[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.)