The word "gender" literally means "sex". Nevertheless, the semantic content of these two terms is different. This is especially evident in such a concept as “gender policy”.
Both concepts - sex and gender - characterize the division of people into men and women. But the term "sex" refers to biological division, and "gender" refers to social division.
The difference between sex and gender
Sex is a biological characteristic of a person. It can be determined already in a newborn by primary sexual characteristics, i.e. on the anatomical structure of the external genital organs.
From this point of view, a person's gender does not in any way depend on the culture to which he belongs. Does not affect the gender and environment in which the child will grow and be raised.
Gender is social gender - a person's behavior associated with his social role as a man or a woman. This is determined by a whole system of ideas about how a person of a certain gender should behave, and what behavior is forbidden for him or for her. The gender role prescribes which professional activities are more acceptable for men and which ones are more acceptable for women. These ideas vary from era to era, and within the same time - from people to people, from culture to culture. This distinguishes gender from the biological characteristics of sex. For example, from a biological point of view, a US citizen is no different from a Saudi Arabian, but their gender position in society is different.
Gender, as a social gender, may not coincide with biological as a result of upbringing. Such human stories took place not only in the "depraved" modernity. For example, the famous female pirate Mary Reed was raised by her parents as a boy as a child. to receive the inheritance, a male child was needed. This subsequently led her to an occupation that at the beginning of the 18th century, in principle, could not be considered “female”.
Gender policy
State policy related to the rights of men and women, gender differences, gender roles is called gender policy.
The gender policy of the state is largely determined by the traditions of a particular people - national and religious. So today in many Muslim countries the rights of men and women differ. For women, the age of marriage occurs earlier than for men. A man has the right to divorce his wife for no reason, and for women there is a strict list of reasons why she can demand a divorce. Women are prohibited from doing much of what men are allowed, such as driving a car. If a woman breaks the law, her husband is responsible.
In other states that make up the majority today, the law declares gender equality. The age of marriage is the same for men and women. The right to vote and to be elected is not sex-related. Formally, the gender of the applicant cannot be the reason for the refusal to apply for a job. However, the difference in rights and responsibilities between men and women persists at certain points. For example, in the Russian Federation, only men are subject to conscription, while in Israel both men and women.
