sex and gender

• gender– is considered to be a ‘social construct’; something that society has created to explain the characteristic differences between men and women · Women are sensitive, care givers and emotional · Men are confident, strong, logical, unemotional and responsible
• Sex – the biological differences between men and women; body shape, size etc.
•  females become women through a process whereby they acquire feminine traits and learn feminine behaviour
• Feminists argue that biological differences are clear and do not change from culture to culture. Contrastingly, there is no justification for gender roles being given to people; what constitutes masculinity or femininity varies from culture to culture – gender is learned behaviour imposed by societ
• In society, the terms masculine and feminine are used to describe an ‘ideal’ gender type for men and women to aspire to. Feminists argue that this is a key part of the way in which society seeks to keep women in a subordinate position.
• simone de bevouir argued that the biological differences between men and women had been used by a male dominate state and society for determing the roles of women
• Kate Millett takes gender differences to have “essentially cultural, rather than biological bases” that result from differential treatment. For her, gender is “the sum total of the parents', the peers', and the culture's notions of what is appropriate to each gender by way of temperament, character, interests, status, worth, gesture, and expression”
• The lack of education and occupational opportunities open to women reinforced the general cultural belief that men were superior and  as Betty Friedan (1921–2006), suggested; cultural attitudes towards gender differences were so deep rooted that women themselves tended to share them with men. 
• goal of feminism is therefore the achievement of genderless ‘personhood’. Establishing a concept of gender that is divorced from biological sex had crucial significance for feminist theory.
• They believe that women should rejoice in that which makes them biologically different to men (such as giving birth and the ability to breastfeed). These biological abilities are superior to anything a man could ever do. Either way, there is an underlying assumption that women are biologically superior.