Understanding gender, sex

Are men really from Mars and women from Venus as the famous book asserts?
We will explore myths and perceptions around gender roles and perceptions.

Have I lost you here? That’s okay because that is the purpose of this column; to get us all talking and socially savvy.
I will start with defining gender versus sex. According to Wikipedia sex is the biological make-up of a person which defines whether they are male, female or hermaphrodite. A hermaphrodite is a person who is born with both male and female sexual organs.

Wikipedia says gender is determined by the social roles that are usually conferred by social circumstances like culture.
For example, are there careers that are only for men or for women? Are there domestic chores that should only be done by women?

To make it more clear, natural pregnancy and childbirth are a matter of sex because only women’s bodies are equipped to do that by nature. Some men are now getting medical procedures to get pregnant but that is something else.

On the other hand, child rearing is a gender role because a man or a woman can do it. Once a child has been born any competent person can look after its needs like feeding, cleaning, medical check-ups, play, and emotional support and so forth.

So this week I will start off by asking about dating.
Do you think that boys and girls should start dating at the same age? What is the right age and why? To get the column rocking we all need to have our say.

Please email on the address below with your views or inbox me on Facebook with views. Your message must reach me by end of day on Monday and please let us keep it clean.
You can also suggest a topic for discussion. Let’’s get it on with the girl stuff and boy stuff.