Gender is defined as “a social position; the set of social arrangements that are built around normative sex categories,” while sex refers to “the biological differences that distinguish males from females,” (Conley 279). Gender is often thought of as exclusively masculine or exclusively feminine. These two groups are often applied to the sexes – males and females respectively, and end up making gender and sex seem synonymous. Biological males, the physically stronger sex, are expected to have so-called masculine traits such as aggressiveness and dominance; biological females, the physically weaker sex, are expected to have feminine traits such as kindness and compassion. The difference between the two is that while biological traits are unavoidable, gender is a very fluid non-binary spectrum and is socially constructed. Sex is only physically denoted, while gender is a complex mixture of how you see yourself, how you present yourself, and how others see you.
Gender, in its simplest form, applies various sets of meanings and actions assigned to masculinity and femininity, with a wide spectrum between the two. On the edges of the two sides, you have the traditional gender roles assigned to males and females. Males are supposed to wear pants and shirts, play a dominant role in
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In America, women are steered away male-dominated STEM jobs before they even reach the workforce by getting placed on human-centered tracks in school. The large lack of women in STEM fields is justified by the notion that women are the ones that pick and prefer non-STEM jobs but this does not attempt to explain that women are conditioned by their families and society from birth to pick human-centered gentler occupations. Because of this, sex segregation continues to lurk in the workforce, and “is especially resilient because people so ardently believe in, enact, and celebrate gender stereotypes,” (Charles