gender和sex有什麼區別？

Vocabulary.com上這樣解釋gender這個詞：

If you've learned French, Spanish, or Latin, you know these languages assign genders to nouns, such as masculine, feminine, or neuter. Besides this grammatical use, gendermay seem interchangeable with the word sex, as they both mean "the state of being male or female." However, gender is usually used in reference to social differences. Sex on the other hand, is used in reference to biological differences. So if you're talking about how many females from 12 to 18 love vampire movies, then you're talking about gender. But if you're checking the M or F box on a health form, you're talking about sex, so to speak.

從這段話中我們可以得到三條信息：

• gender在語法中是個術語，有些語言中（例如德語和俄語），代詞和名詞等可以分為陰性、陽性、中性

• gender一般情況下可以和sex通用，表示性別。一般填表的時候通常是gender這個詞

• gender和sex的區別在於gender強調的是性別的社會屬性，而sex強調的是生物屬性。

學者們通常把生物學上男女的區別稱為sex，它分為male和female，一個X染色體加一個Y就是男性(male)；擁有兩個X染色體就是女性（female），這是不會改變的客觀標準。

而文化上的區分用gender這個詞，分為man和woman，這個概念就複雜很多。例如我們的傳統觀念中認為女人應該遵守三從四德，應該相夫教子，這是社會給女人設定的義務，你不這樣做你就「不夠女人」；例如穿裙子、絲襪是女人的著裝特點，如果一個男人穿裙子絲襪人們會認為他「不夠男人」。

在不同時代和文化中，「夠男人」和「夠女人」的評價標準也不一樣。在18世紀時純爺們是這樣的：

來自《人類簡史》

這是法國國王路易十四。假髮、絲襪、高跟鞋在他的那個時代是男子氣概和男人味的典範（a European paragon of manhood and virlity)。

Yuval Noah Harari在Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind（《人類簡史》）中說：「Sex is child's play; but gender is serious business.」 性的事情好解決，但性別就沒那麼容易了。

To get to be a member of the male sex is the simplest thing in the world. You just need to be born with an X and a Y chromosome. To get to be a female is equally simple. A pair of X chromosomes will do it.

In contrast, becoming a man or a woman is a very complicated and demanding undertaking. Since most masculine and feminine qualities are cultural rather than biological, no society automatically crowns each male a man, or every female a woman. Nor are these titles laurels that can be rested on once they are acquired. Males must prove their masculinity constantly, throughout their lives, from cradle to grave, in an endless series of rites and performances.

And a woman』s work is never done -- she must continually convince herself and others that she is feminine enough. Success is not guaranteed. Males in particular live in constant dread of losing their claim to manhood. Throughout history, males have been willing to risk and even sacrifice their lives, just so that people will say 『He』s a real man!』

這段文字寫得很好，例如這裡的crown, laurel既準確又形象， "constantly, throughout their lives, from cradle to grave" 三個表達意思差不多，起到了排比強調的作用。

我在有寒冷冬天和時常被貼上大男子主義標籤的東北長大，上學的時候總會聽到這樣的話：「這你都不敢，你還是不是個男人啊！」 「是個爺們都不能忍啊！」 我心裡想，我是不是男人是你說了算啊！現在看來，我是不是男人還真和他們怎麼說有關係: Real man/woman= male/female sex+ masculine/feminine social role，人是社會性動物，無法脫離「想象所構建出得秩序」。

尤瓦爾認為智人（Homo Sapiens）的一個過人之處在於我們會「講故事」：As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled.

為了解決我們的爭端，能夠和諧相處，我們想象出了一些概念，例如「公司」 「金錢」 「國家」 「法律」，這些概念存在我們的共同想象中，成為社會秩序。公元前1776年有《漢謨拉比法典》，公元後的1776年7月4日美國發表了《獨立宣言》，儘管兩者相差3000多年，但都是純屬虛構，如有雷同實屬巧合。

當人人都相信一個謊言是真理時，這個謊言最終是否會變成真理呢？1984中Winston最後還是承認了「二加二等於五」，老大哥說等於幾，你就要由衷地相信它等於幾。

George Orwell的另一部作品Animal Farm，不聽話就放狗咬你！

男人和女人應不應該做什麼多半是文化的產物。尤瓦爾說: "Biology enables; Cultrue forbids." 生物學講的是自然法則，它有無窮的可能性，而文化總是會半路殺出，封閉一些可能性。例如兩個男人之間也能得到性愉悅，這種自然行為在一些文化中被極力否定。尤瓦爾認為這是一種文化偏見，而不是生物學的事實。

We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented. 人在江湖，身不由己， 由想象建構的秩序從我們出生那一刻起就影響著我們的所思所為。楚門活到30歲的時候，突然發現自己一直在虛假中，我們何嘗又不是呢？我想我們能做的就是像梭羅那樣："...I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.」

The Truman Show