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Sure, but usually context makes it clear. For example we don't need a fancy academic term that distinguishes the social role of a police officer from the occupation of police a police officer, so I don't see why we need a separate term for the social role of men and women.
I dunno, there are languages that have no equivalent of the word "gender" and seem to be having that conversation just fine.
See, there's the rub. Academia loves jargon because they think it makes their field more serious, but jargon doesn't necessarily mean a word i specific or precise. When you point that out they love to blame Twitter or Tumbler activists, but that's incorrect, a lot of vagueness of different terms comes from academia itself. Just check the usage of the word "neoliberal" if you don't believe me.
If a word is creating more confusion than clarity, I think it's perfectly fine to suggest dropping it's usage.
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