ABSTRACT
This term has gradually emerged as a counterpoint among many notions that deal with the relations between the feminine and the masculine. Genre (gender) comes from “gendre”, which was in use until the 16th century and is derived from the Latin genus, “race”, “birth”. In philosophy, it is opposed to “species”; the sense of race has disappeared as well as that of sex, which is now only present in “engender” or “generation”. What dominates is the idea of grouping or category: thus we say genre humain (the “human species”). The sense of sort or type appears in genre de vie (“way of life”), bon genre (“right kind”) or mauvais genre), “bad kind”).
