Sax's Sex

In “Why Gender Matters”, written by Leonard Sax, the aforementioned author firstly defines the widely understood meanings of the two words “sex” and “gender.” Sex in this case is defined as purely biological, with only two possibilities: male or female. Referring to the same source, he continues to define gender, the other word in this mixed confusion and confused mix, as a sense of identity that is created socially. He defines gender as a description of one’s degree of masculinity or femininity.
Before beginning to critique such (in his opinion) loose definitions, he first concedes how they may have arrived at such an interpretation of these words. Sax accepts the truth of the matter regarding femininity and masculinity, and finds that seeing gender as something built up along one’s life span is understandable. After allowing his opposing point some space, he then voices out his complaints with specific examples, such as certain gender-specific physical traits being genetically defined from birth rather than created. He qualifies the vagueness of his points by giving another vague statement that both the National Academies’ deduced factor and other natural factors are present, but are simply unfairly viewed.
Sax follows up one issue he has with another, this time widening his sights to include both defined words. He cites a purely linguistic example in this case, and shows that these two words are indeed not interchangeable and can have different effects on the way in which certain sentences are received.
In short, he provides counterexamples to disprove certain things about the widely acknowledged definitions that he finds unsatisfactory, after showing that he is not actually a berserked bull blinded with rage and is indeed able to see beyond his personal opinions, making these opinions all the more valid and justifiable.