"The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be instead of recognizing how we are. Now imagine how much happier we would be, the more free our true individual self would be if we did not have the weight of gender expectations." - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Throughout the history of humanity, we spoke about sex and gender in a joint or separate way in all possible aspects. Today we can understand that there is a great difference between both concepts.
The difference between sex and gender: a cultural and biological exploration
First: What is sex? Each person is born with a sex that is determined in fertilization by the well-known XX or XY chromosomes that determine -biologically - if you are man or woman, referring to genitality. This is the criterion of genotype, i.e. gene, genetics. As for the criterion of phenotype, we understand that it is the physical and expressive things we possess, which visually generates a difference, such as: the body shape, the hips, the genitals, if there are testicles or ovaries, sperm or eggs. Sex differs from gender because when talking about sex we refer to biological question, aanatomy of the reproductive-sexual system, changing The word gender is a social construction generated to refer to the cultural aspect of the individual. This means that as we grow we can (or not) feel identified with the sex we are born with. By ende, There are only two sexes and infinite genders, probably, many more than we haven't put in words yet.
The genus was associated with the term “sex” for many years, assuming that there were two sexes per ende two genera: you are a woman or a man. It is no longer considered a double question, of two extremes, white or black, but a gray scale. Today, it is understood that the concepts may be associated more to what is feminine and what is male, not what is woman or what is of man. The term “genre” is reformulated every day because every day we culturally understand different things, depending on the context in which we are born, we grow and live together with religion, social class, etc. This means that we are born with a sex, but not with a gender: gender is not limited to only two possibilities sex yes. Our primary figures end us in a gender (associated with biological sex at birth) and expect us to act this way of life.
The definition that establishes on gender WHO (World Health Organization) is as follows: "Gender" refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women. "Male" and "female" are gender categories. By ende, it speaks of the genre when we refer to the role of gender, role that this individual takes as personal identification, as identity. These issues of debate on partial desecration of both terms begin in the 1980s. Judith Butler is an American philosopher well known for his book “The genre in dispute” and influenced by authors such as Michel Foucault and Simone de Beauvoir, makes great contributions on studies and influences of these themes and the known Queer Theories.
Deconstructing genres: exploring queer theories and freedom of expression
Getting more into the theme comes the known “Queer Theories” They further expand this debate. It is said that the male and female are cultural fiction, that gender is a representation that is affected by their deconstruction, the same occurs day by day with each individual born without feeling fully identified to any sex. You talk about a person, an individual, not a woman or a man. It refers to these people as "not binary". Butler expresses that the identity of a person is in constant movement and transformation, changing day by day, generation after generation. The word - queer - means “something more” By ende means not to close to the idea of having a gender identity or a determined and fixed sexual orientation.
It's a lot, isn't it? The ideal would be for each one to have the freedom to feel and express as one wishes and to have the respect of all the people around him to live in freedom, like any other, because at the end of the day, we continue to be people.
Comments