Well, that's not precisely gender, but something quite related - sex: History of Sexuality by Foucault. If you go for his theory, in fact, what nowadays is called gender -the naturalization of biological and cultural factors as individual characteristics- is, in fact, produced around 1800 in Europe - at least in the way we know it today.

Thank you, Philipp, for your answer. I´ve read some chapters of History of seuxality - vol. 1 and I´m a bit familiar with the ideas of Foucault. But besides Foucault, is there anybody else who also discusses gender/sex differentiations as historical/European productions/inventions?

Might not be with a focus on Europe, but there is always Butler, who strongly derived their theories from Foucault's work. They describe how gender and sex are intertwined social categories (see "Bodies that matter").

Try Male Daughters, Female Husbands. (Gender and Sex in an African Society) by Ifi Amadiume. From what I can remember, the book argues that traditional Igbo gender categories are substantially different from western ones, thus enabling arrangements such as woman-woman marriage extensively described in the book. I hope this is helpful.

The term is an Anglo-Saxon conception, for example, not used in the French language, in romance languages, etc. It is usually used—as an analytical category-- in western cultures, gradually replacing the term sex, so as to eliminate our focus on difference as opposed to diversity or respect for diversity. When you concentrate of ‘’differences’’ you usually analyze or approach the subject as «the Other» which usually indicates an attitude of superiority…. I need add here that in western societies we no longer say Equality of the Sexes but Gender Equality. Today, the term gender is used in western societies to describe the social gender, which is not static but changing, namely the social construction of identity (for both women and men), the meaning of which changes according to time and space. The term is used in the social sciences, whereas in the hard sciences (anatomy, medicine) the terms sex or even gender refers only to biological differences which do not usually change according to space and time (unless we have sex change surgery or do doping). In other words gender (in the social sciences) refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors and social expectations considered appropriate for men or women including their diversities, such as race, class, sexual orientation, age, disabilities, etc. To reiterate, the distinction between the social gender and the biological gender (sex) is made only in the social sciences. The meaning of gender in the social sciences is not static, but dynamic, as opposed to the hard sciences. In hard science no such distinction exists, as here gender or sex refers exclusively to biological differences; anatomy, etc. Namely the biological gender does not usually change according to time and space...

I recommend you read «the Gendered Society» by sociologist Michael Kimmel...

Many thanks, Katharina. I´ve been reading Butler and deepening the reflections on her. But in a seminar I heard something like that "gender is an invention of modernity" and I was trying to figure out this argument. I´ll check Butler deeper again.

I´m also checking the reading suggestion - Ifi Amadiume - offered.

Thanks a lot, Harry.

Dear friends, 

besides the great suggestions you have made me - Foucault, Butler, Amadiume - I´d like to share with you something I read yesterday and I considered very interesting. 

The text is "The Work of Gender in the Discourse of Discovery" from Louis Montrose.1991. 

Beginning his text with a discussion about the painting  America (1580)  by Theodor Galle, the author discusses and exemplifies the textual construction of the concept of gender in the first writings from the colonization process. The referred painting is attached for those who may not know it. Below, you can see some quotations in which the author explains his analyzes of the painting and also from excerpts from Vespucci´s letters. 

"At  the center  of  these  concerns  is  the gendering of  the protocolonialist discourse  of  discovery  prevalent in  Western Europe in  the  sixteenth century; the projection into the  New  World  of European representations of gender and of  sexual conduct, a distinct  but equally cultural phenomenon; and  the  articulation  of  those representations  with  new projects of  economic exploitation and geopolitical domination" (page 2). 

"These issues  include  consideration  of  the writing subject's textualization  of  the body of  the Other,  neither  as  mere description nor  as genuine encounter  but  rather  as an act  of symbolic violence,  mastery, and self-empowerment; and  the tendency of such discursive representation to  assume  a narrative  form, to  manifest  itself  as  "a historied body", in  particular, as  a  mode of symbolic action  whose agent is gendered masculine  and  whose object is gendered  feminine" (page 6). 

If you like the quotations, you can have the complete text at http://www.csun.edu/~jaa7021/hist641/montrose.pdf

Hope you like it!

I would like to reiterate here, that the term gender is an Anglo-Saxon conception, for example, not used in the French language, in romance languages, etc. It is usually used—as an analytical category for women and men-- in western cultures, gradually replacing the term sex, so as to eliminate our focus on difference as opposed to diversity or respect for diversity. When you concentrate on ‘’differences’’ you usually analyze or approach the subject as «the Other» which usually indicates an attitude of superiority…. I need add here that in western societies we no longer say Equality of the Sexes but Gender Equality. Today, the term gender is used in western societies to describe the social gender, which is not static but changing, namely the social construction of identity (for both women and men), the meaning of which changes according to time and space.

   The term is used in the social sciences, whereas in the hard sciences (anatomy, medicine) the terms sex or even gender refers only to biological differences which do not usually change according to space and time (unless we have sex change surgery or do doping). In other words gender (in the social sciences) refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors and social expectations considered appropriate for men or women including their diversities, such as race, class, sexual orientation, age, disabilities, etc.

   To reiterate, the distinction between the social gender and the biological gender (sex) is made only in the social sciences. The meaning of gender in the social sciences is not static, but dynamic, active, changing,  as opposed to the hard sciences. In hard science no such distinction exists, as here gender or sex refers exclusively to biological differences:  anatomy, biolgogy etc. Namely the biological gender does not usually change according to time and space...

Maria, if you read Portuguese, in Portugal, Ligia Amâncio has written about this issue. She has several articles on the Internet. See, for example:

http://analisesocial.ics.ul.pt/documentos/1218791078B9rDE5id4Po89MU8.pdf

Today, the term gender is used in western societies to describe the social gender, which is not static but changing, namely the social construction of identity (for both women and men), the meaning of which changes according to time and space. I would like to reiterate here, that the term gender is an Anglo-Saxon conception, for example, not used in the French language, in romance languages, etc. It is usually used—as an analytical category-- in western cultures, gradually replacing the term sex, so as to eliminate our focus on difference as opposed to diversity or respect for diversity. When you concentrate on ‘’differences’’ you usually analyze or approach the subject as «the Other» which usually indicates an attitude of superiority…. I need add here that in western societies we no longer say Equality of the Sexes but Gender Equality.

   The term is used in the social sciences, whereas in the hard sciences (anatomy, medicine) the terms sex or even gender refers only to biological differences which do not usually change according to space and time (unless we have sex change surgery or do doping). In other words gender (in the social sciences) refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors and social expectations considered appropriate for men or women including their diversities, such as race, class, sexual orientation, age, disabilities, etc. To reiterate, the distinction between the social gender and the biological gender (sex) is made only in the social sciences. The meaning of gender in the social sciences is not static, but dynamic, active, changing,  as opposed to the hard sciences. In hard science no such distinction exists, as here gender or sex refers exclusively to biological differences:  anatomy, biolgogy etc. Namely the biological gender does not usually change according to time and space...

When reviewing the literature suggested in these responses, focus on the aspect of gender as a social construct that differs, according to cultural perceptions. Westerners have a proclivity to assume gender roles should be a natural extension of the biological birth sex (i.e., Males masculine; females are feminine). This concept is, of course, flawed. Gender identity can present differently from biological sex as early as two years of age. Further, approximately 2 percent of infants are are born with ambiguous sex anatomy. It is our Western culture's insistence on categorizing people that causes parents and professionals to perform surgery on these children before the child has had an opportunity to exhibit their own gender identity. Most of us are familiar with how that ended for David Reimer.

A discussion of some of the debates on this topic for Classical and Medieval scholars may be found in my article (2014) article Some Disputes Surrounding Masculinity as a Category in the Study of Late Antiquity". Matt Kuefler's  2001 book Manly Eunuch has a great introduction to all the disputes. I also have an article on here  (sorry about another shameless plug) on the idea on whether Romans really considered eunuchs as a third gender category, traditionalists like Warren Treadgold say no,  while a gender historian like Shaun Tougher would say sometimes, whilst Kathryn Ringrose would say that most of the time Byzantines considered eunuchs as male in "sex" but as a distinct gender somewhere between male and female. Though I would support T's idea that eunuchs had a multiplicity of concurrent gender identities. Ringroses' ladder of gender difference, however, best explains the situation on the notion of "gender" in the ancient world. As Kuefler explains the Romans tended to believed in the universal masculine, whereby good traits were masculine qualities. This is not to say that there were no feminine virtues, but that is another can of worms. This androcentrism helps to explain why someone like the Byzantine historian Procopius presented manly women in a positive light, whilst a man displaying any type of feminine trait was always portrayed negatively. So, yes the ancients de believed (though differently from moderns) in separate genders: male and females as mirror images is a good analogy from Kuefler. Hope that this contributes something to the debate.

Article Some Disputes Surrounding Masculinity as a Legitimate Catego...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304462331_Topical_Issues_on_Equality_before_the_Law_for_Intersex_and_Transgender_Persons

Article Topical Issues on Equality before the Law for Intersex and T...