Gender

For other uses, see Gender (disambiguation).

Gender, for the purposes of this article, is the perceived or projected (self-identified) masculinity or femininity of a person. A person's gender is complex, encompassing countless characteristics of appearance, speech, movement and other factors not solely limited to biological sex.

Societies tend to have binary gender systems in which everyone is categorized as male or female, but this is not universal. Some societies include a third gender role; for instance, the Native American Two-Spirit people and the hijrass of India.

There is debate over to what extent gender is a social construct and to what extent it is a biological construct. At the extremes of these views you have constructionism which suggests that it is entirely a social construct and essentialism which suggests that it's entirely a biological construct.

Gender associations are constantly changing as society progresses. For example, the color pink was considered masculine in the early 1900s and is now seen as feminine.

See also

• gender identity
• gender role
• queer studies
• list of transgender-related topics
• Queer
• homosexuality
• transgender
• stereotype
• third gender
• androgyny

External links

• Gender and Poverty
• WikEd - Gender Inequities in the Classroom
• WikEd - Gender Differences

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