What do you mean by Sex?

To understand the term SEX, let’s understand it by the differences between Sex & Gender. After that, all the concepts will be clear to you.

The terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are closely linked to each other, yet they are not synonyms.

In ordinary speech, these two terms are often used interchangeably.

The distinction between sex and gender differentiates a person's sex (the anatomy of an individual's reproductive system, and secondary sex characteristics) while gender refers to socio-cultural differences.

For more clear conception.

Sex - referring “The natural or biological feature, character or quality that distinguishes male and female from one another, that is determined by their anatomy, which is produced by their chromosomes, hormones and their interactions (gonad is an organ in animals that produces gametes, especially a testis or ovary), morphologic (internal and external), chromosomal, and hormonal characteristics.”

Some characteristics/features related to sex are – while males have a penis; females have a vagina, males have testicles, females have ovaries, females get pregnant while males do not, females can breastfeed their babies, males cannot, males have deeper voices than females.

Gender- The word gender is derived from the Latin word Genus means “kind” or “type”.

Gender often considered emphasizing social and cultural aspects.

So, the term Gender means a cultural or learned feature – relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity, gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match the sex they were assigned at birth.

This will become clear by the example given below.

For Example-  In our culture, gender education is given to kids on the basis of their sex from an early age which is also known as gender discrimination, because parents/guardians think that it is more important to teach male kids than female kids.

Men are told that they need to be aggressive and not to be emotional (men don’t cry), while women are told that they have to be feminine (don’t laugh loudly, learn how to cook, don’t study too much else who will marry you).

Women maintain long hair while men maintain short, women contribute more to household duties than men do.

In the majority of cultures, men are regarded as bread earners and protectors of women while women are regarded as house-wife.