ABSTRACT
When children are born, they are immediately assigned a sex, usually by the midwife or doctor in attendance. Barring some highly unusual physiological conditions such as hermaphroditism, this sexual identity remains uncontested and is accepted by the baby's caretakers. Yet the baby does not know that he or she is a boy or a girl, nor does “it” know what it means to be a boy or a girl. It is only with time that children develop a sense of their gender identity and a sense of what behaviour is required from a particular gender. Thus gender identity, “an individual's own feeling of whether she or he is a woman or a man”, and gender roles, “the expectations about what behaviours are appropriate for people of one gender” are acquired knowledge (Kessler and McKenna 1978, 8 and 11). There are some persons, usually referred to as transsexuals, whose biological sex and gender identity conflict. All cultures distinguish between male and female and all cultures have means to help children develop their gender identity. However, gender roles — what it takes to be considered masculine or feminine — vary significantly. And how a society inculcates a knowledge of gender roles — at what age, by what means, and for what purposes — this, too, differs from one culture to the next.
