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It should be noted this is a very recent development though. I'm pretty sure if you looked in dictionaries made pre-2000, gender is synonymous with sex and was

by umvi 4y ago

It should be noted this is a very recent development though. I'm pretty sure if you looked in dictionaries made pre-2000, gender is synonymous with sex and was often the preferred term for biological sex since as GP points out, "sex" also means intercourse. Only in the last 10 years or so has the definition of gender been usurped to have a new distinct meaning to accommodate new social developments.

dymk 4y ago
Biologists and sociologists have distinguished between sex and gender for far longer than a decade.
- wahern 4y ago
  Not just biologists and sociologists, but pretty much all of academia. As a college student in the 1990s it was my understanding this distinction came about from 2nd wave feminism in the '60s and '70s, but since then I've come to learn that they goes back even further, into the 19th century at least. Moreover, in the past decade a large segment of the left has been actively pushing back against these distinctions and attempting to essentialize (i.e. root in biology) normative gender behaviors. In the eyes of some trans activists essentializing gender norms would reduce anti-trans prejudice. I personally think it's misguided and goes too far, but it does reveal some flaws in the logic of the dichotomy. Some normative gender behaviors undoubtedly are rooted in biology, notwithstanding individual variation. But all such dichotomies are flawed--either intrinsically, or because of how they frame the relevant questions; it's the nature of the simplifications we humans make, and must make, to impose order on the natural world. I haven't seen any good alternatives to the sex/gender dichotomy, and I fail to see how anything constructive can come about from tearing it down.
cwingrav 4y ago
This is a scientific article and the terms are used with precise definitions. If translated to a more vernacular venue, the language would either be different, or the terms defined in the article.
js2 4y ago
This letter to the editor appeared in the NYT over thirty years ago: To the Editor: The term "gender" is increasingly misused as a substitute for "sex." Does "gender" appear to reflect a greater sophistication, or reluctance to use a term with a possible indecent connotation? "The Gender Gulf" by Louis Harris (Op-Ed, Dec. 7) misuses the term three times (not counting the headline), including this: "the generation gap is less evident and the gender gap more acute." Among the same day's letters, one ("Sexism on Sesame St.") misuses gender five times including "gender imbalance." "The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage" by Theodore M. Bernstein (New York, 1965) states, "gender is a grammatical term, denoting (in English) whether words pertaining to a noun or pronoun are classed as masculine, feminine or neuter. It is not a substitute for 'sex' (but then, what is?). Indeed, in some foreign languages 'gender' often disregards sex. In German, for example, 'Weib,' The word for woman, is neuter; in French 'plume,' the word for pen, a sexless article, is feminine. To use 'gender' as if it were synonymous with 'sex' is an error, and a particularly unpardonable one in scientific writing." From Fowler's "Modern English Usage" edited by Sir Ernest Gowers (Oxford, second edition, 1965): "Gender, n., is a grammatical term only. To talk of 'persons' or 'creatures of the masculine or feminine gender,' meaning 'of the male or female sex,' is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder." I can only assume you have elected to permit this misuse, despite a valid and useful distinction between the terms. SIDNEY WEINSTEIN Danbury, Conn., Dec. 10, 1990 The writer is editor in chief, International Journal of Neuroscience. https://archive.ph/2020.06.11-213210/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/27/opinion/l-gender-can-t-replace-sex-but-what-can-667090.html https://archive.ph/2020.06.11-213210/https://www.nytimes.com... Here's William Safire talking about it in 1984 ("On Language; Goodbye Sex, Hello Gender"): https://archive.ph/2022.07.07-142246/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/05/magazine/on-language-goodbye-sex-hello-gender.html https://archive.ph/2022.07.07-142246/https://www.nytimes.com...
- jcheng 4y ago
  I've never heard that "gender" is a grammatical term only, it got me interested enough to search up the word in some older dictionaries. Webster's 1828: https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/gender https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/gender Webster's 1913: https://www.websters1913.com/words/Gender https://www.websters1913.com/words/Gender Both include "sex, male or female" as a definition; the 1913 marks it as "[Obs. or Colloq.]" while the 1828 does not.
drewcoo 4y ago
I remember being shocked in the 90s when I heard people applying a grammatical term, gender, to people's social/sexual expression. What's next, I thought, call infectious people "dative?" Anyway, I got used to it because it's a useful distinction when applied to people. I'm pretty sure in a 20th century dictionary you'll find gender was a purely grammatical term. And it was an uncommon word in English because all of our nouns are not gendered like so many other languages.
- ksaj 4y ago
  And what to think of languages like Swedish that have Masculine and Neuter, but not Feminine, and the fact that some languages don't even agree on what is a Masculine word and what is a Feminine word?
  - orwin 4y ago
    That linguistics and language evolution is really interesting. Old french/vulgar latin had a neuter gender, which pronoun sounded a lot like the male pronoun, and with nominative ending who were the same. Hence male pronouns are the default pronouns.
hhho 4y ago
It's longer than that. As far as I am aware, sexologist John Money was the first to use the term in a sociological sense, in his 1955 paper Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism, where he wrote: "The term gender role is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not restricted to, sexuality in the sense of eroticism." Some decades on, he noted that the rationale for introducing the term was to "make it possible to write about people who came into one's office as either male or female, but of whom it could not be said that their sex role in the specific genital sense was either male or female insofar as they had a history of birth defect of the sex organs. The majority of people who contributed to this new meaning of gender were hermaphrodites or intersexes. To them, social science and social history overall owe a debt of gratitude."

by umvi 4y ago

dymk 4y ago

Biologists and sociologists have distinguished between sex and gender for far longer than a decade.

wahern 4y ago
Not just biologists and sociologists, but pretty much all of academia. As a college student in the 1990s it was my understanding this distinction came about from 2nd wave feminism in the '60s and '70s, but since then I've come to learn that they goes back even further, into the 19th century at least. Moreover, in the past decade a large segment of the left has been actively pushing back against these distinctions and attempting to essentialize (i.e. root in biology) normative gender behaviors. In the eyes of some trans activists essentializing gender norms would reduce anti-trans prejudice. I personally think it's misguided and goes too far, but it does reveal some flaws in the logic of the dichotomy. Some normative gender behaviors undoubtedly are rooted in biology, notwithstanding individual variation. But all such dichotomies are flawed--either intrinsically, or because of how they frame the relevant questions; it's the nature of the simplifications we humans make, and must make, to impose order on the natural world. I haven't seen any good alternatives to the sex/gender dichotomy, and I fail to see how anything constructive can come about from tearing it down.

cwingrav 4y ago

This is a scientific article and the terms are used with precise definitions. If translated to a more vernacular venue, the language would either be different, or the terms defined in the article.

js2 4y ago

This letter to the editor appeared in the NYT over thirty years ago: To the Editor: The term "gender" is increasingly misused as a substitute for "sex." Does "gender" appear to reflect a greater sophistication, or reluctance to use a term with a possible indecent connotation? "The Gender Gulf" by Louis Harris (Op-Ed, Dec. 7) misuses the term three times (not counting the headline), including this: "the generation gap is less evident and the gender gap more acute." Among the same day's letters, one ("Sexism on Sesame St.") misuses gender five times including "gender imbalance." "The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage" by Theodore M. Bernstein (New York, 1965) states, "gender is a grammatical term, denoting (in English) whether words pertaining to a noun or pronoun are classed as masculine, feminine or neuter. It is not a substitute for 'sex' (but then, what is?). Indeed, in some foreign languages 'gender' often disregards sex. In German, for example, 'Weib,' The word for woman, is neuter; in French 'plume,' the word for pen, a sexless article, is feminine. To use 'gender' as if it were synonymous with 'sex' is an error, and a particularly unpardonable one in scientific writing." From Fowler's "Modern English Usage" edited by Sir Ernest Gowers (Oxford, second edition, 1965): "Gender, n., is a grammatical term only. To talk of 'persons' or 'creatures of the masculine or feminine gender,' meaning 'of the male or female sex,' is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder." I can only assume you have elected to permit this misuse, despite a valid and useful distinction between the terms. SIDNEY WEINSTEIN Danbury, Conn., Dec. 10, 1990 The writer is editor in chief, International Journal of Neuroscience. https://archive.ph/2020.06.11-213210/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/27/opinion/l-gender-can-t-replace-sex-but-what-can-667090.html https://archive.ph/2020.06.11-213210/https://www.nytimes.com... Here's William Safire talking about it in 1984 ("On Language; Goodbye Sex, Hello Gender"): https://archive.ph/2022.07.07-142246/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/05/magazine/on-language-goodbye-sex-hello-gender.html https://archive.ph/2022.07.07-142246/https://www.nytimes.com...

jcheng 4y ago
I've never heard that "gender" is a grammatical term only, it got me interested enough to search up the word in some older dictionaries. Webster's 1828: https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/gender https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/gender Webster's 1913: https://www.websters1913.com/words/Gender https://www.websters1913.com/words/Gender Both include "sex, male or female" as a definition; the 1913 marks it as "[Obs. or Colloq.]" while the 1828 does not.

drewcoo 4y ago

I remember being shocked in the 90s when I heard people applying a grammatical term, gender, to people's social/sexual expression. What's next, I thought, call infectious people "dative?" Anyway, I got used to it because it's a useful distinction when applied to people. I'm pretty sure in a 20th century dictionary you'll find gender was a purely grammatical term. And it was an uncommon word in English because all of our nouns are not gendered like so many other languages.

ksaj 4y ago
And what to think of languages like Swedish that have Masculine and Neuter, but not Feminine, and the fact that some languages don't even agree on what is a Masculine word and what is a Feminine word?
- orwin 4y ago
  That linguistics and language evolution is really interesting. Old french/vulgar latin had a neuter gender, which pronoun sounded a lot like the male pronoun, and with nominative ending who were the same. Hence male pronouns are the default pronouns.

hhho 4y ago

It's longer than that. As far as I am aware, sexologist John Money was the first to use the term in a sociological sense, in his 1955 paper Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism, where he wrote: "The term gender role is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not restricted to, sexuality in the sense of eroticism." Some decades on, he noted that the rationale for introducing the term was to "make it possible to write about people who came into one's office as either male or female, but of whom it could not be said that their sex role in the specific genital sense was either male or female insofar as they had a history of birth defect of the sex organs. The majority of people who contributed to this new meaning of gender were hermaphrodites or intersexes. To them, social science and social history overall owe a debt of gratitude."