>>14198445"Gender" is just a word in polite circles that refers to "Sex" because the word "Sex" may be seen as inappropriate. What people often mistake for genders are simple gender roles which are the formally or informally agreed upon standards of the conduct and duties the two genders have in their culture.
>What characteristics define a female gender, for example?There are many characteristics both truly and falsely applied to both sexes. For example, true characteristics of a female/woman is a vagina, uterus, breast growth, wider hips, specific fat distribution, the prominence or lack of prominence of certain features of the skull, higher estrogen (which is the cause of some characteristics), a smaller brain but with more connections between the hemispheres compared to males (yes, there is a female brain) that are responsible for better social skills yet a reduced ability to focus (more women tend to go into the social sciences, teaching young children, etc. where a broader more emotional perspective is often used and humanities where more men tend to go into harder sciences where a more focused critical perspective is favored--no. "patriarchy" is not responsible. Women and Men tend to choose professions along these lines on their own), often less aggressive and less assertive relative to men due to lower testosterone and higher estrogen, etc.
