Just because expression of sex involves social conditioning doesn't mean it is entirely "socially constructed". There are consistent and quantifiable differences by sex across the entire physical body, and it is extremely unlikely* (impossible, particularly in acceptance of something like an "emergent" consciousness) that these differences have no bearing on conscious expression.
I agree. The distinction I'm making is between gender as a social system and gender as an expression of some interior state.
An individual's gendered expression likely has some relation to his or her bodily, biological sex. Whether this relation is accessible to an individual's consciousness, I'm highly doubtful. Whether this relation is causal, I'm almost absolutely doubtful.
The gendered expression itself, even granting some formless relation to the body's biological sex, is not for the sake of the body. It is for the sake of an individual acting in social contexts. Gender is a kind of communication. In this respect, the relation between gender as a social system and gender as a reflection of an interior state is entirely accidental. The two systems function according to their own logic and internal dynamics.
When I say gender as a social construction, I think any reference to biological bodies is speculative at best. The cells and hormones in our bodies have no sense of gender. They may respond to external circumstances in ways that affect our gendered expression, but to say that this gender is somehow internal is to misrepresent the relationship, in my opinion.
So, normal meaning socially programmed to perpetuate male and female roles by being given gender-appropriate toys?
There was a study done I think a few years ago showing that male and female chimps (I think it was chimps) go for these corollary stereotypical gendered toys when given the choice.
Again, whether that's true or not makes no difference. All I'm saying is that we codify the behavior as masculine and feminine and then respond accordingly. Adult males often get uncomfortable when their sons play with dolls. The parents of infant chimps don't care whether they play with stick-dolls or stick-weapons.
But anyway, so gender only makes sense in a social context? If that's the case, do you extend this beyond human society? Because it seems to me that gender pre-dates human society.
In fact, this may be passe in an era of the humanities taking precedence but the definition of gender is at odds with your philosophical pov.
I don't think gender pre-dates human society. In fact, I think saying that chimps play with sticks like dolls imports an anthropocentric brand of thinking onto behavior that has no concept of "doll." There may be biological reasons why female chimps play with sticks a certain way, but this doesn't amount to gender. I think that biology is at play in both humans and animals, but I think that humans have developed a complex social system of gender and gender roles that animals have not.
Gender is a particular kind of communication, a social language that registers heavily with identitarian beliefs, raising it to the level of, in my opinion, a third-order system (meaning it appeals to language in order to engage its environment). Seeing as animals don't talk to us using language, I don't think animals have a gender in the sense we mean.
Finally, I'm not sure what definition of gender you mean, but I find myself attracted to Judith Butler's definition (for the most part). This is a fairly influential and well-established definition.
