JMajors wrote: Check out this link.....I believe it is humans and it is related to the GENDER not the SEX of the human. Read it, very interesting.
http://www.learner.org/courses/biology/units/gender/experts/vilain.html
OH YEAH, look at "How do you study gender? " section
Exactly (from your link - and an excellent link it is): "Studying gender is complicated: first because there is no animal model for it. You have to study humans."
There is more politics than science involved with this particular term (if you like, search for
operational definitions of gender in research). In the life sciences `gender' is most often substituted for `sex', in social sciences the definitions are often just what one likes (making it hard to replicate/falsify).
This is an interesting take on the situation:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss18/charlesworth.shtml
From the link:
"Perhaps the most fundamental problem with the strategy of gender mainstreaming is that it rests on an insipid and bland concept of gender that has little cutting edge. In some contexts, the U.N. has followed the second wave of feminist thought in drawing a clear distinction between the concepts of sex and gender.[85] It has thus defined sex as a matter of biology and gender as the constructed meaning of sex, and the designation of social roles.[86]
This distinction has now come under scrutiny from feminist scholars, who have questioned whether the category of sex can be regarded as natural and uncontentious.[87]" (italics mine).
An example of research in which `sex' is replaced by `gender,' and it muddies the issue (download the pdf and replace every instance of `gender' with `sex').
http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/286/1/191
So, yes, I `understand' what the teacher
meant to say but (as suggested by
Patandchickens), The Big Book of Hyena
gender? I think not. I'm simply reminded of other words used in science that lacked operative clarity:
