Gender role in the context of "Masculinity"

Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other than their sex assigned at birth. Most cultures use a gender binary, in which gender is divided into two categories, and people are considered part of one or the other; those who are outside these groups may fall under the umbrella term non-binary. Some societies have third genders (and fourth genders, etc.) such as the hijras of South Asia and two-spirit persons native to North America. Most scholars agree that gender is a central characteristic for social organization; this may include social constructs (i.e. gender roles) as well as gender expression.

The word has been used as a synonym for sex, and the balance between these usages has shifted over time. In the mid-20th century, a terminological distinction in modern English (known as the sex and gender distinction) between biological sex and gender began to develop in the academic areas of psychology, sociology, sexology, and feminism. Before the mid-20th century, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories. In the West, in the 1970s, feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. The distinction between gender and sex is made by most contemporary social scientists in Western countries, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO. The experiences of intersex people also testify to the complexity of sex and gender; female, male, and other gender identities are experienced across the many divergences of sexual difference.

Heteronormativity is the definition of heterosexuality as the normative human sexuality. It assumes the gender binary (i.e., that there are only two distinct, opposite genders) and that sexual and marital relations are most fitting between people of the opposite sex.

Heteronormativity creates and upholds a social hierarchy based on sexual orientation with the practice and belief that heterosexuality is deemed as the societal norm. A heteronormative view, therefore, involves alignment of biological sex, sexuality, gender identity and gender roles. Heteronormativity has been linked to heterosexism and homophobia, and the effects of societal heteronormativity on lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals have been described as heterosexual or "straight" privilege.

Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term patriarchy is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in feminist theory to describe a broader social structure in which men as a group dominate society.

Sociologists generally contend that socialization processes are primarily responsible for establishing gender roles,and that gender roles and gender inequity are instruments of power and have become social norms to maintain control over women.Patriarchal ideology explains and rationalizes patriarchy by attributing gender inequality to inherent natural differences between men and women, divine commandment, or other fixed structures.

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy.

Feminist theory often focuses on analyzing gender inequality. Themes often explored in feminist theory include discrimination, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, patriarchy, stereotyping, art history and contemporary art, and aesthetics.

Human female sexuality encompasses a broad range of behaviors and processes, including female sexual identity and sexual behavior, the physiological, psychological, social, cultural, political, and spiritual or religious aspects of sexual activity. Various aspects and dimensions of female sexuality, as a part of human sexuality, have also been addressed by principles of ethics, morality, and theology. In almost any historical era and culture, the arts, including literary and visual arts, as well as popular culture, present a substantial portion of a given society's views on human sexuality, which includes both implicit (covert) and explicit (overt) aspects and manifestations of feminine sexuality and behavior.

In most societies and legal jurisdictions, there are legal bounds on what sexual behavior is permitted. Sexuality varies across the cultures and regions of the world, and has continually changed throughout history, and this also applies to female sexuality. Aspects of female sexuality include issues pertaining to body image, self-esteem, personality, sexual orientation, values and attitudes, gender roles, relationships, activity options, and communication.

Third gender or third sex is an identity recognizing individuals categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither a man nor a woman. Many gender systems around the world include three or more genders, deriving the concept either from the traditional, historical recognition of such individuals or from its modern development in the LGBTQ community, which can include third gender people as a non-binary identity. The term third is usually understood to mean "other", though some societies use the concept to encompass fourth and fifth genders.

The state of personally identifying as, or being identified by society as, a man, a woman, or other is usually also defined by the individual's gender identity and gender role in the particular culture in which they live.

Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the individual's gender identity. Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity, but this is not always the case. While a person may express behaviors, attitudes, and appearances consistent with a particular gender role, such expression may not necessarily reflect their gender identity. The term gender identity was coined by psychiatry professor Robert J. Stoller in 1964 and popularized by psychologist John Money.

In most societies, there is a basic division between gender attributes associated with males and females, a gender binary to which most people adhere and which includes expectations of masculinity and femininity in all aspects of sex and gender: biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. Some people do not identify with some, or all, of the aspects of gender associated with their biological sex; some of those people are transgender, non-binary, or genderqueer. Some societies have third gender categories.

While in ordinary speech, the terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably, in contemporary academic literature, the terms often have distinct meanings, especially when referring to people. Sex generally refers to an organism's assigned biological sex, while gender usually refers to either social roles typically associated with the sex of a person (gender role) or personal identification of one's own gender based on their own personal sense of it (gender identity).

Most contemporary social scientists, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO make a distinction between gender and sex. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and sex is consistent with the individual's gender identity, but in rare circumstances, an individual's assigned sex and gender do not align, and the person may be transgender.

Humanitarianism is an ideology centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional reasons.

One aspect involves voluntary emergency aid overlapping with human rights advocacy, actions taken by governments, development assistance, and domestic philanthropy. Other critical issues include correlation with religious beliefs, motivation of aid between altruism, market affinity, social controlimperialism and neo-colonialism, gender and class relations, and humanitarian agencies. A practitioner is known as a humanitarian.