I use both sex-based and gender-based oppression to describe female existence under male supremacy. Sex-based oppression is the form of oppression women experience from men due to the material reality of sexual dimorphism. To elaborate, men recognize that we are female because of our biological disposition and subsequently create written laws, social codes, and unspoken rules which contribute to our subordination. Gender-based oppressions, however, are the forms of discrimination which result from the socially constructed ideas (which may pertain to biology but also speak to invented ideas regarding female behavior) of women that exist within society and alongside sex-based oppression.
A form of sex-based oppression would be making abortion illegal because the issue pertains directly to the material reality of female bodies in context of our reproductive capacities. An example of gender-based oppression would be job segregation, in which women are confined to lower-paying or no-paying jobs such as domestic work based on sexist, gendered ideas regarding what women can and should do. For example, women are gender-tracked into a plethora of "helping", low-paying professions on the grounds that we are more caring and compassionate, with this process of gender-tracking contributing to the perpetuation of gender-based (and sex-based) economic inequality.
Why is it still gender based oppression?
I use both sex-based and gender-based oppression to describe female existence under male supremacy. Sex-based oppression is the form of oppression women experience from men due to the material reality of sexual dimorphism. To elaborate, men recognize that we are female because of our biological disposition and subsequently create written laws, social codes, and unspoken rules which contribute to our subordination. Gender-based oppressions, however, are the forms of discrimination which result from the socially constructed ideas (which may pertain to biology but also speak to invented ideas regarding female behavior) of women that exist within society and alongside sex-based oppression.
A form of sex-based oppression would be making abortion illegal because the issue pertains directly to the material reality of female bodies in context of our reproductive capacities. An example of gender-based oppression would be job segregation, in which women are confined to lower-paying or no-paying jobs such as domestic work based on sexist, gendered ideas regarding what women can and should do. For example, women are gender-tracked into a plethora of "helping", low-paying professions on the grounds that we are more caring and compassionate, with this process of gender-tracking contributing to the perpetuation of gender-based (and sex-based) economic inequality.