12.1 Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Anthropology

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define the concepts of sex and gender and explain the difference between the two concepts.
• Describe various cultural expressions of sexuality.
• Identify the difficulties in applying primate research to human gender and sexuality.
• Critique the “man the hunter” thesis of human evolution.

For many people, male and female refer to natural categories that neatly divide up the human population. Often, people associate these two categories with different abilities and personality traits. Setting aside these ideas and assumptions, anthropologists explore aspects of human biology and culture to understand where notions of gender come from while documenting the diversity of gender and sexuality in cultures all over the world, past and present.