Rethinking on Gender : Sex Dualism

神奈川県茅ヶ崎市This paper considers some critical discussions about the sex/gender dualism. They argue that the dualism presupposes that on one hand there is crucial difference between women and men ； on the other hand there is crucial similarity among women (or men). This presupposition overlooks the difference among women (or men) and accepts the idea that there is some essential difference between women and men by assuming a natural sex without any social, cultural and historical contexts. Against the sex/gender dualism, an alternative view of gender has been discussed since 1990’. This view argues that, whether physically or socially taken, who is a ‘woman (or man)’ and what does that category mean are determined in a specifi c context. This view helps to reconsider the concept of gender which assumes the analytic distinction between sex and gender and argues that dividing someone into woman and man is itself a social, cultural and historical matter, namely “gender”. Adopting this view of gender, we can respecify the issues on the sociological investigation of gender. How division of sex can be articulated in each context can be itself an important issue on the sociological investigation of gender. Being a woman(or man) is produced through some activities and in itself a social phenomena. This paper explores a kind of view of language in these reconsiderations of the concept of gender. From this view of language, identifyng, recognizing or naming someone as a woman or man is not simply representation of some given object with language, but is itself doing something, namely a language –use-practice. Being a woman (or man) is not a given social fact but a social phenomena constructed in and through people’s language-use-practices. Through these examinations, this paper raises some issues on the sociological investigation of gender about what gender is and where we should fi nd the social phenomena of gender