Gender, gender identity and gender system: a conceptual journey

Abstract

This work was conducted within the framework of the research project "Children's knowledge about society: a case study on the representations of gender differences in boys and girls aged 10 and 11" (Secyt -UNLP). The objective of this article is to present a systematization of different conceptualizations about gender from different disciplinary theoretical perspectives, collected through a preliminary bibliographic search. The analysis of ideas by John Money, Robert Stoller, Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millet, Gayle Rubin, Verena Stolcke, Joan Scott, Marta Lamas, Judith Butler and Jessica Benjamin, among other authors, shows binary, non-binary or systemic relational conceptions of gender, gender identity and the system of gender, which we use as a conceptual framework for the elaboration of the methodological instrument of our research and the interpretation of children's responses. Gender studies denounce the binary logic, offering arguments that make visible the fact that the settlement in oppositions and hierarchies does not respond to a natural order, but to long historical-social processes, and imply power inequalities. From our research framework, to understand the epistemological problem at stake is not only essential as a historical analysis, but also illustrative of the various disciplines and theories involved in its study and discussion.