chapter 10 - sex, gender, and sexuality

**body consciousness**

how a person perceives and feels about their body.

**comparable worth**

(or *pay equity*): the belief that wages ought to reflect the worth of a job, not the gender or race of the worker.

**crossdresser**

a male who dresses as a woman or a female who dresses as a man but does not alter his or her genitalia.

**feminism**

the belief that men and women are equal and should be valued equally and have equal rights.

**gender**

the culturally and socially constructed differences between females and males found in the meanings, beliefs, and practices associated with “femininity” and “masculinity.”

**gender bias**

behavior that shows favoritism toward one gender over the other.

**gender identity**

a person’s perception of the self and their gender.

**gender role**

the attitudes, behavior, and activities that are socially defined as appropriate for each sex and that are learned through the socialization process.

**homophobia**

extreme prejudice and sometimes discriminatory actions directed at gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender persons, and others who are perceived as not being heterosexual.

**intersex person**

an individual who is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not correspond to the typical definitions of male or female; in other words, the person’s sexual differentiation is ambiguous.

**matriarchy**

a hierarchical system of social organization in which cultural, political, and economic structures are controlled by women.

**patriarchy**

a hierarchical system of social organization in which cultural, political, and economic structures are controlled by men.

**pay gap**

the disparity between women’s and men’s earnings.

**primary sex characteristics**

the genitalia used in the reproductive process.

**secondary sex characteristics**

the physical traits (other than reproductive organs) that identify an individual’s sex.

**sex**

the biological and anatomical differences between females and males.

**sexism**

the subordination of one sex, usually female, based on the assumed superiority of the other sex.

**sexual orientation**

an individual’s preference for emotional-sexual relationships with members of the different sex (heterosexual), the same sex (gay or lesbian), both sexes (bisexual), or neither sex (asexual).

**sexualization**

the act or processes whereby an individual or group is seen as sexual in nature or persons become aware of their sexuality.

**transgender person**

an individual whose gender identity (self-identification as woman, man, neither, or both) does not match the person’s assigned sex at birth (identification by others as male, female, or intersex based on physical/genetic sex).