Editing Gender (section)

== Psychology and sociology ==
{{See also|Sex and psychology}}
Many of the more complicated human behaviors are influenced by both innate factors and by environmental ones, which include everything from genes, gene expression, and body chemistry, through diet and social pressures. A large area of research in [[behavioralism|behavioral psychology]] collates evidence in an effort to discover [[correlation]]s between behavior and various possible antecedents such as genetics, gene regulation, access to food and vitamins, culture, gender, hormones, physical and social development, and physical and social environments.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Landecker |first1=Hannah |last2=Panofsky |first2=Aaron |date=2013-07-30 |title=From Social Structure to Gene Regulation, and Back: A Critical Introduction to Environmental Epigenetics for Sociology |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145707 |journal=Annual Review of Sociology |language=en |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=333–357 |doi=10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145707 |issn=0360-0572}}</ref>

A core research area within sociology is the way human behavior operates on ''itself'', in other words, how the behavior of one group or individual influences the behavior of other groups or individuals. Starting in the late 20th century, the feminist movement has contributed extensive study of gender and theories about it, notably within sociology but not restricted to it.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Impact of Feminist Thought on Sociology |journal=Contemporary Sociology |date=May 1998 |last=England |first=Paula |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=263–268 |doi=10.2307/2654137 |jstor=2654137 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2654137.pdf |access-date=2021-02-14 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217115730/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2654137 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:La defensa de Zaragoza, por David Wilkie.jpg|thumb|300px|''[[The Defence of Saragossa]]'' by [[David Wilkie (artist)|David Wilkie]], 1828. Spain's desperate situation when invaded by [[Napoleon]] enabled [[Agustina de Aragón]] to break into a closely guarded male preserve and become the only female professional [[officer (military)|officer]] in the [[Spanish Army]] of her time (and long afterwards).]]
Social theorists have sought to determine the specific nature of gender in relation to biological sex and sexuality,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Little |first=William |date=2014-11-06 |chapter=Chapter 12. Gender, Sex, and Sexuality |title=Introduction to Sociology |url=https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter12-gender-sex-and-sexuality/ |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Mayer 2016 10–143">{{Cite journal |last1=Mayer |first1=Lawrence S. |last2=McHugh |first2=Paul R. |author-link2=Paul R. McHugh|date=2016 |title=Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43893424 |journal=[[The New Atlantis (journal)|The New Atlantis]] |issue=50 |pages=10–143 |jstor=43893424 |issn=1543-1215}}</ref> with the result being that culturally established gender and sex have become interchangeable identifications that signify the allocation of a specific 'biological' sex within a categorical gender.<ref name="Mayer 2016 10–143"/> The second wave feminist view that gender is socially constructed and hegemonic in all societies, remains current in some literary theoretical circles, [[Kira Hall]] and [[Mary Bucholtz]] publishing new perspectives as recently as 2008.<ref>{{Cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=6d37lDUcLYEC&pg=PP11 |title= Gender Articulated |access-date= 21 September 2008 |publisher= Routledge |isbn= 978-0-415-91399-7 |year= 1995 |archive-date= 11 April 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210411170315/https://books.google.com/books?id=6d37lDUcLYEC&pg=PP11 |url-status= live }}</ref>

As the child grows, "...society provides a string of prescriptions, templates, or models of behaviors appropriate to the one sex or the other,"<ref>Connell, R. (1987) ''Gender & Power''. Polity Press, Cambridge. {{ISBN|0-8047-1430-4}}.</ref> which socialises the child into belonging to a culturally specific gender.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ogli |first=Burxonov Baxodirjon Botirali |date=2020 |title=Gender Can Vary Across Related Languages |url=https://www.neliti.com/uk/publications/335712/ |journal=JournalNX |language=uk |volume=6 |issue=11 |pages=416–418}}</ref> There is huge incentive for a child to concede to their socialisation with gender shaping the individual's opportunities for education, work, family, sexuality, reproduction, authority,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | last= Satz | first= Debra | year= 2004 | url= https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-family/ | title= Feminist Perspectives on Reproduction and the Family | encyclopedia= Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | publisher= Stanford University | access-date= 6 February 2015 | archive-date= 21 July 2020 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200721024214/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-family/ | url-status= live }}</ref> and to make an impact on the production of culture and knowledge.<ref>Lorber, J & Farrell, S (eds.) (1990) ''The Social Construction of Gender''. Sage, Newbury Park. {{ISBN|0-8039-3956-6}}</ref> Adults who do not perform these ascribed roles are perceived from this perspective as deviant and improperly socialized.<ref>Wearing, B (1996). ''Gender: The Pain and Pleasure of Difference''. Longman, Melbourne {{ISBN|0-582-86903-X}}.</ref>

Some believe society is constructed in a way that splits gender into a dichotomy via social organisations that constantly invent and reproduce cultural images of gender. [[Joan Acker]] believed gendering occurs in at least five different interacting social processes:<ref>{{Cite journal|year=1990|title=Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations|url=https://www.csun.edu/~snk1966/J.%20Acker%20Hierarchies,%20Jobs,%20Bodies%20--%20A%20Theory%20of%20Gendered%20Organizations.pdf|journal=Gender & Society|volume=4|issue=2|pages=139–158|doi=10.1177/089124390004002002|jstor=189609|last1=Acker|first1=J.|citeseerx=10.1.1.693.1964|s2cid=40897237|access-date=28 August 2015|archive-date=4 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200204101405/https://www.csun.edu/~snk1966/J.%20Acker%20Hierarchies,%20Jobs,%20Bodies%20--%20A%20Theory%20of%20Gendered%20Organizations.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
* The construction of divisions along the lines of gender, such as those produced by labor, power, family, the state, even allowed behaviors and locations in physical space
* The construction of symbols and images such as language, ideology, dress and the media, that explain, express and reinforce, or sometimes oppose, those divisions
* Interactions between men and women, women and women and men and men that involve any form of dominance and submission. Conversational theorists, for example, have studied the way that interruptions, turn taking and the setting of topics re-create gender inequality in the flow of ordinary talk
* The way that the preceding three processes help to produce gendered components of individual identity, i.e., the way they create and maintain an image of a gendered self
* Gender is implicated in the fundamental, ongoing processes of creating and conceptualising social structures.

Looking at gender through a [[Foucauldian]] lens, gender is transfigured into a vehicle for the social division of power. Gender difference is merely a construct of society used to enforce the distinctions made between what is assumed to be female and male, and allow for the domination of masculinity over femininity through the attribution of specific gender-related characteristics.<ref>Deji, Olanike F. (2012) ''Gender Concepts and Theories''. Gender and Rural Development. Berlin: Lit. N.</ref> "The idea that men and women are more different from one another than either is from anything else, must come from something other than nature... far from being an expression of natural differences, exclusive gender identity is the suppression of natural similarities."<ref name=glover>Glover, D and Kaplan, C (2000) [https://books.google.com/books?id=2NLbiutayFoC ''Genders''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617191247/https://books.google.com/books?id=2NLbiutayFoC&printsec=frontcover |date=17 June 2020 }}, Routledge, New York {{ISBN|0-415-44243-5}}, p. xxi.</ref>

Gender conventions play a large role in attributing masculine and feminine characteristics to a fundamental biological sex.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | last= Mikkola | first= Mari | title= Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender | encyclopedia= The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | edition= Spring 2016 | editor-first= Edward N. | editor-last= Zalta | url= https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/feminism-gender/ | publisher= Stanford University | date= 12 May 2008 | access-date= 21 November 2016 | archive-date= 25 January 2020 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200125202352/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/feminism-gender/ | url-status= live }}</ref> Socio-cultural codes and conventions, the rules by which society functions, and which are both a creation of society as well as a constituting element of it, determine the allocation of these specific traits to the sexes. These traits provide the foundations for the creation of hegemonic gender difference. It follows then, that gender can be assumed as the acquisition and internalisation of social norms. Individuals are therefore socialized through their receipt of society's expectations of 'acceptable' gender attributes that are flaunted within institutions such as the family, the state and the media. Such a notion of 'gender' then becomes naturalized into a person's sense of self or identity, effectively imposing a gendered social category upon a sexed body.<ref name= glover />

The conception that people are gendered rather than sexed also coincides with Judith Butler's theories of [[gender performativity]]. Butler argues that gender is not an expression of what one is, but rather something that one does.<ref>{{Cite journal|year=1999|title=Performativity, Parody, Politics|journal=Theory, Culture & Society|volume=16|issue=2|pages=195–213|doi=10.1177/02632769922050476|last1=Lloyd|first1=M.|s2cid=145251297}}</ref> It follows then, that if gender is acted out in a repetitive manner it is in fact re-creating and effectively embedding itself within the social consciousness. Contemporary sociological reference to male and female gender roles typically uses ''masculinities'' and ''femininities'' in the plural rather than singular, suggesting diversity both within cultures as well as across them.

The difference between the sociological and popular definitions of gender involve a different dichotomy and focus. For example, the sociological approach to "gender" (social roles: female versus male) focuses on the difference in (economic/power) position between a male CEO (disregarding the fact that he is [[heterosexual]] or [[Homosexuality|homosexual]]) to female workers in his employ (disregarding whether they are straight or gay). However the popular sexual self-conception approach (self-conception: gay versus straight) focuses on the different self-conceptions and social conceptions of those who are gay/straight, in comparison with those who are straight (disregarding what might be vastly differing economic and power positions between female and male groups in each category). There is then, in relation to definition of and approaches to "gender", a tension between historic feminist sociology and contemporary homosexual sociology.<ref>{{cite journal|year=1994|title=The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender|journal=Sociological Theory|volume=12|issue=2|pages=203–219|doi=10.2307/201865|jstor=201865|author=Ingraham, Chrys|citeseerx=10.1.1.470.737}}</ref>