On November 6th, 2017, my professor was discussing a reading the class was assigned the night before. The reading was recounting a sensual experience that two characters (a male and a female) had with each other. The narrator was describing how the female’s genitalia was becoming erect during the experience, as opposed to the male’s, as often described when speaking of erect genitalia.
When my professor was recounting this reading, he started talking about gender when he really should have been using the word ‘sex.’ When he was speaking about how sexual body parts work, and how a female isn’t typically described as her body parts becoming erect, he was using the word ‘gender.’ The gender of an individual does not include body parts.
I believe that this is the heart of the problem when it comes to gender inequality.
People don’t know the difference between the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex,’ so they interchange them, often using them wrong. More people need to be educated in this area. Sexual body parts determine an individuals sex (either male or female); however, sexual body parts do not determine an individual’s gender. Gender is up to each individual to decide for themselves.
Sex determines if one has either a penis or a vagina, and that’s all there is to it.
Gender is a made-up term used throughout our society in order to group and categorize people. Most people (who are uneducated in or neglect to recognize the difference between sex and gender) often look at an individual and base that person’s gender off their physical appearance. If one has a vagina and breasts, one automatically assumes that person’s gender must be ‘girl,’ which isn’t always the case.
For example, many pregnant people have these parties called “Gender Reveal Parties.” I have no problems with these parties. I think they’re fun, cute, and creative.
However, I do have a problem with the name of the party. How can one possibly know the gender of their baby before that baby has grown and can decide for themselves? As we learned above, determining if an individual has a penis or a vagina determines their sex, and that is all a doctor is doing when they read that sonogram.
A doctor nor a parent nor anyone else for that matter, except for that individual themselves, can determine the gender of another person.
My point is that we, as a society, need to become educated and conscious of the difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender.’ We need to use the right term in the right place. Ideally, we need to destroy the word and idea of gender altogether because it really doesn’t matter how an individual identifies themselves as, does it?
But, realistically, that will probably never happen, so the next best thing is to make sure we are always aware of our word choices. For instance, I have come across so many mistakes on legal forms, surveys, paperwork, etc. There is always a section that says ‘gender’ and has (only) two boxes to check: male or female.
This is a typical mistake I am speaking of. That word ‘gender’ should really be ‘sex’ because the form is asking if the person filling out the form is either male or female, which attributes to sex. When I come across those mistakes I either scribble out the word ‘gender’ and replace it with my own handwritten ‘sex,’ or I simply answer the ‘gender’ question with "Why does it matter what gender I am?"
These are the issues that I care about and that shape our community. Many people would probably never pick up on the mistakes those forms have like I do, and that’s where the issue falls. Not a lot of people recognize the difference, but there is one and it needs to be addressed.
I hope that by the end of this article, you, reader, will come away more educated than your neighbor and help stop this discrepancy in gender and help society become more aware of their words and actions.
