Definition of gender

[Shaolen]

Wondering if anyone has an old dictionary from possibly from 1950’s and could look up the definition of gender. Someone I know is trying to say that gender isn’t the Sam as sex and that gender is a social construct that changes with culture. I looked online and all the online definitions agree with this. I’m a little skeptical as online dictionaries are changing the definition of marriage to include homosexual components.

 

[GEddie]

Wondering if anyone has an old dictionary from possibly from 1950’s and could look up the definition of gender. Someone I know is trying to say that gender isn’t the Sam as sex and that gender is a social construct that changes with culture. I looked online and all the online definitions agree with this. I’m a little skeptical as online dictionaries are changing the definition of marriage to include homosexual components.

Gender, technically, refers not to human life or the human body but to words in language.

However, the word has become used in English to refer to sexual identity. It seems that because “sex” in the biological sense is inalterable, a word was needed for something more “fluid.”

ICXC NIKA

 

[Confiteor_Deo]

An old dictionary I have from around the 1950’s or so has two definitions for gender. The first concerns gender in grammar, as in masculine and feminine nouns, and the second definition simply says “sex”. Gender isn’t a social construct. Some things associated with gender, like dresses for women or blue for boys, can be considered social constructs, but the vast majority of it is based upon the biological differences between the sexes.

 

[po18guy]

The language has been co-opted by radicals.

To a world which has accepted DNA, that cdefines what was written long before:

“But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.” Mark 10:6

In a similar example:

“Marriage” to a machinist (creator), means the perfect mating of two complementary manufactured (created) parts. To change this definition makes the term a physical impossibility and amounts to a social de-construct.

 

[Shaolen]

An old dictionary I have from around the 1950’s or so has two definitions for gender. The first concerns gender in grammar, as in masculine and feminine nouns, and the second definition simply says “sex”. Gender isn’t a social construct. Some things associated with gender, like dresses for women or blue for boys, can be considered social constructs, but the vast majority of it is based upon the biological differences between the sexes.

Would you be able to give me the name and year of the dictionary?

 

[abucs]

The language has been co-opted by radicals.

Yes, i prefer to not recognise their changes but when they insist i point to the re-definitions by leftist academics and honestly convey that we just don’t share the same culture anymore.

 

[Rhubarb]

Distinctions are one of the hallmarks of philosophic critical thinking. Many arguments revolve around the idea that there should be a distinction between two concepts, or that there is a false distinction. This is just from philosophy 101. I’d be happy to explain why I think sex and gender are distinct, but that’s not the point of my post. I’m going to suppose you are against the idea that there is a distinction.

If you’re looking to undercut the idea that sex and gender refers to different things, I don’t think an appeal to how the word was used in the past will do much for you. Languages grow and develop, and new distinctions are drawn between things all the time. Look at the word “mind” and “brain”. Two hundred years ago there wasn’t a distinction between these two. But I propose there is something very different about them.

I think a better way to do the work is to look at the arguments that make some anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, etc. think there IS a distinction, and see if you can attack from that angle. Saying “the word never meant it in the past”, in terms of a philosophical argument, is so flimsy it can’t stand up to a gentle breeze.

 

[inocente]

Wondering if anyone has an old dictionary from possibly from 1950’s and could look up the definition of gender. Someone I know is trying to say that gender isn’t the Sam as sex and that gender is a social construct that changes with culture. I looked online and all the online definitions agree with this. I’m a little skeptical as online dictionaries are changing the definition of marriage to include homosexual components.

Dictionary editors define words as they are currently used, and that’s how the word is currently used. The ‘social role’ meaning seems to have been introduced by a psychologist in 1955, and also applies to the equivalent word in Spanish. You can trace the history by typing “etymology gender” into google, which gives links including these:

etymonline.com/index.php?term=gender
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#Etymology_and_usage

 

[Used2beSherryG]

I have Webster’s 7th Collegiate dictionary published in 1963. Gender has two descriptors:

1. sex
2. any of two or more subclasses within a grammatical class of a language

Sex has three descriptors:

1. either of two divisions of organisms distinguished respectively as male or female
2. the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral peculiarities of living beings that subserve reproduction by two interacting parents and distinguish males and females
   3a- sexually motivated phenomena or behavior 3b-sexual intercourse

Oh how I long for the good old days.

 

[Confiteor_Deo]

Would you be able to give me the name and year of the dictionary?

It’s Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, second edition. My copy was published in 1983 but I think it was originally written in 1955.

 

[Thorolfr]

Dictionary editors define words as they are currently used, and that’s how the word is currently used. The ‘social role’ meaning seems to have been introduced by a psychologist in 1955, and also applies to the equivalent word in Spanish. You can trace the history by typing “etymology gender” into google, which gives links including these:

etymonline.com/index.php?term=gender
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#Etymology_and_usage

This from the Wikipedia article is important: “However, examples of the use of gender to refer to masculinity and femininity as types are found throughout the history of Modern English (from about the 14th century).”

So when gender or especially “gender roles” are linked to concepts such as masculine/masculinity or feminine/femininity, it’s easy to see how gender could mostly be a social construct. So a person can be defined by both sex and gender:

Sex = male/female (biological), i.e. XY/XX
Gender = masculine/feminine (usually things concerning gender roles)

A person who is biologically female could nevertheless be rather masculine (i.e. be a “tomboy”). Or a person could be biologically male but act or dress in a rather feminine way (i.e. be effeminate). So in these two cases, sex and gender do not correspond. Or a person could be biologically male and also be, dress or act very masculine. A woman could be biologically female and also act or dress in a very feminine way.

So you have:

female+masculine, male+feminine, male+masculine, female+feminine

 

[wanstronian]

The language has been co-opted by radicals.

That’s hilarious. Languages evolve, they always have, and you call it radicalism when a word no longer means only what YOU think it should mean!

To a world which has accepted DNA, that cdefines what was written long before:

“But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.” Mark 10:6

Hmm. DNA also causes androgynism. Furthermore, DNA defines a lot more than “male and female.”

In a similar example:

“Marriage” to a machinist (creator), means the perfect mating of two complementary manufactured (created) parts. To change this definition makes the term a physical impossibility and amounts to a social de-construct.

But “marriage” was a construct created by humans, so there’s no obligation to adhere to its original meaning for ever more. It’s a social evolution, not a social “de-construct.”

 

[BobCatholic]

Gender is a characteristic shared by words and things.
Sex is a characteristic shared by people.

The gender ideology is used to dehumanize people and make people more like things.

 

[wanstronian]

Gender is a characteristic shared by words and things.
Sex is a characteristic shared by people.

The gender ideology is used to dehumanize people and make people more like things.

Sex is a biological definition. As a characteristic it’s not just shared by people, but by other animals… and many plants.

Gender allows individuals the freedom not to have to conform to some predetermined (and subjective) notion of what constituate male behaviour and femail behaviour.

Unless you’re a bigot who believe that all men should be manly and all women should be womanly, then gender is a necessary and welcome concept in a modern world.

 

[adamhovey1988]

My mother’s background in biology (geez, I wish she had an account on here) says that gender is a biological fact and changing your appearance or mutilating reproductive organs does not change ones gender.

 

[BobCatholic]

Sex is a biological definition. As a characteristic it’s not just shared by people, but by other animals… and many plants.

OK, so sex is a characteristic of LIVING beings.
gender is a characteristic of non-living things, namely words.

You have made my point even more - that gender ideology is used to not only dehumanize people, but also deny they are living beings. To gender ideology, people are just things to be used.

Gender allows individuals the freedom not to have to conform to some predetermined (and subjective) notion of what constituate male behaviour and femail behaviour.

Sex roles and sex are two different things, you confuse the two, and that’s part of the ideology.

Unless you’re a bigot who believe that all men should be manly and all women should be womanly, then gender is a necessary and welcome concept in a modern world.

So, you do believe that people are nothing but things to be used.

Interesting how having a different opinion now constitutes bigotry. This is another part of gender ideology, that people are not entitled to their opinions. It is a direct attack on the first amendment in all its forms.

 

[BobCatholic]

My mother’s background in biology (geez, I wish she had an account on here) says that gender is a biological fact and changing your appearance or mutilating reproductive organs does not change ones gender.

Did she use the words “gender” or “sex” - sex is the biological fact.

 

[abucs]

The gender ideology is used to dehumanize people and make people more like things.

Yep, the construction of gender is used to push an ideology. What are we up to now? Over 100 genders. Don’t forget to mention them all. This is the new morality now.

Rubbish. I strongly suspect such ‘thinking’ does more harm than good.

 

[GEddie]

Yep, the construction of gender is used to push an ideology. What are we up to now? Over 100 genders. Don’t forget to mention them all. This is the new morality now.

Rubbish. I strongly suspect such ‘thinking’ does more harm than good.

Because it’s anything but thinking. It’s the reification of feeling.

Is it 100, now, Last I heard there were only 58!

ICXC NIKA

 

[Rhubarb]

My mother’s background in biology (geez, I wish she had an account on here) says that gender is a biological fact and changing your appearance or mutilating reproductive organs does not change ones gender.

If your mother has a background in biology she knows that scientific theories, terms, and uses are never set in stone. The results of science is always tentative, by the very nature of scientific inquiry. Like that Pluto is a planet. Or that Monera is an animal kingdom. Or Newtonian physics.