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Gender

What does 'Gender' mean? Clear definitions, real examples and a short video, explained by a British English teacher.

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What does ‘Gender’ mean?

In everyday speech we use gender to refer to the different sexes. Gender can be male or female when used to describe animals or humans. We can also talk about gender from a sociological point of view. Here it distinguishes the roles that society deems appropriate for men and those suitable for women.

“From the scan we should be able to tell (distinguish) the gender of your baby”.
“From birth children are subjected to gender stereotyping”.
“The ancient Greeks ascribed genders to nouns, so that they could be masculine, feminine, or neuter. Today in grammatically gender can be used for nouns, pronouns and occasionally other parts of speech. In English there are a number of nouns and pronouns which have gender. The nouns are generally used to talk about male or female gender for people or animals, however sometimes objects can also be ascribed gender”.
“Pronouns: He, she, it, him, her, his, hers, its”.
“Nouns referring to people: Wife, husband, bride, groom, boy, girl, son, daughter, king, queen, duke, duchess, master, mistress, waiter, waitress, spokesman, spokeswoman, spokesperson”.
“Nouns referring to animals: Bull (male cow), bitch (female dog), cock (male chicken), vixen (female fox), doe (female rabbit), sow (female pig), ram (male sheep)”.
“Objects: Ships. When we launch a ship we say, "May God bless this ship and all who sail on her." Here the ship is feminine”.
“The Earth. We very often use the phrase "Mother Earth". Here the Earth is ascribed a feminine gender”.

Watch: ‘Gender’ explained

Video transcript

G is for gender. OK, gender. This could talk about er... animals, or people that are masculine or feminine. OK. Male or female. The gender of something. Um... we could also talk about this er... as the role that society thinks appropriate for men and the roles that society thinks are appropriate for women. So, gender stereotyping. Erm... we also use gender to talk about nouns, or pronouns, or various words, but this is grammatical. Words can be masculine, feminine, neuter or even common. Urm... for example in English we have various pronouns: he, she, it. Or nouns: a man, a woman, a girl, a boy. Or some animals, yes: a bitch, a bull. OK. so the gender of things. OK. So it can refer to the sexual gender, male or female. It can refer to roles, what society expects people to do. And it can refer to the grammar of a word. So there you are. G is for gender. Thanks for watching.

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