Sexuality and chronic illness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Sexuality and chronic illness - Essay Example In people’s lives to define sexuality, the term gender is used. Gender is used to determine the sex of an individual being male or female. Gender is used to discuss the different identities, expectations and roles that the society associated with being male and female (McInnes, 2003). People in general view themselves in many ways as male or female. People use social, cultural and psychological characteristics when viewing their gender. Two terms describe behaviors associated with men and women; feminine and masculine. For most people, the sense of being male or female begins when one is young. Most people sense to belong to a certain gender according to their sexual body parts and their physical appearance. People develop certain behaviors and attitudes as per their societies and cultures. In these social and cultural environments individuals are expected to act, feel and think in a particular way according to their masculine or feminine gender. One cannot conceive the idea o f sex as being prior to that of gender since the two are a product of cultural, social and political factors. In the society today, people use different ways to view themselves as being male or female. Gender identification is one of the ways that people view themselves and mostly occurs when one is young. Children in their early years try to identify themselves with the same-sex parent. A boy identifies himself with the father and the girl identifies herself with the mother. People use language to view themselves as male or female. In English, words such as mankind and chairman are used to denote set positions for both men and women though they are biased to the male side. Other words include lady and gentleman used to identify duties for men and women. At times, people use mode of dressing as a way to view their gender. For mothers, they at times dress their children who are girls in pink colored clothes