Gender

Gender

(noun)

A complex combination of roles and norms, expression, aesthetics, identities, performances, social interactions, and more that are assigned certain meanings by society. Gender is both self-defined and society-defined. How gender is embodied and defined varies from culture to culture and from person to person. People make conscious and unconscious choices about gender all the time. Everything from what to wear and how to speak, to how we imagine ourselves and how we relate to other people contributes to gender. Gender is often simplified– purposely, due to colonization— into a binary or a spectrum. However, neither fully encapsulates the whole of gender. The model of gender that this Primer endorses is the galaxy model.

Return to the Index.

Back to the Introductory Terms Guided Tour.