Gender role

In the social sciences and humanities, a gender role is a set of behavioral norms associated with males and with females, respectively, in a given social group or system. Gender is one component of the gender/sex system, which refers to "the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed needs are satisfied" (Reiter 1975: 159). Every known society has a gender/sex system, although the components and workings of this system vary widely from society to society.

Notes and references

• {{fnb|1}} Talcott Parsons: Family Socialization and Interaction Process, New York 1955.
• {{fnb|2}} Wolfgang Schulz: Einführung in die Soziologie, Vienna 1989, p. 288.
• {{fnb|3}} Brockhaus: Enzyklopädie der Psychologie, 2001.
• {{fnb|4}} Connell, Robert William: Gender and Power, Cambridge: University Press 1987.
• {{fnb|5}} Franco-German TV station ARTE, Karambolage, August 2004.
• {{fnb|6}} According to John Money, in the case of androgen-induced transsexual status, "The clitoris becomes hypertrophied so as to become a penile clitoris with incomplete fusion and a urogenital sinus, or, if fusion is complete, a penis with urethra and an empty scrotum" (see Gay, Straight, and In-Between, p. 31). At ovarian puberty, "menstruation through the penis" begins (op. cit., p. 32). In the case of the adrenogenital syndrome, hormonal treatment could bring about "breast growth and menstruation through the penis" (op. cit., p. 34). In one case an individual was born with a fully formed penis and empty scrotum. At the age of puberty that person's own physician provided treatment with cortisol. "His breasts developed and heralded the approach of first menstruation, through the penis".