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Gender

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Submitted By manda808
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* The word Gender, as a grammatical term has been around since the 14th century, according to Oxford dictionary as “referring to classes of noun designated as masculine, feminine, or neuter.” Gender is more commonly used now in the 21st century to describe a person’s identity. Sex is another word that is commonly used when describing gender, it is ‘the state of being male or female’. Sex is the biological difference, where as gender is to cultural or social differences. Sex could also be defined as evolution, our genetics. Where as gender, which is our nurture, our life experiences, which help us shape who we are as an individual. Sociologists argue that the relationship between sex and gender is absolutely arbitrary – there is no causative connection between sex and gender – sex doesn’t determine the type of roles you can engage in society. We announce our identities by the way that we dress, walk, talk, act etc. We convince other people that we’re the gendered person that we’re presenting ourselves to be, a product of interactions. With ones sex being defined as male or female, there are bodies that can’t be categorized under these two sexes. Hermaphrodites, now more commonly known as intersex, are becoming a commonly known and used term in society with 17 in every 1000 babies having some kind of intersex condition. Gender is only one of the fundamental principles in organisation of social life, in particular in structural organisations of; childhood, sports, media and employment and economy.

Childhood
As children we are all brought up and identified differently usually due to several factors. For example class, where we are on hierarchy that is our society. Class usually has an effect on our childhood, poorer- lower class, richer- upper class and middle class. This then effects our education, expectations from society and even ones morals and beliefs. Class

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