Hesperian Health Guides
Sex and Gender
How we think of ourselves or feel inside determines our gender. Someone may feel themselves to be (identify as) a woman, a man, or another nonbinary gender. Many people assume that those who are recognized as âfemaleâ at birth will live as girls and grow up to be women, and those who are recognized as âmaleâ at birth will live as boys and grow up to be men. But this is not true for everyone. Someone who is âfemaleâ sex at birth may think of themselves as a boy and then as a man. This may affect how they look, act, and dress, which may not agree with what their community expects. Someone whose gender is not what is expected based on their sex is a transgender person.
Gender roles are the behaviors a community expects from each person based on their sex. Each community expects men and women to look, think, feel, and act in certain waysâsimply because they are women or men. For example, women may be expected to prepare food, gather water and fuel, and care for their homes and families. They should be attracted to men, and want a partner and children. Men have a different set of expectations. The truth is, gender roles narrow everyoneâs choices.
Each community creates its own gender roles, depending on traditions, laws, and religion. Gender roles often vary within communities, based on social status, race, or age. In some communities, for example, most women are expected to do domestic work, while women with higher status have more choice about their work.
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In most communities, the way people dress and the work they do is based on their gender. These are part of their gender roles. |  |
How gender roles are learned
Almost from birth, parents and others treat girls and boys differently, often without realizing they do so. Children learn from everything, noticing how they are treated, how other people act and are treated, and everyoneâs roles in the community. As children grow up, they accept these roles and the ways power works in their community as âthe way things are.â This includes the gender roles passed from adults to children.
As the world changes, gender roles also change. Many young people want to live differently than their elders, and they understand that sexual health depends upon changing harmful beliefs about gender. Changing gender roles may be difficult, but it is necessary.
How gender roles cause harm
Fulfilling the roles expected by the community can be satisfying and give a sense of pride and belonging. But gender roles also limit peopleâs choices, valuing women less than men, and causing everyoneâthe woman herself, her family, and her communityâto suffer. In most communities, women are expected to be wives and mothers.
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Some women find this satisfying and enjoy the status it gives them. Other women would rather follow other interests and develop other skills, but they are not given this choice. A woman with many children is less able to learn new skills or go to school. Most of her time and energy will be spent taking care of the needs of others. If a woman is unable to have children, her community may value her less.
Most communities value menâs work, and pay more for it, than womenâs work. A woman may work outside the home all dayâand then cook, clean, and care for her children at home at night. But because her husbandâs work is considered more important, she is careful about his restâ not her own. Her children will grow up thinking menâs work and menâs needs are more important.
Women are often considered more emotional than men, and they are freer to express these emotions with others. Men are often taught that showing emotions like fear, sadness, or tenderness is âunmanly.â Or they express their feelings only in angry or violent ways. Children grow to feel more distant from their fathers, and men are less able to get support from others for their problems.
Women are often discouraged from speakingâor forbidden to attend or speakâat community meetings. This means the community only hears what men thinkâtheir views of problems and solutions. The whole community suffers when womenâs knowledge and experience is left out of the discussion.
People who have sex with someone of the same gender (homosexuals) are sometimes made to feel like outcasts in their own communities. Even if they are respected in other ways, they may be forced to live and love in secrecy and shame. Fear or lack of understanding of people in these relationships often results in physical violence against them. When a person is made to feel afraid or ashamed about who they are, it harms the personâs physical and mental health.
Transgender people, who may not live within a communityâs gender role expectations, often struggle for acceptance, rights, safety from violence, and access to care and resources.