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INTRODUCTION Sex and gender are two words that people mostly use interchangeably, but it has different meaning. The term sex means structural, functional and behavioural features determined by sex chromosomes (Torgrimson & Minson, 2005), whereas gender refers to person s feelings, attitudes and behaviours that are shaped by culture (American Psychological Association [APA], 2015). Thus, sex is welldefined in every culture whereas, meaning of gender differs as social expectations toward male and female are different across cultures. Individuals express their gender in social interactions on the basis of appearance, body language, conversational style and voice tone. Therefore, while interacting with others, individuals respond differently to people according to the gender of the conversational partner. Similarly, individuals understand other persons gender by their appearance, body language, and tone of voice. Sex is comparatively stable whereas, gender is more fluid in nature (Eckert & Ginet, 2013). Although a number of factors contribute to gender and gender development, the influence of society and culture are inevitable. Gender roles are assigned by the society and culture which determine how males, females and transgender should behave and interact within the society. Gender roles are generally constructed on the basis of masculinity and femininity concepts prevalent in a particular society (Alters & Schiff, 2009). Masculinity mostly refers to traits, behaviours, and interests such as bravery, risk taking and watching sports that society has allotted for males. Femininity on the other hand,
