Critically Analyse How Changing Ideas of Gender and Sexuality Have Affected Social Geographies Today

Critically analyse how changing ideas of gender and sexuality have affected social geographies today

Throughout the last century, social opinion on Gender and Sexuality have changed a great deal. Once, these The concept of ‘Social Geography’ was not fully established as a branch of geography until the 1960’s and 1970’s. Previously, social categories, such as gender and sexuality, could not be easily studied within social geography, it is widely accepted that the concept of ‘gender’ is merely a social construct, rather than categories such as gender and sexuality are seen as ‘natural and given’, and are often associated with specific roles within our cultures. (Holloway)

Within social geography it is widely accepted that ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ do not mean the same thing. Instead, Gender is viewed as a social term used to define being male or female, rather than being biologically defined, as one might think it would be. For example, it is expected that a baby girl wear pink, and a baby boy wear blue to define their sexes. Whereas, it is seen that Sex is defined by a person’s genitals, therefore the ability to carry a child would define a person as female (Pain 2001).

However, not all people can be easily defined as male or female, with there being three distinct categories that can distort this. The first is intersexed babies, who are born with both male and female genitals, meaning that doctors have to define their sex at birth, rather than them having the ability to choose as adults. The second is a Transgender person, who is born male or female, but identifies themselves as the opposite sex, with many people undergoing the transition into the sex they feel they should be. The last is when a person is born with the chromosome arrangement ‘XXY’. This means that they have both male and female genes, making it hard to genetically define them as either. This was only discovered when Sex Verification was introduced as one of the tests for athletes hoping to compete in the Olympics. This was introduced to ensure that male athletes could not compete as females, giving them an unfair advantage (Valentine, 2001). One of the most recent cases of this is with South African runner, Caster Semenya, in which tests revealed she had no womb or ovaries, and three times the amount of testosterone that a normal female should have. As a result she was stripped of her medals and not able to compete. In the end the International Association for Athletes Federation (IAAF) decided that she could compete as a female, however it is believed that she has had to undergo treatments to possibly reduced the testosterone in her system as she has not “she has steadily gotten slower” (website).

The case of Caster Semenya reflects Valentines opinion that people who do not fit into the category of either male or female are “contained and medicalized in order to conform to our culture’s demand for only two categories of sex” (Valentine, 2001). Since the 1950’s, when a child is born as intersex, an operation is carried out to make the child either male or female. In recent times, this is being referred to as ‘Intersex Genital Mutilation’. Many organisations, such as GenderPAC believing that a person should be able to make their own decisions about wither or not they would like to undergo the surgery, meaning that they would undergo surgery as adults rather than infants (Wilchins, 2004).

Another main concept in social geography is the concept of a ‘Gendered Space’, which is essentially spaces which one gender would be welcome, and the other not. An example of this would be male and female bathrooms/changing rooms, with a female only entering space designated for females, and vice versa for men. However, for people who identify themselves as Transgender often come across problems in their day to day use of these spaces. Often a Transgender Female, (a male who identifies themselves as female) may find that they are prohibited from entering female bathrooms or changing areas, and are forced to use the males instead. In doing this, they may face discrimination from men going into a predominately ‘male space’ dressed as a female. (Website) Unfortunately, unless a transgender female were to legally change their sex to a female, under the eye of the government they are still seen to be male. This has proved to be a problem when sending a Transgender person to prison. A recent example of this would be the case of Tara Hudson – a Transgender female who has been sent to a male prison as she is still registered as male, despite having undergone the full transition to a female (Guardian, 2015).

Another popular ‘gendered space’ is the home, which has been traditionally viewed as the woman’s responsibility to look after and maintain, while the man goes to work and provides for his family.  This segregation has mostly always been in place, however it began to be reinforced during the industrial revolution, when millions of jobs popped up within the industrial sector, however these jobs were mostly suited to men due to the physical nature of them, as they were in part seen as too dangerous, and too hard, for women. Instead, women either stayed at home with the family, or undertook poorly paid domestic work (Massey, 1994).