Gender, for the purposes of this article, is the perceived or projected (self-identified) masculinity or femininity of a person. A person's gender is complex, encompassing countless characteristics of appearance, speech, movement and other factors not solely limited to biological sex. A bagpiper in military uniform. ... A bagpiper in Scottish military uniform. ... This article is about sex, meaning the different sexes; male, female, etc. ...

Societies tend to have binary gender systems in which everyone is categorized as male or female, but this is not universal. Some societies include a third gender role; for instance, the Native American Two-Spirit people and the hijras of India. In mathematics and computer science, the binary (base_two) numeral system is a representation for numbers that uses only zeroes and ones as digits. ... Male is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces sperm. ... Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces egg cells. ... Berdache (from French, from Arabic bardajo meaning kept boy) is a generic term used by some for a third gender (woman-living-man) among many, if not most, Native American tribes. ... In South Asian culture (the culture of the Indian subcontinent), a hijra is a person belonging to a group that is often called the third sex (or gender) of India. ...

There is debate over to what extent gender is a social construct and to what extent it is a biological construct. At the extremes of these views you have constructionism which suggests that it is entirely a social construct and essentialism which suggests that it's entirely a biological construct. Social scientists and literary scholars have claimed that many things are social constructions or social constructs, or that they have been socially constructed. ... Social constructionism is a school of thought introduced into sociology by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann with their 1966 book on The Social Construction of Reality. ... Social scientists and literary scholars have claimed that many things are social constructions or social constructs, or that they have been socially constructed. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Gender associations are constantly changing as society progresses. For example, the color pink was considered masculine in the early 1900s and is now seen as feminine.

See also

• gender identity
• gender role
• queer studies
• list of transgender-related topics
• Queer
• homosexuality
• transgender
• stereotype
• third gender
• androgyny

In sociology, gender identity describes the gender with which a person identifies (i. ... A bagpiper in Scottish military uniform. ... Queer studies is the study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity. ... Transgender is a very complex topic, where definitions are often still shifting. ... Queer has traditionally meant strange or unusual, but is most often used in reference to lesbians, gay men, bisexual women and men, and other sexual minorities. ... Homosexuality may refer to: A sexual orientation characterized by aesthetic attraction, romantic love, and sexual desire exclusively or almost exclusively for members of the same sex or gender identity. ... Transgender is generally used as a catch-all umbrella term for a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups centered around the full or partial reversal of gender roles; however, compare other definitions below. ... For the term used in Computing, see Stereotype (computing). ... Third gender was used from the late 19th century to describe people who did not fit into the then existing gender categories: female genitalia = female identity = female behavior = desire male partner male genitalia = male identity = male behavior = desires female partner Today this scheme is also known as binary gender system... Androgyny refers to two concepts. ...

External links

• Gender and Poverty (http://topics.developmentgateway.org/poverty/rc/BrowseContent.do~source=RCContentUser~folderId=3336)
• WikEd - Gender Inequities in the Classroom (http://moodle.ed.uiuc.edu/wiked/index.php/Gender_Inequities_in_the_Classroom)
• WikEd - Gender Differences (http://moodle.ed.uiuc.edu/wiked/index.php/Gender_Differences)