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Am I aWoman?Lets look at sex and
gender
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Sex and Gender
Do sex and gender matter incontemporary society?
People experience different realitiesdepending on their
gender(economically, politically, socially)
Is category of woman a universal reality
grounded in nature?
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Relationships
Sex gender sexuality identity Sex: anatomical difference
Gender: external practices such as clothing and
behaviour (typically corresponds to sex)
Sexuality: our desires and sexual acts
Identity: such as professor, student, etc
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Sex and Gender distinctions
3 assumptions:
1)biological distinction between women
and men; assumes a distinction betweenbiology and culture
2) while gender is changeable, sex is
immutable
3) biology itself distinguishes betweenfemales and males
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Critique
Sex/gender distinction NOT a given
Rather, it is a product of ourunderstandings of the
relationshipbetween 2 concepts
We must look at the meanings we attachto these concepts and
examine how this
distinction came into being
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Dividing sex and gender
Two sex model has not always existed
Prior to 18th century, opinion was that males
and females had the SAME body
Belief in fluidity of movement across sex
continuum
Medical literature of that time details sex
changes (legal changes of women to men) This change reflected an
attempt of women
to achieve physical perfection
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Meaningful bodies
This research reflects idea that bodies onlybecome meaningful
through their
interpretation (social construction ofreality)
Sex is socially constructed throughdiscourse
Today, we can change sex both legallyand physically
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Two-Sex Distinction: Sex
People with intersex conditions provideresearchers with
opportunity to explore
relationship between sex and gender
Intersex: refers to a wide range ofconditions that involve
presence to somedegree of both sex organs
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Sex Reassignment 1960s, John Money founded the practice of
surgical reassignment in infants and children
His practice remains standard practice in UStoday
Belief that sex and gender should align
Problem with his approach exemplified withDavid Reimer case
Belief that sex creates gender Intersex viewed as a disability;
something to
be fixed (medicalization)
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Medicalization The process of defining conditions and/or
behaviours as illness, disease, syndromes, or
conditions What is natural and NOT natural (unnatural)
The authenticity of sex resides not on or inthe body but rather
results from a particularnexus of power, knowledge, and truth
(text,
p. 53) Who makes these determinations? Who has
the power to define and illness?
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Two-Sex Distinction: Gender
Intersex people raise difficult questions about
sex as natural
Intersex people lack the choice that transpeople have
View that trans identity is socially created by
medical and psychiatric community: one sex
trapped inside the body of another This becomes an origin story
and something
that should be fixed
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Threatening
The more closely the impostersperformance approximates to the
real
thing, the more intensely we may bethreatened, for a
competentperformance by someone who proves tobe an imposter may
weaken in our mindsthe moral connection between legitimate
authorization to play a part and thecapacity to play it (Goffman
1971, p. 55text)
