Sex is the physical difference that defines the intersexes, females, and males. Through the physiological characteristics, someone’s sex can be determined through their chromosome composition or genitalia. Sex is a biological set of animals’ attributes; other means of sex identification include gene expression and hormone levels. On the other hand, gender refers to how people identify themselves with socially constructed roles in society.
Society expects specific roles to be performed by males and females (Little et al., 2014). Due to this role distribution, gender influences people’s behavior, actions, interaction, and distribution of power and resources. Gender roles vary from one community to the other and may not be the same in different societies. Culture refers to the concepts, customs, social behaviors, and attitudes that are upheld and exist within a given group of people. These cultural practices are always passed from one generation to another, and they dictate the roles performed by different gender in society.
In some traditional cultures, women were believed to be gentle, dependent, and weak, while men were perceived as tough, independent, and energetic. Societies, therefore, distributed the roles based on these labels to ensure fairness in roles allocation. Therefore, the role of protection could not be assigned to the weak but the energetic gender. Females were considered home caregivers because they spent more time cleaning the compound and dishes (Little et al., 2014).
Culture dictates how a given gender is viewed, the amount of power and resources, and their roles in society. Culture specifies which roles to be played by males and females; the gender perceived to be superior is assigned to more demanding or complicated roles. Culture outlines gender perceptions and based on those perceptions, society generates gender roles.
Reference
Little, W., Vyain, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Cody-Rydzewski, S., Griffiths, H., Strayer, E., & Keirns, N. (2014). Introduction to sociology. BC Campus Publishers.