Gender Role VS Sex Role

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Is there any differences between the terms "Gender Role" and "Sex Role." Please give some references.

-- Ham Tu (hamtu@thaimail.com), July 13, 2004

Answers

For a definitive account, you should look the terms up in a good dictionary of psychology. Different people use these terms somewhat differently. My understanding has been that "gender" is more or less equivalent to "sex role" (as opposed to "sex" simpliciter). "Gender role" would, thus, be redundant. As I say, though, the terms are used differently in different contexts.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), July 14, 2004.

Typically, the phrase "gender role" has a stronger social connotation than "sex role" which has a stronger biological emphasis.

-- John D. Hogan (hoganjohn@aol.com), July 15, 2004.

I agree that "sex" has a stronger biological connotation than "gender." But, I would argue, "sex *role*" does not. How could a "role" be anything other than social? This is why I suggested above that "sex role" and "gender" are approximately the same thing, whereas "gender role" sounds like someone trying to impress with excessive verbiage.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), July 15, 2004.

Hi, I checked the etymology of the term *role* in the American Heritage Dictionary (4th edition)and paraphrase the following results: Latin diminutive of wheel (rotula) to Old French (rolle) meaning a roll of parchment used in law or a list, and eventually a few hundred years ago taking on a theatrical meaning as the text used by actors to learn their part. Early on in its use it was then generalized from roles in the theater to roles people "play" outside the theater. I think that therefore the modern use of the term has an extremely strong connotation of learned socially expected behavior. Some uses of the term role, however, may lead to some misunderstanding. For instance, it is possible that some complex social behaviors are emotionally primed or have other preprogrammed aspects to them. These complex social behaviors may be partially shaped during evolutionary history, and then later refined during individual development, particularly by the influence of culturally learned roles. It is also possible that people may be simultaneously primed to more than one form (e.g., caring vs. neglect) of a particular type of behavior (e.g., maternal), depending on the environment (e.g., supportive vs. unsupportive). A person with an extremely strong envirnmental orientation may not agree with some of the later comments. I hope this helps. Paul

-- Paul Kleinginna (pkleinginna@georgiasouthern.edu), July 15, 2004.

We may not disagree at all, but let me make this final point. It is my understanding -- mostly from discussions with feminists -- that the phrase "gender role" is more likely to describe male/female activities that the culture defines, e.g., who should be the breadwinner, who should clean the house, who is the aggressive one. "Sex role" is more likely to describe functions that are dictated by biology, e.g., who has the baby.

-- John D. Hogan (hoganjohn@aol.com), July 16, 2004.


That's an interesting distinction, one worth making.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), July 16, 2004.

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