OK. Gender is this entry's focus. Let's first clarify what it means:
- A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.
- Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture.
- ORIGIN: [Middle English gendre, from Old French, kind, gender, from Latin genus, gener-; see genə- in Indo-European roots.]
- Usage Note: Traditionally, gender has been used primarily to refer to the grammatical categories of "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter," but in recent years the word has become well established in its use to refer to sex-based categories, as in phrases such as gender gap and the politics of gender. This usage is supported by the practice of many anthropologists, who reserve sex for reference to biological categories, while using gender to refer to social or cultural categories.
OK, hope to get you thinking!
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Enzo