Gender refers to sociocultural norms, identities, and relations that: 1) structure societies and organizations; and 2) shape behaviors, products, technologies, environments, and knowledges (Schiebinger, 1999). Gender attitudes and behaviors are complex and change across time and place. Importantly, gender is multidimensional (Hyde et al., 2018) and intersects with other social categories, such as sex, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and ethnicity (see Intersectional Approaches). Gender is distinct from sex (Fausto-Sterling, 2012).

Three Related Dimensions of Gender:
As social beings, humans function through learned behaviors. How we speak, our mannerisms, the things we use, and our behaviors all signal who we are and establish rules for interaction. Gender is one such set of organizing principles that structure behaviors, attitudes, physical appearance, and habits.

1. Gender Norms are produced through social institutions (such as families, schools, workplaces, laboratories, universities or boardrooms), social interactions (such as between romantic partners, work colleagues, or family members), and wider cultural products (such as textbooks, literature, film and video games).

• ●  Gender norms refer to social and cultural attitudes and expectations about which behaviors, preferences, products, professions or knowledges are appropriate for women, men and gender-diverse individuals, and may influence the development of science and technology.
• ●   Gender norms draw upon and reinforce gender stereotypes about women, men and gender-diverse individuals.
• ● Gender norms may be reinforced by unequal distribution of resources and discrimination in the workplace, families and other institutions.
• ●   Gender norms are constantly in flux. They change by historical era, culture or location, such as the 1950s versus the 2020s, Korea versus Germany, or urban versus rural areas. Gender also differs by specific social contexts, such as work versus home.

2. Gender Identities refer to how individuals or groups perceive and present themselves in relation to gender norms. Gender identities may be context-specific and interact with other identities, such as ethnicity, class or cultural heritage.

3. Gender Relations refer to how we interact with people and institutions in the world around us, based on our sex and our gender identity. Gender relations encompass how gender shapes social interactions in families, schools, workplaces and public settings, for instance, the power relation between a man patient and woman physician.

• ●Social divisions of labor are another important aspect of gender relations, where women and men are concentrated in different types of (paid or unpaid) activities. One consequence of such gender segregation is that particular occupations or disciplines become marked symbolically with the (presumed) gender category of the larger group: for example, nursing is seen as a female profession, engineering as male.

Rerference

Aultman, B. (2014). Cisgender. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 1 (1-2), 61-62.

Fausto-Sterling, A. (2012). The Dynamic Development of Gender Variability. Journal of Homosexuality, 59, 398-421.

Fausto-Sterling, A. (2012). Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World. New York: Routledge.

Hyde, J. S., Bigler, R. S., Joel, D., Tate, C. C., & van Anders, S. M. (2018). The future of sex and gender in psychology: Five challenges to the gender binary. American Psychologist, 74(2), 171-193.

Kessler, S. (1990). The Medical Construction of Gender: Case Management of Intersexed Infants. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 16 (1), 3-25.

Marshall, Z., Welch, V., Minichiello, A., Swab, M., Brunger, F., & Kaposy, C. (2019). Documenting Research with Transgender, Nonbinary, and Other Gender Diverse (Trans) Individuals and Communities: Introducing the Global Trans Research Evidence Map. Transgender health, 4(1), 68-80.

Nielsen, M.W., Peragine, D., Neilands, T. B., Stefanick, M.L., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Pilote, L., Prochaska, J. J., Cullen, M. R., Einstein, G., Klinge, I., LeBlanc, H., Paik, H. Y., Risvedt, S., & Schiebinger, L. (2020), Gender-Related Variables for Health Research, in press.

Ridgeway, Cecilia L., & Correll, Shelley J. (2004). Unpacking the gender system: a theoretical perspective on gender beliefs and social relations. Gender & Society, 18. 510-5.

Scandurra, C., Mezza, F., Maldonato, N. M., Bottone, M., Bochicchio, V., Valerio, P., & Vitelli, R. (2019). Health of non-binary and genderqueer people: A systematic review. Frontiers in psychology, 10.

Schiebinger, L. (1999). Has Feminism Changed Science? Cambridge: Harvard University Press