ABSTRACT
This chapter argues the case for gender as a 'key variable'. 'Sex' refers to the biological division into female and male; 'genders' to the parallel and socially unequal division into femininity and masculinity. If the female/male or man/woman distinction tends to be nominal and dichotomous, the feminine/masculine distinction would seem to be more obviously continuous and ordinal. For a long time, the mapping of characteristics associated with certain forms of sexuality on to men and women was seen as relatively unproblematic in sociological research. The sexual division of labour, however, also addresses itself to the distinction between home and work and to distinctions within the home, as well as to distinctions within the labour market. Gender is not something which exists simply as an object of study or as a variable in sociological analysis. It enters into the research process itself, into the selection of the problem and methodology, the conduct of the research and the assumptions guiding the analysis.
