user749: Are the genders male/female a result of Kamma, or is it associated with it in any way?

user8157: In the Pali suttas attributed to the Buddha, the results of kamma are two-fold, namely, "heaven" ("happiness") and "hell" ("pain & torment"). For example: 

When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished,
  rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to
  imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away &
  reappearance of beings. I saw — by means of the divine eye, purified &
  surpassing the human — beings passing away & re-appearing, and I
  discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly,
  fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma: 'These beings
  — who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech & mind, who
  reviled noble ones, held wrong views and undertook actions under the
  influence of wrong views — with the break-up of the body, after death,
  have re-appeared in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the
  lower realms, in hell. But these beings — who were endowed with good
  conduct of body, speech, & mind, who did not revile noble ones, who
  held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right
  views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared
  in the good destinations, in the heavenly world.' Thus — by means of
  the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human — I saw beings passing
  away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior,
  beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their
  kamma.
Bhaya-bherava Sutta

The five-fold results of kamma, namely, human (virtuous), godly (powerful), ghost (addicted), animal (without conscience) & hell (pain & torment) are more diverse descriptions of the two-fold kamma. For example:

Bhikkhus, a god, a human or any other good state would not be evident from actions born of greed, hate and delusion. Yet, bhikkhus, from
  actions born of greed, hate and delusion a hellish being, an animal
  birth a ghostly birth or some other bad state would be evident.
Nidānasutta

The Buddha applied the above results of kamma equally to both men & women. The Buddha did not teach sex is determined by kamma. For example:

Student, beings are owners of kamma, heir to kamma, born of kamma, related through kamma, and have kamma as their arbitrator. Kamma is
  what creates distinctions among beings in terms of coarseness &
  refinement... There is the case, student, where a woman or man is a
  killer of living beings, brutal, bloody-handed, given to killing &
  slaying, showing no mercy to living beings. Through having adopted &
  carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death,
  he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the
  lower realms, hell. 
Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta


user701: Yes it's a result of kamma. Being born as a male is considered a result of a higher kamma. In Paramatthajotika by Buddhaghosha thera(can't find the english translation) it is mentioned that being born as a female is due to the violation of the third precept in a previous life. 
In Therigatha 400-470 mentions the story of a Bhikkuni named Isidasi who lived during Buddha's time who violated this precept eight lifetimes ago being born as a man. The rest of her lives are as follows:

Therefrom deceasing, long I ripened in Avici hell And then found
  rebirth in the body of an ape. Scarce seven days I lived before the
  great Dog-ape, the monkey’s chief, castrated me. Such was the fruit of
  my lasciviousness.
Therefrom deceasing in the woods of Sindh, Born the offspring of a
  one-eyed goat And lame, twelve years a gelding, gnawn by worms. Unfit,
  I carried children on my back. Such was the fruit of my
  lasciviousness.
The next time she was born a calf and was again castrated, and as a bullock pulled a plough and a cart. Then, as the worst of that evil kamma’s results had already ripened, Isidasi returned to the human realm. But it was still an uncertain kind of birth as she was the hermaphroditic child of a slave. That life too did not last long. Next, she was the daughter of a man oppressed by debts.

In Abhidhamma the definition of the two sexes (Bhava rupa) is given like this,

The sex of a living thing, purisa bhava (male) or itthi bhava (female)
  is determined at the very beginning of pregnancy. The determining
  factor is of course, one's past kamma. The female chromosome is called
  itthi bhava rupa; the male chromosome purisa bhava rupa. These bhava
  rupas, chromosomes, dispersed all over the body, determine the
  physique, organs, behaviour and characteristics in the male and female
  respectively.


user43: I'd say, your overall energy configuration is a result of karma, which in its turn is a product of your predominant state of mind. Outwardly, energy configuration manifests as circumstances, and inwardly, as character. This character includes traits such as a certain balance of masculinity and femininity, but also a bunch of other, harder-to-pinpoint characteristics. Depending on the exact combination of outer and inner factors, you may be a masculine man, a feminine woman, a masculine woman, a feminine man, or anywhere in between.
Tracing phenotypes back to their karmic roots is like tracing the ocean water back to the rivers it came from, or to use a modern analogy, like decomposing a product of prime numbers back to its factors. While the opposite is pretty much trivial: if you follow the ocean-bound stream down, you are guaranteed to get to the ocean. What's important is to understand that it is your predominant state of mind that shapes your reality. As long as you get a feeling of directionality, even a rough idea of what Buddhism calls "right" (samyak), by cultivating it over a long enough period of time, however imperfectly, you are guaranteed to get to Enlightenment.

user18: Karma is a very complicated process. We could in fact say that just about everything affects just about everything else - if a butterfly beats its wings in China, it does probably play some infinitesimal role in causing hurricanes in Florida. If, by karma, you mean any old action whatsoever, then indeed, there are probably certain actions (especially mental ones) that lead one to be reborn as one gender or the other.
Specifically, a man's obsession with women would most likely cause him to be reborn as a woman, and vice versa. This is most likely what happened in the stories we have that have been traditionally interpreted as suggesting that adultery leads to being born a woman. It is far more likely, in my mind, that male adultery with women leads to being born a woman, and female adultery with men leads to being born a man. The cause being the insane obsession.
This, of course, is not what is meant by karma and result in a Buddhist sense. Here the fact that one was born a woman or a man was not a "bad" or "good" result, it was just a case of obsession leading to realization of the object of obsession.  If one were insanely obsessed with cats, one would likely be born a cat.
If, by karma, you are referring to ethical acts, in the sense that, for example, being born gender A is the good result of certain good deeds and being born gender B is the evil result of certain evil deeds, it seems unlikely that one could infer that from the Buddha's teaching - itthindriya and purisindriya are just two of the many aspects of physical being; there is nothing intrinsically inferior or superior between the two, I don't think.
That being said, genders are hardly ever equal, physically or socially, in any species of being; in India at the time of the Buddha and when the commentaries were written, for example, being born a human female would have been a bad thing given their inferior social status, and thus could be taken indirectly as a sign of bad past karma. Too, the physiology of a human female is arguably (though not conclusively so) a cause of greater potential suffering than of its male counterpart, forcing one to deal with menstrual cycles, pregnancy, etc., as well as generally inferior strength.  
Of course, this need not always be true; nor does it imply that the female faculty itself is inferior to the male faculty, or brought about by bad karma in all cases. Several species of mammal exhibit characteristics of female domination; the human species itself seems to be heading closer to a level of equality between the genders. Thus, it seems erroneous to suggest that one gender is an intrinsic result of good karma and another the intrinsic result of bad karma.
To be perfectly clear, in the abhidhamma, karma refers to one's mental volition or motivation, and the result is always expressed in terms of experience - good karma results in good experience, bad karma results in bad experience (viz. of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking). For gender to play any intrinsic role in bringing about the result of good or bad karma, it would have to intrinsically be the cause of specific pleasant or unpleasant experiences. Again, any such relationship seems more related to the evolution of certain species and cultures than the intrinsic nature of the genders.
Finally, the whole concept of karma is suspect; an arahant performs no karma, good or evil, and doesn't see any experience as either pleasant or unpleasant. In ultimate reality, whether certain experiences are "good" or "bad" seems largely subjective, and any volition or motivation that leads one to be reborn as either a male or a female of any species is definitely "bad" or "wrong" in an ultimate sense.

749: <p>Are the genders male/female a result of Kamma, or is it associated with it in any way?</p>
 8157: <p>In the Pali suttas attributed to the Buddha, the results of kamma are two-fold, namely, "heaven" ("happiness") and "hell" ("pain &amp; torment"). For example: </p>

<blockquote>
  <p><em>When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished,
  rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, &amp; attained to
  imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away &amp;
  reappearance of beings. I saw — by means of the divine eye, purified &amp;
  surpassing the human — beings passing away &amp; re-appearing, and I
  discerned how they are inferior &amp; superior, beautiful &amp; ugly,
  fortunate &amp; unfortunate in accordance with their kamma: 'These beings
  — who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech &amp; mind, who
  reviled noble ones, held wrong views and undertook actions under the
  influence of wrong views — with the break-up of the body, after death,
  have re-appeared in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the
  lower realms, in hell. But these beings — who were endowed with good
  conduct of body, speech, &amp; mind, who did not revile noble ones, who
  held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right
  views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared
  in the good destinations, in the heavenly world.' Thus — by means of
  the divine eye, purified &amp; surpassing the human — I saw beings passing
  away &amp; re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior &amp; superior,
  beautiful &amp; ugly, fortunate &amp; unfortunate in accordance with their
  kamma.</em></p>
  
  <p><em>Bhaya-bherava Sutta</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The five-fold results of kamma, namely, human (virtuous), godly (powerful), ghost (addicted), animal (without conscience) &amp; hell (pain &amp; torment) are more diverse descriptions of the two-fold kamma. For example:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><em>Bhikkhus, a god, a human or any other good state would not be evident from actions born of greed, hate and delusion. Yet, bhikkhus, from
  actions born of greed, hate and delusion a hellish being, an animal
  birth a ghostly birth or some other bad state would be evident.</em></p>
  
  <p><em>Nidānasutta</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The Buddha applied the above results of kamma equally to both men &amp; women. The Buddha did not teach sex is determined by kamma. For example:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><em>Student, beings are owners of kamma, heir to kamma, born of kamma, related through kamma, and have kamma as their arbitrator. Kamma is
  what creates distinctions among beings in terms of coarseness &amp;
  refinement... There is the case, student, where a <strong>woman or man</strong> is a
  killer of living beings, brutal, bloody-handed, given to killing &amp;
  slaying, showing no mercy to living beings. Through having adopted &amp;
  carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death,
  he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the
  lower realms, hell.</em> </p>
  
  <p><em>Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta</em></p>
</blockquote>
 701: <p>Yes it's a result of kamma. Being born as a male is considered a result of a higher kamma. In Paramatthajotika by Buddhaghosha thera(can't find the english translation) it is mentioned that being born as a female is due to the violation of the third precept in a previous life. </p>

<p>In Therigatha 400-470 mentions the story of a Bhikkuni named <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/jootla/wheel349.html#part2.12" rel="nofollow">Isidasi</a> who lived during Buddha's time who violated this precept eight lifetimes ago being born as a man. The rest of her lives are as follows:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Therefrom deceasing, long I ripened in Avici hell And then found
  rebirth in the body of an ape. Scarce seven days I lived before the
  great Dog-ape, the monkey’s chief, castrated me. Such was the fruit of
  my lasciviousness.</p>
  
  <p>Therefrom deceasing in the woods of Sindh, Born the offspring of a
  one-eyed goat And lame, twelve years a gelding, gnawn by worms. Unfit,
  I carried children on my back. Such was the fruit of my
  lasciviousness.</p>
  
  <p>The next time she was born a calf and was again castrated, and as a bullock pulled a plough and a cart. Then, as the worst of that evil kamma’s results had already ripened, Isidasi returned to the human realm. But it was still an uncertain kind of birth as she was the hermaphroditic child of a slave. That life too did not last long. Next, she was the daughter of a man oppressed by debts.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In <em>Abhidhamma</em> the definition of the two sexes (<a href="http://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/abhidhamma-in-daily-life_2/d/doc3188.html" rel="nofollow">Bhava rupa</a>) is given like this,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The sex of a living thing, purisa bhava (male) or itthi bhava (female)
  is determined at the very beginning of pregnancy. The determining
  factor is of course, one's past kamma. The female chromosome is called
  itthi bhava rupa; the male chromosome purisa bhava rupa. These bhava
  rupas, chromosomes, dispersed all over the body, determine the
  physique, organs, behaviour and characteristics in the male and female
  respectively.</p>
</blockquote>
 43: <p>I'd say, your overall energy configuration is a result of karma, which in its turn is a product of your predominant state of mind. Outwardly, energy configuration manifests as circumstances, and inwardly, as character. This character includes traits such as a certain balance of masculinity and femininity, but also a bunch of other, harder-to-pinpoint characteristics. Depending on the exact combination of outer and inner factors, you may be a masculine man, a feminine woman, a masculine woman, a feminine man, or anywhere in between.</p>

<p>Tracing phenotypes back to their karmic roots is like tracing the ocean water back to the rivers it came from, or to use a modern analogy, like decomposing a product of prime numbers back to its factors. While the opposite is pretty much trivial: if you follow the ocean-bound stream down, you are guaranteed to get to the ocean. What's important is to understand that <em>it is your predominant state of mind that shapes your reality</em>. As long as you get a feeling of directionality, even a rough idea of what Buddhism calls "right" (<code>samyak</code>), by cultivating it over a long enough period of time, however imperfectly, you are guaranteed to get to Enlightenment.</p>
 18: <p>Karma is a very complicated process. We could in fact say that just about everything affects just about everything else - if a butterfly beats its wings in China, it does probably play some infinitesimal role in causing hurricanes in Florida. If, by karma, you mean any old action whatsoever, then indeed, there are probably certain actions (especially mental ones) that lead one to be reborn as one gender or the other.</p>

<p>Specifically, a man's obsession with women would most likely cause him to be reborn as a woman, and vice versa. This is most likely what happened in the stories we have that have been traditionally interpreted as suggesting that adultery leads to being born a woman. It is far more likely, in my mind, that <em>male</em> adultery with <em>women</em> leads to being born a woman, and <em>female</em> adultery with <em>men</em> leads to being born a man. The cause being the insane obsession.</p>

<p>This, of course, is not what is meant by karma and result in a Buddhist sense. Here the fact that one was born a woman or a man was not a "bad" or "good" result, it was just a case of obsession leading to realization of the object of obsession.  If one were insanely obsessed with cats, one would likely be born a cat.</p>

<p>If, by karma, you are referring to ethical acts, in the sense that, for example, being born gender A is the good result of certain good deeds and being born gender B is the evil result of certain evil deeds, it seems unlikely that one could infer that from the Buddha's teaching - <em>itthindriya</em> and <em>purisindriya</em> are just two of the many aspects of physical being; there is nothing intrinsically inferior or superior between the two, I don't think.</p>

<p>That being said, genders are hardly ever equal, physically or socially, in any species of being; in India at the time of the Buddha and when the commentaries were written, for example, being born a human female would have been a bad thing given their inferior social status, and thus could be taken indirectly as a sign of bad past karma. Too, the physiology of a human female is arguably (though not conclusively so) a cause of greater potential suffering than of its male counterpart, forcing one to deal with menstrual cycles, pregnancy, etc., as well as generally inferior strength.  </p>

<p>Of course, this need not always be true; nor does it imply that the female faculty itself is inferior to the male faculty, or brought about by bad karma in all cases. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy#Female_dominance_in_mammals">Several species of mammal exhibit characteristics of female domination</a>; the human species itself seems to be heading closer to a level of equality between the genders. Thus, it seems erroneous to suggest that one gender is an intrinsic result of good karma and another the intrinsic result of bad karma.</p>

<p>To be perfectly clear, in the abhidhamma, karma refers to one's mental volition or motivation, and the result is always expressed in terms of experience - good karma results in good experience, bad karma results in bad experience (viz. of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking). For gender to play any intrinsic role in bringing about the result of good or bad karma, it would have to intrinsically be the cause of specific pleasant or unpleasant experiences. Again, any such relationship seems more related to the evolution of certain species and cultures than the intrinsic nature of the genders.</p>

<p>Finally, the whole concept of karma is suspect; an arahant performs no karma, good or evil, and doesn't see any experience as either pleasant or unpleasant. In ultimate reality, whether certain experiences are "good" or "bad" seems largely subjective, and any volition or motivation that leads one to be reborn as either a male or a female of any species is definitely "bad" or "wrong" in an ultimate sense.</p>
