Some people are grammar nazis, or can't handle typos, or are otherwise feel like nails are slowly and painfully scratching a chalkboard in response to a number of seemingly innocent human behaviors. As you can probably tell afetre a casual survey of past posts, my blog is riddled with typos and a host of other ghastly errors. I'm not sure how I manage to always type the as teh, but I do, every time. And every post at least one won't get caught in my so quick it's almost useless proofread. I know it makes me look like an idiot. i deserve whatever judgement comes my way. Anyways, I may not be one of those people, but I promise I too judge people based on silly little mistakes that don't really matter, but I am unable to tolerate with any sense of charity or compassion.
Today I am judging people based on their ability to discern between "gender" and "sex". You know all the baby announcements I've mentioned? Well, once I get them and feel all appropriatley excited for the happy familly, a small part of me begins dreding the inevitable post that will appear a month or so latter to reveal the "gender" of the baby.
People. Allow me to help/get this off of my chest. GENDER AND SEX ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Gender refers to "the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women." Sex on the other hand refers to the bilogical distinction between males and females. So when you get excited over your first glimpse of your son's penis on the ultrasound, you are excited over finding out his sex. Several months latter when that blessed child enters the world and is lovingly wrapped up in a blue blanket and people start referring to how big and strong he is, BAM! Congratulations, your son has been gendered. Alternatively, if your son comes up to you at age 18 and tells you that he has always identified as a woman, well, congratulations, your son's sex may be male, but his gender is female. Gender=social cnstruct. Sex=biology. Get it? Good, I now expect great things from any and all future offspring related facebook updates. You have been warned.
I know that colloquially gender and sex are interchangeable, and I shouldn't get so worked up. And really, short of having taken a sociology or gender studies class, I'm not sure how I would expect people to know. I know that sex also refers to the sweet, sweet loving that has produced the child whose gender you will not know until they have had a chance to be exposed to all the categories the world is anxiously waiting to stuff them into. Maybe some of you get giggle like middle schoolers when the word sex is used, but if you're having sexual intercourse, you should be able to say sex in reference to the result of said intercourse.
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