In early texts on sociology, gender separation is considered a cornerstone of social order and society as a natural relationship. Not least in the interaction between women's movements and sociology, very different theoretical approaches to the category of gender emerged already with the classics, which captured the relationship between nature and society in new and varied ways. In the further development, gender separation itself increasingly came into the center of attention. The lines have shifted towards a genuinely sociological approach, in which nature finds its place as culturally interpreted but cannot be a prerequisite for analysis. The authors illustrate how gender has been addressed in sociology and what possibilities sociology offers to treat gender as an object rather than as a starting point or medium.