meaning - What is the difference between "gender" and "sex"?


What is the difference between gender and sex? Wiktionary says that gender is The mental analog of sex but that's too high English for me.


Basically, I'm developing a web-application that stores people's profile along with a field for gender/sex. Which name would be more appropriate?


__


[UPDATE]


After getting these good answers, I can figure out that,



  1. Sex - Biological characteristics

  2. Gender - Social characteristics


And, well, for my web-application, I went with the term sex, as it sounds more scientific and less political. P.S. Values for sex are clearly defined and can be easily validated (only two values AFAIK* + an optional blank value).


* plus some anomalies.



Answer



According to APA style, "gender" refers to culture and should be used when referring to men and women as social groups, while "sex" refers to biology and should be used when biological distinctions are emphasized.


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