Feminists draw a sharp distinction between sex and gender. ‘Sex’ refers to biological differences between females and males which are natural and unalterable. ‘Gender’ is a cultural term which refers to the different roles that society ascribes to men and women. Gender differences are imposed through contrasting stereotypes of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’. Simone de Beauvoir summarised this with the line “women are made, not born”. This belief has had many implications for feminist theory.
Firstly they believe sex differences between men and women are minor and don’t justify gender distinctions. They therefore believe that human nature is androgynous so women shouldn’t be judged by their sex but as ‘persons’. The goal of feminism is therefore of genderless ‘personhood’.
Secondly, it has affected the ideas of liberal feminists. The first major feminist text by Wollstonecraft argued that women should be entitled to the same rights and privileges as men and the ‘distinction of sex’ would become unimportant in political and social life when the rights were attained.
In particular, the feminist ideas on sex and gender have affected the beliefs of radical feminists who believe gender differences are important in themselves and need to be understood in their own terms. Radical feminists believe the different roles of men and women have their origin or a process of ‘conditioning’ with boys and girls encouraged to conform to very specific gender identities. The oppression of women therefore originates in the family and female liberation thus requires a sexual revolution. This is also based on the assumption that human nature is androgynous.
The largest implication of sex and gender for feminist theory is arguably that they are the only ideology to place sex and gender as a supreme political idea. It therefore distinguishes feminism and makes it an ideology in its own right with its own set of individual ideas.
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