Gender Studies

Akash Patel

Professor Alicia Arrizón

WMST 001

29 August 2015

Gender? There’s nothing sexy about it.

        In the past couple of decades in Western societies, there has been a gender stereotype that citizens were forced to abide if they wished to be taken in as a part of society. Traditionally, gender was perceived to be the same as sex and decided and defined the moment one was born based off of one’s biological attribute. However, in today’s society, we are abandoning the concept of the gender binary that has been constructed and embedded in our brains by society for so many centuries. As we learn about the differences between sex and gender, we also are able grasp that human gender consists of much more than just the concrete ideas of male or female.

        In Sexing the Body by Anne Fausto-Sterling, Fausto-Sterling states that “A body’s sex is simply too complex. There is no either/or. Rather, there are shades.” Fausto-Sterling is explaining “that labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision” because there are just so many factors that must be taken into consideration before labeling their sex. As there is no clear definition of “sex,” it is most often defined in biological terms and refers to the physical attributes of an individual that will characterize one as either male or female. On the other hand, gender, as described by Fausto-Sterling, is “the internal conviction that one is either male or female” and how that conviction influences their behavior and their methods of expressing themselves. When it comes to one’s sexuality, it can only be described as one’s sexual preference because there is no set standard due to the wide range of sexual orientations and preferences in the LGBT community. Gender is different from sex in that it refers to one’s level of masculinity or femininity while sex simply pertains to being male or female. The best way of understanding the difference between sex and gender is that sex refers to one’s biological features while gender refers to the significance of sex learned through cultural norms. Although gender and sex play a role in one’s sexuality, one’s sexuality can change throughout one’s life due to certain influences or things acquired through culture or society.

        By looking past the concept of the gender binary, our society will be able to grow and develop and become more open and welcoming to all members of society instead of having people who are afraid of coming out because they believe they are going against societal norms. In another article written by Anne Fausto-Sterling called The 5 Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough, Fausto-Sterling gives the reader insight on why sex should not be sorted into two categories and that “sex is a vast, infinitely malleable continuum that defies the constraints of even five categories.” The close-minded view of sex only consists of male or female, but does not include the intersex, which include three more categories: hermaphrodites (herms), male pseudohermaphrodites (merms), and female pseudohermaphrodites (ferms). The intersex often feel lost in society due to not being able to categorize themselves as neither male nor female because of chromosomal errors, extra, or even lack of genitalia. The idea that there are only two sexes is nothing more than an assumption. The idea of there being more than two sexes goes so far back in time that even in the teachings of the Greek philosopher Plato there is reference to three sexes. We must open up as a society to the idea of there being more than just the binary concept of sex and gender so that those who cannot categorize themselves no longer feel like they are “freaks” or “outcasts” in society. As Fausto-Sterling states in her article, if we are able to look past the binaries of male/female and man/woman, then “the prize might be a society in which sexuality is something that is to be celebrated for its subtleties and not something to be feared or ridiculed.” By looking past the binary concept of gender, we will be able to move forward as a society as a whole.

        In Undoing Gender by Judith Butler, Butler discusses the social construct of gender and and how it creates a problem in society by dividing social roles and pressuring individuals into identifying themselves as a man or woman rather than allowing them to choose a section somewhere on the spectrum in between the only two given choices. Butler states that “One’s biological sex is directly tied to specific social roles” and that is because society rejects anything that deviates from the norm and only allows what it believes is correct. Butler also believes that gender is a social construct due to the fact that it portrays women as individuals who love the color pink and do all the cooking and men as hairy-chested and loving the color blue, but what is it that has convinced us that men are born loving the color blue and women are born loving the color pink? Why is that so? Why do we associate male and female with these colors? It is because our culture and society have planted these ideas into our head. Social roles also make it difficult for those who do not fit into one of the two categories because they feel as if they have no role in society and are often rejected due to their digression from the norm. The intersex are not the only ones who are limited by social roles. Women are often limited and never treated as equals with men due to females being signified as weak and irrational. Butler believes that she too is limited because she is a woman and that she is not “permitted to construct my gender and sex willy-nilly.” From all these issues raised by Butler, it is easy for us to see how the concept of gender was constructed by society.