One ought to define one’s terms. Especially if one has a website and writing career devoted to it. With the term, ‘gender,’ arriving at a definition proves tricky. “What does ‘gender’ mean?” is not a question we can answer simply. In our time, we must first ask, what does it mean to you, and how has it come to mean that? So I am beginning a series of posts about how to define this most important concept.
The Roots
‘Gender’ is a late Middle English term, arriving via the Old French word, gendre, from the Latin word, genus, meaning the kind or class of a thing, By the 1300s English used it commonly as a grammatical term, applied to parts of speech (he, she, it) or words in romance languages, as in masculine, feminine or neuter.
Probably the first time someone used the word ‘sexologically,’ that is, to refer to biological forms of a species, is in the 1400s. But this is a rarity, usually in a joke or cleverness.
So things remained until late 1950s.
The Moment of Change
Even back in 1945, American psychologist Madison Bentley called gender “the socialized obverse of sex.” So, the male-female sex usage existed, but was uncommon. David Haig analyzed 1,162,909 scientific article titles published from 1945-1959 and found titles using the word ‘gender; only five times. That’s it! Five times! Three were used in a grammatical sense and only two in this biological sex sense. The word simply did not mean what we may mean by it until the moment when social upheaval called our anthropology into question. That moment came, and the use of gender dramatically changed, in 1960s.
In 1955, the child abuser, John Money, popularized the use of ‘gender role’ for the things that you do that identify you as man or woman in society. Then followed UCLA Psychiatrist, Robert Stoller, who spoke of a ‘gender identity’ in a person’s mind in the 60s. (Hmm, that turned out to be a rather enduring paradigm.) Then, feminist scholars picked it up. They wanted a way to challenge and deconstruct social expressions of masculinity and femininity.
And from there we were off to the races.
Today, I ask you to wonder with me about the strange Western elevation of this humble term. Why did this happen? Why is gender the talk of the town in our time?
All Part of the Plan
As a Christian, I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ sits enthroned on high and governs the world. I mean, really governs. He said as much (Matthew 26:64, Mark 14:62) and we recite the belief every time we say the Apostles’ Creed. After all, believing this is kind of what it means to be a Christian. Well, what would it mean to believe that about our genderly tumultuous times?
You could think that Christ has just allowed this confusion as part of an attack against truth, to which we must rise in arms. But, watching this, I deduce that Christ, for the last few decades, has been guiding the questioning of Western civilization’s anthropology. I am not saying that everything everyone is saying is true or good. But, the turmoil means everyone is talking about ‘gender,’ including the church, however reluctantly. Could it be that, in response, Christ wants His church to probe more deeply into who we are? Though we might have a general idea from our orthodoxy, is that orthodoxy complete? Do we ourselves have an adequate understanding of what makes a man, what defines a woman? Do you have a sound reason for rejoicing that you are one or the other? What should be the Christian use of the word, gender?
Tune in next time for a survey of the ways the word “gender” is used now (a useful taxonomy to go out the front door with), and then my own definition will follow. I will share how I use the word based on insight both from the Bible and this cultural discussion.
But the main point, looking at the term’s history, is that our Lord would very much like us to have an answer to this question, one that is able to handles the challenges raised, answers our questions of relationship and goes deep within His creation of us in His image.
What do you think Christ is doing?