Sociology of gender

Sociology of gender is a prominent subfield of sociology. Public discourse and the academic literature generally use the term gender for the perceived or projected (self-identified) masculinity or femininity of a person. In 1955, John Money stated:

A person's gender is complex, encompassing countless characteristics of appearance, speech, movement and other factors not solely limited to biological sex. Societies tend to have binary gender systems in which everyone is categorized as male or female. Some societies include a third gender role; for instance, the Native American Two-Spirit people and the Hijras of India. There is debate over the extent to which gender is a social construct or a biological construct.