Section 1, Definitions, Delphy

"Rethinking Sex and Gender", Christine Delphy
Margeret Mead's critique about the masculine and feminine "temperaments" led to analysis of the different roles men and women play in regard to their status. As status came to mean occupation, temperament was "denaturalised" and became arbitrary, under the assumption that social "role" is not simply psychological characteristics, but also the work associated with status, subject to the division of labor. "Sex Roles" were further defined by the introduction of "gender" in the 1970's, in which sex came to mean biological differences and gender referred to social classification of masculine and feminine.

The introduction of "gender" meant:

1. All differences social and arbitrary between genders were gathered under one concept
2. "Gender" as opposed to "genders" drew attention to the partition rather than the parts
3. The idea of hierarchy was inherent

If gender is the content and sex is the container, then it's logical that the content may vary but the container will remain the same, due to it being a part of nature. Can gender be independent of sex? Why does sex come first chronologically? It's asserted that humans have a universal need to classify, based on physical traits, apart from social organizations. However, why is sex more prominent than other physical traits?
Derrida's thesis is that things can only be distinguished from other things by their opposing traits. Often these differences are multiple and not hierarchal. So when we connect gender and sex, are we connecting something social with something natural, the author asks, or something social with something that is also social (the way a society represents biology to itself)?