Stephen Black writes: >The long-established and respected journal _Sex Roles_ has >a problem. It's its name. It seems that "sex" implies biology and >"gender" implies environment. They like "gender" (and >environmental explanations) better. So they have a >long-standing policy of advising their authors to use "gender" >in place of "sex". They don't want to change this. […] http://www.springerlink.com/content/370k176450144264/fulltext.html
According to a link in the editorial in question, the distinction between sex and gender "began with John Money and his colleagues in the 1950s (Money et al. 1955a, b, 1957); they used the term sex to refer to individuals’ physical characteristics and the term gender to refer to individuals’ psychological characteristics and behavior." http://www.springerlink.com/content/v158775117jl6208 (Money, of course, is now notorious for acting on his belief that male/female behaviours were *entirely* culturally determined.) A seminal [sic] article from 1979 is also cited in which the difference between the terms is spelled out as follows: "The term 'gender' is introduced for those characteristics and traits socioculturally considered appropriate to males and females." http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/34/11/1085/ Also referenced is an article from 2007 with the title: "The subtleties of meaning: Still arguing after all these years." I find this title surprising, as it seems to me that battle has been virtually over for some time, and "gender" has won the day. In fact so much so that it has gone beyond the aims of the original advocates in that the original distinction (which remains of crucial importance for extreme cultural determinists, of which there are still some in academic circles) has been lost in everyday (or at least journalists'!) vocabulary, where "gender differences" has replaced "sex differences" regardless of the writer's beliefs about the predominant origins of such differences. An obvious example is that forms/questionnaires invariably (in my experience) ask for one's gender when in the past they would have asked for one's sex, hardly a sociocultural distinction. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org ----------------------------------------------------- From: sbl...@ubishops.ca Subject: Sex roles Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:05:27 -0400 The long-established and respected journal _Sex Roles_ has a problem. It's its name. It seems that "sex" implies biology and "gender" implies environment. They like "gender" (and environmental explanations) better. So they have a long-standing policy of advising their authors to use "gender" in place of "sex". They don't want to change this. What they do want to change is the journal's name, out of fear that people might (heaven forfend!) think they endorse the idea that biology matters in sex. Alas, their publisher tells them that changing the name of a 35-year-old journal has consequences, all bad. So this new editorial explains that although they'd really, really like to do it, they're not gonna. I feel their pain. Frieze, I, and Chrisler, J. (2011). Editorial policy on the use of the terms "sex" and "gender". _Sex Roles_, published on-line May 21. http://www.springerlink.com/content/370k176450144264/fulltext.html Stephen -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=11028 or send a blank email to leave-11028-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
