Psychology applied to the difference in behavior between men and women has always been a field of study that has aroused much controversy. This is due to the social repercussions that can have to defend one or another vision about what it means to be “male” or “female”.

We will now examine what are the distinctive elements of two of the most commonly used concepts in this field: the differences between sex and gender .

What are sex and gender?

Since the beginning of history it is known that society expects different things from men and women , and that men in turn behave differently from women (to some extent).

However… is this distinction between ways of thinking and acting that can be recognized between men and women the result of their biology, or is it simply their effort to adapt to socially assigned roles? This is one of the fundamental questions that many researchers in biology and in anthropology and psychology have tried to answer.

To begin to understand the most accepted differences about what sex and gender are, let us first look at a relatively simple definition of these concepts.

Sex is the set of biological characteristics that allows differentiating the two types of subjects involved in sexual reproduction. Thus, this category refers to a categorization that depends on the way some forms of life have to perpetuate themselves, to create new generations.

On the other hand, sex is composed of characteristics that are relatively easy to isolate from the rest of the organism, and observable in a laboratory environment with the appropriate instruments. In addition, sex is found in places on the body and physical elements that are known in advance.

Gender, on the other hand, is something dynamic , which is expressed through actions, behaviour. This means that it cannot be known in an accurate manner by means of objective measurements, as it depends on a perspective provided by language.

Gender is, to some extent, a psychological and symbolic phenomenon. What many experts and scientists are asking is, as we shall see, whether there is also biology behind it, or whether sex and gender are totally dissociated and only seem to be linked because of a kind of social pressure inherited through generations.

The main differences between sex and gender

Now that we know what we are talking about, let’s look at the differences between sex and gender.

1. Gender is a social construction, sex is not

This needs to be qualified, as any concept (whether tree, mountain or river) is a social construct. However, while sex refers to biologically developed elements without us having any capacity to alter them, gender does involve our ideas and expectations .

For example, certain androgynous features in women, such as a uniform thinness all over the body, may seem unfeminine today, but in the 1920s they were feminine and sexually attractive. However, our assessment of things and our expectations do not change the fact that the vast majority of people are born with a penis or a vagina, and these attributes help to identify someone’s sex.

2. The genus is exclusive to animals with abstract thinking

While we can locate sexes even in plants and fish , the genus is only present in animals with a relatively high capacity for abstract thought, the maximum representative of which is the human being (in the past, perhaps, other species of the genus homo ).

This is because gender is, at least partially, a social construction, as we have seen, and in order to develop social constructions it is necessary to build a semantics and systems of symbols about what is feminine and masculine.

3. Gender can be on a continuum, sex cannot

Since gender is mediated by culture, it is possible to see how the feminine and the masculine is different among people, depending on their opinions. In turn, a person may feel neither feminine nor masculine, which means that his or her thinking applied to self-image does not clearly categorize what one is. This, far from being something purely subjective, is evidence of verbal behaviour (thinking) running away from closed categories of the male/female type.

Sex, on the other hand, can sometimes present itself in very uncommon ways, but in general, there is a very limited group of criteria that allow it to be evaluated: genitals, type of gonads and chromosomes, mainly.

4. Sex cannot be performative

As we have seen, the gender is at least partly symbolic. That means that it is expressed in movement, what we do, while sex is static, depends on quickly objectifiable elements that are found in material elements. This means that gender can be “negotiated” in conversations and in the way we relate to others.

For example, if a man gets dressed up at a bachelor party and tries to act feminine, it is generally understood that he is doing comedy. However, in another context, that same action can be directly the expression of a genuine desire to be part of the female gender.

5. Sex has a different reproductive role

This is one of the fundamental differences between sex and gender. A woman, regardless of her gender-related perceptions, has a different reproductive function than a man : the passage through pregnancy, etc. Gender can lead to experiencing this fact in one way or another, but does not change it.