So, Coworker feels that “on a progressive campaign we shouldn’t be using the term ‘gender’ in our database to distinguish between male/female. Instead we should use the term ‘sex’.”
Now I honestly didn’t know there was a difference between the meanings of these two terms. I used “gender” so that sensitive volunteers wouldn’t have to look at the word “sex” when entering data.
Coworker informs me that “gender” is a “societal construct” where “sex” is a “biological determination” and that volunteers from Smith College would be offended by our use of “gender” (I’m not touching that stereotype). Seems that dictionary.com backs up this claim. I retorted that since some of our supporters would like to be identified as male/female based on how they identified themselves (instead of whichever sex biology imposed upon them), we should still use “gender.”
Thoughts?
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I think it depends on what this information is being used for. Is it relevent to how you address your supporters? We discussed the gender vs. sex issue in some of my psych classes and ever since then, it has irked me a little that many surveys use gender when they really mean sex. But even so, I do understand that they are asking whether I am physically male or female. Now, do you determine that by biological makeup? As in genetics or by actual physical characteristics? (i.e. XX vs. transgender vs. transexual) And again, what is it that you want to gather from the information in this database? In general, I think asking an individual’s sex most appropriately queries the information sought after. But asking gender is acceptable for purposes of “political correctness.” -j.
Exactly. In our case we’re not using the data for statistical purposes, but when we are addressing these people on the phone, face-to-face, etc. Which is why, in my opinion, we want “gender” and not “sex.”