Canadian Government Executive - Volume 26 - Issue 05

T here was a time when people who ran meetings were chairmen, whether male or female. Local officials were aldermen. Women were either Miss or Mrs. Those terms seem quaint now (or to young peo- ple, perhaps other-worldly) but they turned out to be surprisingly fiercely held and the passage past them emotional and divisive. The transfor- mation is not over, however. Our understanding of gender and the language related to it contin- ues to be challenged. We now live in a world of cisgender, transgender, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender), with emails, suddenly stating the preferred pronouns or honorifics for the sender. For government executives, these are not small issues. They relate to workplace colleagues and the public that is served. Yet sometimes it can seem baffling. A good place for improving understanding is the guidebook Gender , by Laura Erickson-Schroth, a New York City psychiatrist who specializes in LGBT health, and Benjamin Davis, a psychothera- pist and art therapist in that same city. It’s part of the What Everyone Needs to Know series of bal- anced and authoritative primers on complex cur- rent event issues and countries, written in ques- tion and answer format, like an encyclopedia. For example, quite basic, but not necessar- ily something most people can answer: How is gender different from sex? Although we use the terms interchangeably, sex refers to physical characteristics and is usually assigned at birth as either male or female, depending on the appear- ance of the genitals. Gender refers to the social as- pects of identity. Some people are intersex, their body not fully matching our expectations of male and female. They may be identified at birth but many are not. Gender identity is our self-conception of who we are – our innermost sense of being a man, woman, or something else. Most commonly, gen- der identity is consistent with our sex assigned at birth. “But what makes someone a man or a wom- an? What is gender identity really? If a woman undergoes a hysterectomy (removal of the uter- us), most would agree that this does not mean she is no longer a woman. If a man needs one or both testicles removed, he may grapple with what this means for his masculinity, but he remains a man,” they note. So something beyond body parts connects us to our womanhood or manhood. That something else is gender identity. It’s how our brains think of our- selves as gendered beings. Gender expression is a term used to describe a person’s outward appearance. Clothing, jewelry, and hair length are commonly gendered as well as certain activities, interests, and mannerisms. Act- ing tough is equated with masculinity; a nurtur- ing and general manner considered feminine. This can change over a lifetime – young people, the au- thors note, will often present in hypermasculine or hyperfeminine ways but as they come to under- stand themselves better become less stereotypical. Gender expression is about actions, not necessar- ily corresponding to internal identification. This builds into gender roles, the unspoken du- ties that are assigned to a person based on their sex or gender. It’s what a community expects women and men to think, feel and do. Gender roles vary throughout the globe and over time. “As one strays from culturally accepted gender roles, a common experience of skepticism or devaluing occurs. Men who appear too feminine become comical to the public eye and women who possess qualities aligned with masculinity can be ridiculed for be- ing bitchy or bossy, overemotional, hysterical, and frigid,” they write. Often moving away from the expected gender role leads to questions about the person’s sexuality. A boy seen to be “acting like a girl” will be called a faggot. The term gender binary has recently drawn at- tention. It contradicts something we have long taken for granted: An individual must be either male or female. This instinct can arise even before birth – “baby girl” or baby boy” will often be the reference to the embryo. The desire to label in this fashion focuses us on characteristics exclusive to one gender or the other, rather than paying at- tention to traits that many people across different genders share. “Inherent in the gender binary is power. In most modern cultures, men hold more power than women, and those who identify outside the binary Gender By Laura Erickson-Schroth and Benjamin Davis Oxford University Press, 194 pages, $9.99 (Kindle) 26 / Canadian Government Executive // January/February 2021 The Leader’s Bookshelf By Harvey Schachter Gender