]], this concept was introduced by the Greek philosopher [[Protagoras]].<ref>{{citation |title=Rhetoric |author=Aristotle |author-link=Aristotle |translator-last=Roberts |translator-first=William Rhys |url=https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.3.iii.html |date=1954 |publisher=[[Dover Publications|Dover]] |location=Mineola, NY |isbn=978-0-486-43793-4 |oclc=55616891 |quote=A fourth rule is to observe Protagoras' classification of nouns into male, female and inanimate. |page=127 }}</ref>
In 1926, [[Henry Watson Fowler]] stated that the definition of the word pertained to this grammar-related meaning: {{blockquote|"Gender...is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons...of the masculine or feminine g[ender], meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."<ref>[[Fowler's Modern English Usage]], 1926: p. 211.</ref>}}

==== As distinct from sex ====

In 1945, [[I. Madison Bentley|Madison Bentley]] defined ''gender'' as the "socialized obverse of sex".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bentley|first=Madison|date=April 1945|title=Sanity and Hazard in Childhood|url=https://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1417846|journal=The American Journal of Psychology|volume=58|issue=2|pages=212–246|doi=10.2307/1417846|jstor=1417846|issn=0002-9556|access-date=17 August 2021|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Horley|first1=James|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VyGpDAAAQBAJ|title=Experience, Meaning, and Identity in Sexuality: A Psychosocial Theory of Sexual Stability and Change|last2=Clarke|first2=Jan|year=2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-137-40096-3|pages=24|language=en|access-date=17 August 2021|archive-date=17 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210817114235/https://books.google.com/books?id=VyGpDAAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Simone de Beauvoir]]'s 1949 book ''[[The Second Sex]]'' has been interpreted as the beginning of the distinction between sex and gender in [[feminist theory]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Witt|first=Charlotte E.|url=https://worldcat.org/oclc/780208834|title=Feminist metaphysics: explorations in the ontology of sex, gender and identity|date=2011|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-90-481-3782-4|pages=48|oclc=780208834|access-date=6 September 2021|archive-date=17 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217115729/https://www.worldcat.org/title/feminist-metaphysics-explorations-in-the-ontology-of-sex-gender-and-identity/oclc/780208834|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Butler>[[Judith Butler|Butler, Judith]], "Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex" in ''Yale French Studies'', No. 72 (1986), pp. 35–49.</ref> although this interpretation is contested by many feminist theorists, including Sara Heinämaa.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Heinämaa |first1=Sara |date=1997 |title=What Is a Woman? Butler and Beauvoir on the Foundations of the Sexual Difference |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1997.tb00169.x |journal=Hypatia |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=20–39 |doi=10.1111/j.1527-2001.1997.tb00169.x |s2cid=143621442 |access-date=8 February 2023|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Viveros Vigoya |first=Mara |editor-first1=Lisa |editor-first2=Mary |editor-last1=Disch |editor-last2=Hawkesworth |editor-link2=Mary Hawkesworth |date=2016 |title=Sex/Gender |url=https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34617/chapter/294782665 |access-date=2023-12-24 |website=academic.oup.com |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328581.013.42|isbn=978-0-19-932858-1 }}</ref>

Controversial sexologist [[John Money]] coined the term ''gender role'',<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brewington |first=Kelly |date=2006 |title=Hopkins pioneer in gender identity |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/2006/07/09/hopkins-pioneer-in-gender-identity/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100413172855/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2006-07-09/news/0607090031_1_gender-johns-hopkins-john-money |archive-date=April 13, 2010 |access-date=April 7, 2023 |url-status=live |website=Baltimore Sun}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Goldie |first1=Professor Department of English Terry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kbjjAwAAQBAJ |title=The Man Who Invented Gender: Engaging the Ideas of John Money |last2=Goldie |first2=Terry |year=2014 |publisher=UBC Press |isbn=978-0-7748-2794-2 |language=en}}</ref> and was the first to use it in print in a scientific trade journal in 1955.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Money |first=J. |date=1994 |title=The concept of gender identity disorder in childhood and adolescence after 39 years |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7996589/ |journal=Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy |volume=20 |issue=3 |pages=163–177 |doi=10.1080/00926239408403428 |issn=0092-623X |pmid=7996589}}</ref><ref name="drescher">{{Cite journal |last=Drescher |first=Jack |date=2010-03-31 |title=Transsexualism, Gender Identity Disorder and the DSM |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19359701003589637 |journal=Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health |language=en |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=109–122 |doi=10.1080/19359701003589637 |issn=1935-9705|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In the seminal 1955 paper, he defined it as "all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman."<ref name="Basic-Concepts">{{cite journal |last1=Money |first1=John |author-link1=John Money |last2=Hampson |first2=Joan G |last3=Hampson |first3=John |date=October 1955 |title=An Examination of Some Basic Sexual Concepts: The Evidence of Human Hermaphroditism |journal=Bull. Johns Hopkins Hosp. |volume=97 |issue=4 |pages=301–19 |quote=By the term, gender role, we mean all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not restricted to sexuality in the sense of eroticism. Gender role is appraised in relation to the following: general mannerisms, deportment and demeanor, play preferences and recreational interests; spontaneous topics of talk in unprompted conversation and casual comment; content of dreams, daydreams, and fantasies; replies to oblique inquiries and projective tests; evidence of erotic practices and, finally, the person's own replies to direct inquiry. |pmid=13260820}}</ref>

The modern academic sense of the word, in the context of social roles of men and women, dates at least back to 1945,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/77468 |title=''gender'', n. |page=Sense 3(b) |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |publisher=Oxford English Dictionary |access-date=2017-01-05 |archive-date=21 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170721193428/https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/77468 |url-status=live }}</ref> and was popularized and developed by the feminist movement from the 1970s onwards (see [[Gender#Feminist theory|feminist theory]] and [[Gender#Gender studies|gender studies]] below), which theorizes that human nature is essentially [[Epicenity|epicene]] and social distinctions based on sex are arbitrarily constructed. In this context, matters pertaining to this theoretical process of [[Social construction of gender|social construction]] were labelled matters of ''gender''.

The popular use of ''gender'' simply as an alternative to ''sex'' (as a biological category) is also widespread, although attempts are still made to preserve the distinction. The ''[[The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language|American Heritage Dictionary]]'' (2000) uses the following two sentences to illustrate the difference, noting that the distinction "is useful in principle, but it is by no means widely observed, and considerable variation in usage occurs at all levels."<ref name="difference">[https://www.bartleby.com/61/59/G0075900.html Usage note: ''Gender''], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060321144225/https://bartleby.com/61/59/G0075900.html |date=21 March 2006 }} ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', Fourth Edition, (2000).</ref>

{{blockquote|The effectiveness of the medication appears to depend on the sex (not gender) of the patient.<br />In peasant societies, gender (not sex) roles are likely to be more clearly defined.}}