[EllaMentry]

The paper is charting how sex and gender have been used throughout academic literature in the past few decades. In the last few decades we have learned swathes more about the complexity of gender identity and diversity, not just in western culture but it many others. Biological sex on the other hand it pretty well understood, and is certainly correlated with gender identity, but is distinct. It makes a lot of sense that papers about gender have increased while paper talking about sex have decreased, it aligns with new knowledge.

And the paper makes the point that new writers to the field often use gender in place of sex because they don't understand the full complexity of the word.

Or you know....delete your comment:

"I would love for you to explain what it is that I failed to understand about the paper, since I do enjoy learning new things. I'm not holding my breath though."

[penrod]

It's unwise to presume you're talking to an idiot. I am well aware of the meaning of 'gender' within feminist literature. Obviously, that is not what I was objecting to. My irritation is with the current commonplace usage of the word as a simple synonym for sex.

You ascribe the conflation to writers who "..don't understand the full complexity of the word." I also attribute it to pretentiousness (gender sounds more "academic") and a good dose of prudishness (sex sounds dirty.)