I have done an excercise with high school youth to explain the difference between sex/biology and gender. I hope it will help clear it up for you. Please know, that I am well aware that what I am about to say to you may challenge an entire lifetime of thinking for you. So please process it and let it sink in. Gender is made up. It's not a real thing. It is a culturally defined (and accepted) assumption or stereotype.
Let me break it down for you:
When asked to describe boys and girls, the responses from teens goes something like this:
Boys have penises and testicals
Girls have vaginas and a uterus
Boys grown facial hair
Girls get boobs
Boys are strong, taller, they like engineering and construction, as kids they are drawn to cars and trucks. They are athletic. Blue. They don't show emotion.
Girls are softer, nurturing, more emotional, caring, more creative, Pink, they are more social, they are more flexible (physically).
Ok so here is where I jump back in. A biological male has male reproductive organs. A biological female has female reproductive organs. That is where the definition of sex ends.
Even the other biology is misunderstood. Males have the same breasts as woman, it is different levels of hormones that effect development. Women grow facial hair, ask my friends who pay for wax ad laser treatments. Again it is different levels if hormones. Hormones that both sexes have.
Everything else is how we define gender in our culture. Because please!!! Keep on mind, what a boy is or a girl is varies all over the world. Societal expectations are different based on culture.
So when I ask the teens "can a girl be athletic?" "Can a boy be nurturing?" The answer is always yes. Because we are raising a generation who is exposed to a broader view of gender (unless you visit the blue and pink isles at toys r us).
We will not change issues in our community until this issue of gender is broken down. Domestic violence will continue as long as guys are supposed to be "tough" and girls "passive".
Teen suicide will continue if a girl can be a "tomboy" but a boy who crosses into the "girl things" is a fairy or "gay".
Women will continue to be harassed at work and get paid less as long as they can not be more aggressive or outspoken.
It is time to start acknowledging that other than sex there is no boy or girl. Are people wired a certain way? Yes. Can you look at many little boys with trucks and little girls with dolls? Absolutely. But just because it seems the majority who fall into this does not make it a fact. And by acting like it is all of the people- the girls who love science and engineering- the men who want to be stay at home dads- who don't fit neatly into one box with one label are ostracized.
