Final answer:
The reference category in the case of a dummy variable categorizing a person's gender is female (0).
Step-by-step explanation:
The reference category in the case of a dummy variable categorizing a person's gender is the category that is not explicitly included as a separate value in the variable. In this case, since we are defining 1 for male and 0 for female, the reference category would be female (0). This means that when we compare males to females using this dummy variable, we are comparing males to females relative to the reference category of female.