Conceptual origin
Contenido
Resulta complejo determinar la evolución teórica del término «género» en las ciencias sociales, expresión derivada del anglicismo gender[21] que tradicionalmente —al igual que su homólogo en español con el que comparte el mismo origen etimológico desde el latín "Latín (idioma)") genus— tenía un sentido puramente gramatical.[22][23].
La categoría de género tendría sus raíces en los debates antropológicos y sociológicos de la primera mitad del siglo que indicaban que la conducta humana era aprendida y no se encontraba predefinida por los genes,[21] mientras que la inserción del concepto dentro del campo de las ciencias sociales sería posterior.[24] Tales debates precedieron a la «medicalización del sexo» ocurrido aproximadamente entre 1885-1910,[25] fase donde apareció «una nueva forma de entender y hablar sobre la sexualidad humana»,[26] perspectiva nueva que se alejaba de los juicios meramente prácticos de los actos sexuales —descendencia, placer, lo socialmente aceptable—, y que nacía conjuntamente con la psicología y psiquiatría, por lo que las voces autorizadas para hablar de sexualidad provenían del mundo médico.[27] Fue en esta época donde se comenzó a utilizar los términos tales como «homosexual» y «heterosexual».[26].
Ya antes Francis Galton había hecho su aporte al debate tras publicar English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture en 1874, texto que instalaría un tema recurrente en el ámbito de las ciencias sociales en cuanto a los roles de los determinantes biológicos de la conducta de cualquier individuo comparados con los aprendidos —natura-nurtura (naturaleza versus crianza)— y que le daría sentido en décadas posteriores a los estudios de género.[28][29].
Desde la antropología, Margaret Mead sería una de las pioneras en abordar en términos generales la temática en las ciencias sociales al publicar en 1928 Coming of age in Samoa: A study of adolescence and sex in primitive society, texto donde aborda las implicancias culturales detrás de la noción de lo que posteriormente sería género. En 1935, lanzaría Sexo y temperamento en tres sociedades primitivas[30] en donde describe los roles sociales y características del comportamiento de varones y mujeres en tres sociedades de Nueva Guinea: los arapesh"), los mundugumor") y los tchambuli (o chambri). Las dos primeras tienen en común que no existen diferencias sociales entre varones y mujeres.
El trabajo de Mead sugirió que no existía correspondencia natural estricta entre sexo y temperamento, por lo que se alejaba a la tradición antropológica de la época que la daba por cierta;[31] luego, algunos indican que la contribución de Mead al concepto «género» se encontraría en la idea de que el comportamiento de un individuo y sus diferencias en cuanto al sexo de pertenencia puede variar en función de ciertas circunstancias específicas o la propia cultura.[32] Los estudios y conclusiones de Margaret Mead sobre la relación entre cultura y naturaleza han influenciado en parte los estudios sociales y particularmente los estudios del rol de género;[33] las críticas de Derek Freeman") al trabajo de Mead no han sido compartidas o han sido consideradas exageradas por la mayoría de la comunidad científica.[34].
Los trabajos de John Money y Robert Stoller se abocaron a formalizar las distinciones existentes entre los constructos "Constructo (psicología)") «sexo» y «género», dentro la sexología, realizando para ello tanto un análisis de sus mecanismos biológicos como de las influencias culturales involucradas, utilizando el término «género».[35][36].
John Money
The distinction between the medicalized "sex" and the category "gender" appeared in the second half of the century. One of the first authors who would have used such a term in a sense other than the grammatical one was the controversial psychologist John Money, who from the mid-1950s introduced numerous meanings related to gender in articles in specialized magazines, many of them as a result of his studies on hermaphroditism.[37].
The first of his works in which the term appeared was Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism: Psychological findings from 1955, where he referred to topical behaviors associated with the masculine or feminine identity of people, where sociobiological factors would intervene.[38][39].
Robert Stoller
Later in 1963, Robert Stoller introduced the sex/gender distinction at the 23rd International Psychoanalytic Congress in Stockholm after searching for "a word to diagnose those people who, although they had a male body, felt like women",[41][42] in order to clarify the concept of gender identity with respect to the term sexual identity, which in his opinion was more ambiguous.[43] Part of Ralph Greenson's vision would have influenced the Stollerian conception.[24].
The fundamental thesis behind this author is that "there is no biunivocal and inevitable dependence between genders and sexes, and on the contrary, their development can take independent paths";[44] so his work delved into those psychological aspects and the environment of an individual, making one of the first sex/gender distinctions within Freudian theory.[38].
Feminism and gender studies
The rise of feminist studies in the 1970s[42] began to promote the term gender in the Anglo-Saxon world[45] from a specific point of view: social and cultural differences, as opposed to the biological differences between men and women; Here you can find the works of Kate Millett, Germaine Greer, Ann Oakley and Nancy Chodorow, among others.[46] The use of the term "gender" also became widespread a decade later in the Spanish feminist world, especially with a social and cultural sense.[47].
Kate Millett was one of the radical feminists of the 70s, who in her book Sexual Politics analyzes sexuality, politics and gender from a biological, sociological, anthropological, economic, mythological and literary point of view, among others. For Millet, sex is biological and gender is a social construct. The human female is raised to be "feminine" and the human male to be "masculine." She is considered one of the authors who has defined the term gender in the clearest and most precise way as "that social construct that is 'made' about a specific sex, naturalizing qualities and aspects that are believed to be necessarily linked to said sex." For Millett, gender is the result of a cultural construction and he considers that cultural factors influence a universal socialization that shapes the behaviors of men and women.[48].
Sex distinction
In 1945, Madison Bentley defined gender as the "socialized obverse of sex." Simone de Beauvoir's 1949 book, The Second Sex, has been interpreted as the beginning of the distinction between sex and gender in feminist theory, although this interpretation is disputed.
Sexologist John Money coined the term gender role and was the first to use it in print in a scientific journal. In a fundamental article from 1955 he defined it as "all those things that a person says or does that reveal that he or she has the status of a boy or a man, a girl or a woman.
The modern academic sense of the word, in the context of the social roles of men and women, dates back to at least 1945, and was popularized and developed by the feminist movement beginning in the 1970s (see Feminist Theory and Gender Studies below). ), which theorizes that human nature is essentially epicene and social distinctions based on sex are arbitrarily constructed. In this context, the issues related to this theoretical process of social construction were called gender issues.
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 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.
Judith Butler
Judith Butler, on the contrary, maintains that not only gender is a social construct, but so is sex. For this reason, towards the 1980s the idea of gender detached from its biological basis, that is, sex, began to be promoted. According to Butler, gender is not a category with a stable and fixed meaning but is performative, that is, it comes into existence to the extent that a set of acts materialize it. In this way, gender has no essence or ontological status. You can change both sex and gender. Furthermore, Butler points out that gender is not limited to only two possibilities (feminine-masculine) nor can it be ordered according to heterosexual normativity.[49][50].
Judith Butler[51] publishes the book Gender in Dispute (1990) where she is based on the discourse that gender is a discursive reality without normative purpose and without a biological basis that systematically creates fluid or apparent identities.
Butler's contributions managed to gain ground towards the dismantling of the sex/gender system. In this sense, the matrix of intelligibility that Butler demarcates as heterosexual, determines that a human being always corresponds to a gender, and that this belonging occurs by virtue of their sex.[53] His ideas gave rise to the so-called queer theory, in which it is maintained that not only gender but also sex can be chosen.