How did term gender take on the meaning that it has today? How was it developed as a social pairing to the purportedly fixed notion of sex? Surprisingly, historian Sandra Eder traces its origins to a Pediatric Endocrinology Clinic at Johns Hopkins University in the 1940s. She discusses the significance of the introduction of the idea of a culturally-constructed gender, in the Cold War context of mid-20th century America, and the inherited baggage of the term today.

Resources:

Sandra Eder, How the Clinic Made Gender: The Medical History of a Transformative Idea University of Chicago Press, 2022

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