Gender has only become a medical term because we, as a society, became squeamish about the word "sex." There are two sexes in the human race, male and female. Gender has its roots in linguistics. It referred to the grammatical gender of nouns (masculine, feminine, or neuter.)
Gender then became a euphemism for biological sex. Then it became a term for the expectations and social role that related to a particular sex. Then, it became an abstract "identity" that was distinctive from one's actual sex or even the role traditionally associated with the new identity. Now, it's become a catch-all for everything related to the sexes. It can refer to biological sex exclusively, mental identity, or anything tangentially related to them.
That’s actually not true for English. The English usage of gender is tied to the Greek root word genos. The version you’re thinking of is the French version which is based off genre and still a classification word.
no, he's right. The root is latin "Gens" which shares the same root as the greek "Genos" as an Indo-european ur-word meaning "Kind". Languages can have many genders, not just the three we associate with sex. Gender can also indicate abritrary grouping (like the 4th and 5th nominal genders of Latin), animacy (Slavic languages encode for animacy. so do Baltic), Material, ensoulment etc. Several african languages have up to 10 nominal genders. It means type, and nothing more.
Don't forget the people who were instrumental in the 50s/60s/70s shift of the meaning of the term 'gender' to mean 'sex roles'
There's a certain monster named Money who was involved. The things he did to those poor kids... I don't even want to talk about it, but it forms the foundation of all gender theory today. Him and that french bitch.
Gender has only become a medical term because we, as a society, became squeamish about the word "sex." There are two sexes in the human race, male and female. Gender has its roots in linguistics. It referred to the grammatical gender of nouns (masculine, feminine, or neuter.)
Gender then became a euphemism for biological sex. Then it became a term for the expectations and social role that related to a particular sex. Then, it became an abstract "identity" that was distinctive from one's actual sex or even the role traditionally associated with the new identity. Now, it's become a catch-all for everything related to the sexes. It can refer to biological sex exclusively, mental identity, or anything tangentially related to them.
That’s actually not true for English. The English usage of gender is tied to the Greek root word genos. The version you’re thinking of is the French version which is based off genre and still a classification word.
no, he's right. The root is latin "Gens" which shares the same root as the greek "Genos" as an Indo-european ur-word meaning "Kind". Languages can have many genders, not just the three we associate with sex. Gender can also indicate abritrary grouping (like the 4th and 5th nominal genders of Latin), animacy (Slavic languages encode for animacy. so do Baltic), Material, ensoulment etc. Several african languages have up to 10 nominal genders. It means type, and nothing more.
Don't forget the people who were instrumental in the 50s/60s/70s shift of the meaning of the term 'gender' to mean 'sex roles'
There's a certain monster named Money who was involved. The things he did to those poor kids... I don't even want to talk about it, but it forms the foundation of all gender theory today. Him and that french bitch.