Gender - Etymology and Usage

Etymology and Usage

The modern English word gender comes from the Middle English gendre, a loanword from Norman-conquest-era Old French. This, in turn, came from Latin genus. Both words mean "kind", "type", or "sort". They derive ultimately from a widely attested Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root gen-, which is also the source of kin, kind, king, and many other English words. Most uses of derivatives of this root in Indo-European languages refer either directly to what pertains to birth (for example pre-gn-ant) or, by extension, to natural, innate qualities and their consequent social distinctions (for example gentry, generation, gentile, genocide and eugenics). It appears in Modern French in the word genre (type, kind, also genre sexuel) and is related to the Greek root gen- (to produce), appearing in gene, genesis, and oxygen.

The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED1, Volume 4, 1900) notes the original meaning of gender as "kind" had already become obsolete.

Gender (dʒe'ndəɹ), sb. Also 4 gendre.
†1. Kind, sort, class; also, genus as opposed to species. The general gender: the common sort (of people). Obs.
13.. E.E.Allit. P. P. 434 Alle gendrez so ioyst wern ioyned wyth-inne. c 1384 C H. Fame* 1. 18 To knowe of hir signifiaunce The gendres. 1398 T Barth. De P. K. . xxix. (1495) 34I Byshynynge and lyghte ben dyuers as species and gendre, for suery shinyng is lyght, but not ayenwarde. 1602 S. Ham. . vii. 18 The great loue the generall gender beare him. 1604—Oth. . iii. 326 Supplie it with one gender of Hearbes, or distract it with many. 1643 and so on.

The word was still widely attested, however, in the specific sense of grammatical gender (the assignment of nouns to categories such as masculine, feminine and neuter). According to Aristotle, this concept was introduced by the Greek philosopher Protagoras.

τὰ γένη τῶν ὀνομάτων ἄρρενα καὶ θήλεα καὶ σκεύη The classes (genē) of the nouns are males, females and things. The Technique of Rhetoric III v

In 1926, Henry Watson Fowler recommended that the word be restricted to this grammar-related meaning only:

"Gender...is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons...of the masculine or feminine g, meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."

However examples of the use of gender to refer to masculinity and femininity as types are found throughout the history of Modern English (from about the 14th century).

• 1387–8: No mo genders been there but masculine, and femynyne, all the remnaunte been no genders but of grace, in facultie of grammar—Thomas Usk, The Testament of Love II iii (Walter William Skeat) 13.
• c. 1460: Has thou oght written there of the femynyn gendere?—Towneley Mystery Plays xxx 161 Act One.
• 1632: Here's a woman! The soul of Hercules has got into her. She has a spirit, is more masculine Than the first gender—Shackerley Marmion, Holland's Leaguer III iv.
• 1658: The Psyche, or soul, of Tiresias is of the masculine gender—Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia.
• 1709: Of the fair sex ... my only consolation for being of that gender has been the assurance it gave me of never being married to any one among them—Mary Wortley Montagu, Letters to Mrs Wortley lxvi 108.
• 1768: I may add the gender too of the person I am to govern—Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.
• 1859: Black divinities of the feminine 'gender —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
• 1874: It is exactly as if there were a sex in mountains, and their contours and curves and complexions were here all of the feminine gender—Henry James, 'A Chain of Italian Cities', The Atlantic Monthly 33 (February, p. 162.)
• 1892: She was uncertain as to his gender—Robert Grant, 'Reflections of a Married Man', Scribner's Magazine 11 (March, p. 376.)
• 1896: As to one's success in the work one does, surely that is not a question of gender either—Daily News 17 July.
• c. 1900: Our most lively impression is that the sun is there assumed to be of the feminine gender—Henry James, Essays on Literature.

As a verb, gender means "breed" in the King James Bible:

Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind —Leviticus 19:19, 1616

The modern academic sense of the word, in the context of social roles of men and women, dates from the work of John Money (1955), and was popularized and developed by the feminist movement from the 1970s onwards (see Feminism theory and gender studies below). The theory was that human nature is essentially epicene and social distinctions based on sex are arbitrarily constructed. Matters pertaining to this theoretical process of social construction were labelled matters of gender.

The popular use of gender simply as an alternative to sex (as a biological category) is also widespread, although attempts are still made to preserve the distinction. The American Heritage Dictionary (2000) uses the following two sentences to illustrate the difference, noting that the distinction "is useful in principle, but it is by no means widely observed, and considerable variation in usage occurs at all levels."

The effectiveness of the medication appears to depend on the sex (not gender) of the patient.
In peasant societies, gender (not sex) roles are likely to be more clearly defined.

In the last two decades of the 20th century, the use of gender in academia increased greatly, outnumbering uses of sex in the social sciences. While the spread of the word in science publications can be attributed to the influence of feminism, its use as a euphemism for sex is attributed to the failure to grasp the distinction made in feminist theory, and the distinction has sometimes become blurred with the theory itself. A recent Publication by the Australian Human Rights Commission on "sexual orientation and gender identity" uses "sex and/or gender identity" as a broad term to refer to diverse sex and/or gender identities and expressions, including being "transgender, trans, transsexual and intersex. It also includes being androgynous, agender, a cross dresser, a drag king, a drag queen, genderfluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, a third gender, and a third sex. It also includes culturally specific terms, such as sistergirl and brotherboy, which are used by some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples."

Among the reasons that working scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use a more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation—David Haig, The Inexorable Rise of Gender and the Decline of Sex.