The concepts of sex and gender are essential to understanding human nature and society, primarily because gender roles and norms often result as the outcome of the socialization process. Both psychologists and sociologists have argued that personality formation is inherently linked to gender, by the forces of both nature, or genetics and biology, and nurture, or the conditions of the environment as they directly impact upon males and females. From birth on, infants of both sexes are conditioned by parental and other adult responses to behave, think, act, and interact in gender,specific role m`nifestations. This analysis will discuss how gender and sex are essential to an understanding of human nature and society.
There are many examples of how human nature and society are better understood through an exploration of gender and sex. Female children, for example, are encouraged to be cooperative, compassionate, caring, and nurturing, largely in preparation for a later role as a wife and mother. Male children, conversely, are socialized toward independence, assertiveness, competition, and achievement; they are often expected to suppress their motives for affiliation and dependency. They are also socialized to suppress or at least conceal their emotions, especially those that are tender or related to vulnerability. Social institutions, from the workplace to public education, often reinforce, perpetuate, and promote roles and behaviors related to sex and gender. As Sanders (2003, p. 25) notes about teaching and gender, ôWhy is it considered masculine to be violent and aggressive? Why is it considered feminine to be nurturant and intuitive?...How many of the assumptions which we make with regard to gender are truly essential?ö
These difference are often manifested in interpersonal sexual relationships; in one area, that of conversation or dialogue and interruption, gender differences can be observed in action. Empirical evi...