The WHO’s Definition of Gender: A Conceptual Analysis
Does the World Health Organization’s definition spur progress or create confusion?
One of the most pressing and contentious cultural conversations of our time is now tied to a series of concepts: gender identity, gender fluidity, the gender spectrum, transgenderism, gender roles, and gender non-conformity, etc.
We use these terms all of the time as if we know exactly what they mean.
But do we?
I ask because none of these concepts can make sense if we can’t first define the concept from which they all derive: the concept of gender itself. And I have yet to observe anything resembling a consensus on its meaning.
So what is it?
Usage of sex and gender is by no means settled. For example, while discrimination was far more often paired with sex from the 1960s through the 20th century and into the 21st, the phrase gender discrimination has been steadily increasing in use since the 1980s and is on track to become the dominant collocation. Currently both terms are sometimes employed with their intended synonymy made explicit: sex/gender discrimination, gender (sex) discrimination
