Page "Gender studies" Paragraph 4

Gender study has many different forms.

One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: " One is not born a woman, one becomes one ".

This view proposes that in gender studies, the term " gender " should be used to refer to the social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities, not to the state of being male or female in its entirety.

However, this view is not held by all gender theorists.

Other areas of gender study closely examine the role that the biological states of being male or female ( anatomical, physiological, and genetical explanations of male and female body parts, structure and nature of functions of body organs, genetic carriers etc.

) have on social constructs of gender.

Specifically, in what way gender roles are defined by biology and how they are defined by cultural trends.

The field emerged from a number of different areas: the sociology of the 1950s and later ( see Sociology of gender ); the theories of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan ; and the work of feminists such as Judith Butler.