Published on 12, July, 2020
A discussion in this forum made me ask myself this question, what's gender?. I googled it but what I found there didn't make much sense to me. I always thought that the gender of the other person doesn't tell me much about who they are. It just informs me about the appropriate pronouns that this person wants me to use with them. Frankly I don't care about figuring out my gender. I was born in a woman's body and I never felt like it's the wrong one. I think I'd feel the same if I was born in a man's body. I have never spent time thinking about this part of myself because I never thought that it's important enough to me. I'll be the same person anyway, no? I don't think it would change much about who I am... Can anyone share how they understand gender?
Gender from a grammatical perspective is in the masculine and feminine (etc.) form of language, objects tend to be described in terms of gender such as ships, it’s modern-day illiterate creep that has confused ‘sex’ with ‘gender’ in grammar. It is ‘sex’ that distinguishes between biological-differences such as ‘male’ and ‘female’, I’ve only broadly alluded to the difference between gender and sex, I have not looked to create a particularly keen definition..
In science, when referring to male or female, gender and sex are identical in meaning. The word gender is often used preferentially to the word sex, as the latter can also refer to sexual intercourse. Scientific usage is not identical to social usage.
That’s not true, ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are completely distinct words, I believe that the fight against the modern-day illiterate use of ‘gender’ is a hill worth dying on.
The word to indicate whether someone is male or female is ‘sex’, gender is a purely grammatical term. For instance: “Objects of neuter ‘sex’, neither masculine nor feminine, can have masculine and feminine ‘genders’”. For example, ships can be referred to as ‘she’.
I really cannot understand your stance on usage, when it is blatantly obvious that the word gender is used in science, medicine, sociology and everyday social interaction. It is definitely not merely a linguistic term.
Only in a few countries, France being one, is there an attempt to guard language in such a way, and this is ultimately futile. The Anglophone world is a free for all.
I have avoided any direct interaction with you, I merely ask for the same.
As someone who used to edit biology papers prior to publication for a living, I can confirm you're absolutely correct that most biologists are *** at writing.
What happened to your flounce?
As I say it is a worthy cause to defend language, that has been careful added-to and staunchly guarded over several centuries, from regressions such as these. If scientific literature is leaning on improper grammar, then it is equally-true that scientific literature is leaning on improper reason-and-logic, and consequently improper rhetoric. A dire affliction for a civilisation.
It is true. I have a biology PhD and worked in biological research for 34 years, I know what I am speaking about. "According to the current scientific literature, rats, mice, guinea pigs, other research animals, and even plants have gender. Animals may have social behaviors and roles often associated with one or the other sex; however, most published reports are using gender as a synonym for sex, ..." Of course it is increasingly used in human related contexts as a shorthand for such concepts as 'gender roles' and 'gender attributes', but it is not restricted to grammar, linguistics or philology.