Richard Ford's argument would be much stronger if he didn't get one big thing wrong. When he speaks of sex differences and sex roles, what he means is gender differences and gender roles. Sex is biological and determined by nature. I am male because of my anatomy. Gender is cultural and determined by society. I am a man because people see me and relate to me as one.

This is an important disctinction, one most educated people learn very early in their college years. The fact that a Stanford professor confuses these two realms is troubling, and severly undermines his credibility.

Muzzy, I'm confused. How are you distinguishing sex role versus gender role? And since when was sex purely anatomy? I'm pretty sure mainstream science has identified a wide array of innate chemical/ behavioral differences between males and females. Your identity as a "man" would likely incorporate certain relatively greater predispositions to aggression, fixation on objects rather than faces, generally reduced ability to read emotions, etc than women even if you were raised by wolves somewhere. Besides that, certain differences, gender or sex or whatever, are so hardwired and based on what are effectively "realities" that its pointless to postulate how they can be completely eradicated. There will never be a society where women (generally smaller, less biologically prone to aggression, etc) are typically viewed as greater agents of violence for example. Police in any country will always look harder at young males when in doubtful situations. And that's not bias. That's common sense, for the same reason bears are scarier than squirrels and manatees. So saying you're a man because people see you as one is true in the sense that a tree is a tree because people see it as one.

If you go back and re-read Ford's essay, I think you'll see that he does, indeed, make a distinction between the phrases "sex differences" and "gender roles."

Muzzy, onde thing most educated people learn very early in their elemnetary education is to consult a dictionary. had you done so, you would have learned that Ford knows the definition of "sex" and "gender" and that you do not. human beings do not possess a quality called "gender"; they do possess a quality called 'sex." Look it up. Learn.

Here is a portion of the notes I made when I recently took a course on the history of women --

“Gender” refers to the social roles for men and women. These roles are constructed by society and are influenced by race, politics, religion, class, etc. However, it is a dialectic, with society affecting gender roles, and gender roles affecting society, which is how gender roles change from era to era. This is true because there is often a conflict between social theory/ideology and social practice. The roles for men and women are always relational between men and women. They are also part of a power relationship.

Biology assigns us sex roles, but society assigns us gender roles. Nowadays, gender roles are changing -- men becoming househusbands who have the primary role for rearing children; women becoming soldiers.

It's been a while since I read the article, but I think his point was that for most people, marriage is not a matter of gender roles but of sex roles; most people define marriage as between a man and a woman, regardless of changes in gender roles.

I also think he's implying that it's harder to change society's idea of sex roles than it is to change society's idea of gender roles.