The concept of gender refers to the dynamic, historical and changing process by which the meaning that being a woman or a man acquires in a given society or culture is defined. This definition is based on a set of attributes and expectations assumed by those who make up a given society and which, based on different biophysiological categories, point to specific behaviours within a hierarchical structure of power relations.
The notion of gender must be understood in the context of its historical and dialectical development, in relation to debates around other notions such as culture, nature and society. Verena Stolcke (2003:69) points out the convenience of taking advantage of the current crisis of these concepts to recapitulate on them, which requires a review of their evolution over time and a rethinking of their actuality. In the first instance, the term gender emerged as a cultural category in opposition to dimorphic biological sex, used to divide human beings into groups of females and males on the basis of biological characteristics related fundamentally to the reproductive apparatus. In this sense, by using the notion of "gender", people are categorised according to concepts of femininity and masculinity constructed on the basis of biological sex. However, the questioning of sexual dualism from different currents has led to the proposition that both sex and gender have their origin in the socio-cultural perception of the differences people.
But in addition to questioning the reductionist nature of the sex/gender binomial, the static nature of the constructed categories has also been challenged, pointing to the need to address gender as a dynamic, changing and relational concept that includes cultural factors, social relations and power structures. It is in this sense that the notion of gender s arises in order to explain the way in which the production and reproduction of inequality occurs through different intersections symbolic representations and social practices. The symbolic sphere encompasses ideals and stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, and at the structural level, it contemplates the sexual division of labour women and men, as well as access to desirable resources. It also situates the individual in this web of meanings and structures, examining individual agency in the forging of sexual identities and in the embodied and performative practice of gender.
It is therefore important to underline that the concept of gender arises from a great deal of theoretical and practical activity linked to both the feminist movement and academic feminism over the last fifty years. This activity has not ceased and is characterised by multiple debates that are still unresolved1. An updated definition of gender, operative in the social sciences, is that proposed by Aurelia Martín Cásares, who refers to gender as:
"the construction of femininity, masculinity, androgyny or other sociobiological categories defined in each society that allows us to study the established roles, stereotypes, power relations and stratification" (2006:68).
But it is also a process in which the individual is implicated in "becoming" a woman or a man; thus - alluding to Simone De Beauvoir's famous phrase in The Second Sex (1949) that "woman is not born but made" - the emphasis is on the idea that "biology is not destiny" and gender is made, unmade and remade (Stolcke, 2003: 70-73).
In fact, Donna Haraway claims that all modern feminist meanings of gender derive from de Beauvoir's assertion 2 and draws on interpretations from Marxism and psychoanalysis to stress the volatile nature of the subject, whose coherence she rejects by alluding to the idea that identities, both social and personal, are continually reconstituted. Haraway proposes the cybourg - a hybrid of organism and machine - as a metaphor of escape from rigid dualisms such as nature/culture: "the political and explanatory power of the "social" category of gender depends on how we historicise the categories of sex, flesh, body, biology, race and nature.
1Algunos trabajos en los que se recoge el desarrollo histórico del concepto de género serían: MOORE, Henrietta. Feminismo y antropología. Madrid: Cátedra, 1991; MAQUIEIRA, Virginia. "Género, diferencia y desigualdad". In: BELTRAN, E.; MAQUIEIRA, V. (eds.): Feminismos. Debates teóricos contemporáneos. Madrid: Alianza, 2001; pp.127-189; BULLEN, Margaret. Basque Gender Studies. Reno: University of Nevada, 2003; pp. 11-67; MARTIN CASARES, Aurelia. Antropología del Género: Culturas, mitos y estereotipos sexuales. Madrid: Cátedra, 2006; pp. 19-69; MENDEZ, Lourdes. Antropología Feminista. Madrid: Síntesis, 2007.
2HARAWAY, Donna. "Género" para un diccionario marxista: La política sexual de una palabra". In: HARAWAY, Donna: Ciencia, cyborgs y mujeres. La reinvención de la naturaleza. Madrid: Cátedra, [1991]1995; pp. 213-251.