History shows us how completely our gender derives from cultural myths about what is proper for men and women to think, enjoy, and do. And history is replete with examples of how the apparent "naturalness" of gender has been used to regulate political, economic, and personal relations between the sexes. (Colombo, Cullen, and Lisle 403).
I feel that in this passage the editors mean that in American history men and women have played certain gender roles. When saying " regulate" they mean that history has systemized the way people must act and carry on with their lives. Some examples of these are that it seems normal for men to make the money in the relationship/household. History shows that men were the head of the household. It was a women's role to marry, bear children, and be a housewife. History shows that men and women are to be in a sexual relationship with the opposite sex. Same sex relationships were not common.
In today's society sex and gender seem to have two different meanings. Sex is a more scientific term that explains physical traits and sexual preferences. Gender involves a more social tone. A person's social status helps separate or classify the two sexes. In "Growing Pains" the author, Anndee Hochman explains her childhood but more important , how she dealt with telling her parents that she was homosexual. Throughout this essay Hochman describes her family and how normal or not so normal they are. They seem at first to be "one big happy family". .
Hochman was raised in the traditional American family. Every summer, Hochman's family and relatives would visit her great-uncle Bernie's shore house. She had always loved the shore house when she was younger. It was full of bedrooms for her aunts, uncles, and their children. Most of the rooms in the house did not have doors. It reminded her of a maze. At the age of twenty-two, Hochman first made love with Jon Feldstein in that house.