Introduction to Gender
What you’ll learn to do: differentiate between sex and gender, understand gender identity, and describe the socialization of gender
The terms “sex” and “gender” refer to two different identifiers. Sex denotes biological characteristics differentiating males and females, while gender denotes social and cultural characteristics of masculine and feminine behavior. As you’ll read in this section, sex and gender are not always synchronous.
You’ll also read more about gender, and the ways that children become aware of gender roles in their earliest years. Children come to understand and perform these gender roles through socialization, which occurs through the following four major agents of socialization: family, education, peer groups, and mass media. These roles are reflected in our culture and result in the differentiation of males and females.
Watch It
Consider the following segment from Ellen to examine how gender stereotyping is utilized in advertising.
<a style="margin-left: 16px;" target="_blank" href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vy-T6DtTF-BbMfpVEI7VP_R7w2A4anzYZLXR8Pk4Fu4"