gender
part of speech
noun (a gender, genders; also uncountable)
meaning for a pupil
1) Gender is being a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, especially the roles and ideas people and societies connect with that; some people feel they are both, neither, or not the gender they were thought to be at birth. tree →
2) (grammar) In languages like French, German and Spanish, gender is the group a noun belongs to, such as masculine or feminine, which changes words like «the» and «a». tree →
3) On forms, gender is a box asking whether you are male, female or something else. tree →
sense in the lessons
In PSHE and relationships lessons, gender comes up when talking about fairness and stereotypes: any gender can like football, dancing, science or cooking. People and countries hold different views about gender identity; lessons ask pupils to be kind and respectful to everyone. In French lessons, «le» is masculine and «la» feminine; grammatical gender often has nothing to do with real boys and girls (a table is feminine in French). In English, gender shows in «he, she, his, her». Phrases: «gender stereotypes», «gender equality», «gender pay gap», «masculine/feminine gender».
examples
- Any gender can be a scientist or a nurse. tree →
- Our class talked about gender stereotypes in toy adverts. tree →
- In French, every noun has a gender: «le livre», «la table». tree →
- The form asked for my name, age and gender. tree →
- Gender equality means girls and boys get the same chances. tree →
- In German there are three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. tree →
- Some people say gender and sex mean the same; others use gender for roles and identity. tree →
- [239] Kruchina, as an abstract idea, is of the feminine gender. tree →
note
Countable when naming kinds (two genders in French), uncountable for the idea. Trap: grammatical gender (le/la) is about words, not about living things. People disagree about how to use the word «gender»; schools teach respect for others either way. «Sex» is the biological word.
In the corpora
- Adjectives agree in gender and number: noir, noire, noirs, noires, and all four sound the same.
- A noun keeps its gender every time: une pomme verte et une pomme rouge.
- Some words even change meaning with their gender, so the le or la is the only clue to what the sentence means.
- Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
- And the hoar-frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «gender» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.