It is difficult to know precisely how many people are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered. Transgendered individuals include transvestites (those who dress in the clothing of the opposite sex) and transsexuals (those whose gender identity differs from the physiological sex and who sometimes undergo a sex change). The term also increasingly refers to transgendered individuals, those whose behavior, appearance, and/or gender identity fails to conform to conventional norms. Sexual orientation refers to a person’s preference for sexual relationships with individuals of the other sex ( heterosexuality), one’s own sex ( homosexuality), or both sexes ( bisexuality). When we say that a boy or man is very masculine, we have some combination of these traits in mind: he is tough, strong, and assertive. What we traditionally mean by masculinity is captured in the adjectives, again both positive and negative, our society traditionally ascribes to men: strong, assertive, brave, active, independent, intelligent, competitive, insensitive, unemotional, and aggressive. Thus when we say that a girl or woman is very feminine, we have some combination of these traits, usually the positive ones, in mind: she is soft, dainty, pretty, even a bit flighty. What we traditionally mean by femininity is captured in the adjectives, both positive and negative, we traditionally ascribe to women: gentle, sensitive, nurturing, delicate, graceful, cooperative, decorative, dependent, emotional, passive, and weak. In effect, we think of them as two sides of the same coin of being human. A familiar nursery rhyme nicely summarizes these two sets of traits:Īs this nursery rhyme suggests, our traditional notions of femininity and masculinity indicate that we think females and males are fundamentally different from each other.
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Femininity refers to the cultural expectations we have of girls and women, while masculinity refers to the expectations we have of boys and men. These expectations are called femininity and masculinity. As we grow up, we learn these expectations as we develop our gender identity, or our beliefs about ourselves as females or males. How we think and behave as females and males is not etched in stone by our biology but rather is a result of how society expects us to think and behave based on what sex we are. Understood in this way, gender, like race as discussed in Chapter 7 “Deviance, Crime, and Social Control”, is a social construction. A related concept, gender roles, refers to a society’s expectations of people’s behavior and attitudes based on whether they are females or males. It refers to the social and cultural differences a society assigns to people based on their (biological) sex. If sex is a biological concept, then gender is a social concept. For better or worse, these basic biological differences between the sexes affect many people’s perceptions of what it means to be female or male, as we shall soon discuss. Girls develop breasts and wider hips and begin menstruating as nature prepares them for possible pregnancy and childbirth.
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In this difficult period of adolescents’ lives, boys generally acquire deeper voices, more body hair, and more muscles from their flowing testosterone. The genitalia are called primary sex characteristics, while the other differences that develop during puberty are called secondary sex characteristics and stem from hormonal differences between the two sexes. The first to appear are the different genitals that boys and girls develop in the womb and that the doctor (or midwife) and parents look for when a baby is born (assuming the baby’s sex is not already known from ultrasound or other techniques) so that the momentous announcement, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” can be made. From this basic genetic difference spring other biological differences. Females, of course, have two X chromosomes, while males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. Sex refers to the anatomical and other biological differences between females and males that are determined at the moment of conception and develop in the womb and throughout childhood and adolescence.