The Body, Gender and Sex

SEX: bodily Type classifiaction, usually into 1 of two possibilities

• male
• female
• others (in some cultures we have other options)
• berdache, nadal, hijra, etc.

GENDER: refers to the socially determined psychology and roles ascribed to sex (men and women)

Gender has traditionally be seen as a social construct and sex as a biological construct governed only by natural forces. This assumption means that sex is not manipulated in any way by society or culture.

• contemporary DUALISTIC ideas about sex are in fact a RESULT of our cultural beliefs (in the Cartesian tradition)
• other models and understandings focus on the SIMILARITIES rather than oppositions between the sexes.

• SUPPORTED by the fact the biological sex itself is difficult to define
• internal organs
• external organs and secondary sexual characteristics
• hormones
• chromosomes (XX or XY)
• Sometimes, a child is born with sex chromosomes that are different from the usual XX of the female or the XY of the male. The child may develop sex and/or reproductive organs that are ambiguous — not completely female and not completely male.
  
  • Ambiguous sex organs can develop for other reasons, as well. These are called intersex conditions.
  • Most people agree that babies with intersex conditions should be assigned a gender at birth. Some people believe that assigning a gender means performing surgery on the baby's genitals, while others believe that a baby can be raised as a girl or boy without surgery. Some people believe surgery should be postponed until intersex people are old enough to decide for themselves. 
  • Genitals that are not easily identifiable as female or male are sometimes apparent at birth. But sometimes it is not obvious until puberty. People with intersex conditions may be considered sexually ambiguous in different ways:
    
  • They may have sex organs that appear to be somewhat female or male or both. They do not, however, have complete female genitals and complete male genitals.
  • They may have a large clitoris — more than two-fifths of an inch long.
  • They may have a small penis — less than an inch long.
  • Some babies are born with both ovarian and testicular tissue.
  • Some people have chromosomes that are different. Two common chromosomal intersex conditions are:
• Turner Syndrome = XO (45)
• Klienfelter’s Syndrome = XXY (47)
• XYY Syndrome (47)

• There are other differences a person could have that cannot be found without testing chromosomes and hormones, or examining internal sex organs. Sometimes the difference is never noticed, so some people have intersex conditions for their whole lives and never know.

So, our cultures does determine to some extent SEX and how people are SEXED.

GENDERING THE BODY: THE BODY IN SCIENCE

• Thomas Laqueur's book Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud 
• The one-sex and two-sex theory are two models of human anatomy or fetal development -He theorizes that a fundamental change in attitudes toward human sexual anatomy occurred in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. 
• Prior to the eighteenth century, it was a common belief that women and men represented two different forms of one essential sex: that is, women were seen to possess the same fundamental reproductive structure as men, the only difference being that female genitalia was inside the body, not outside of it. 
• Anatomists saw the vagina as an interior penis, the labia as foreskin, the uterus as scrotum, and the ovaries as testicles. 
• Around the 18th century, the dominant view became that of two sexes directly opposite to each other. There was an abundance of literature written in the 18th century supporting the two sex model. 
• Jacques-Louis Moreau wrote that "not only are the sexes different, but they are different in every conceivable aspect of body and soul, in every physical and moral aspect. To the physician or the naturalist, the relation of woman to man is a series of opposites and contrasts" 
• Women and men began to be seen as polar opposites and each sex was compared in relation to the other. 
• Gender, prior to the eighteenth century, was not prescribed upon individual; a man could be physically male, but he could have a feminine gender identity. This was seen as being normal and even acceptable. 
• With the switch to the two sex model, differences that had been expressed with reference to gender now came to be expressed with reference to sex and to biology.

• Renaissance anatomical illustrations depicted a woman as a man turned inside out. Male and female organs were often depicted side by side to demonstrate their correspondence to one another.
• Anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius, represented women's organs as versions of man's in all three of his influential works.The vagina was often depicted as long, phallic and almost indistinguishable from a penis. Representation of the anatomical difference between men and women were independent of the actual structures of these organs and "ideology, not accuracy of observation, determined how they were seen and which differences would matter." 
• Often, the only way to distinguish a female set of organs from a male set of organs would be if the illustrator were to cut away the front of what appears to be a womb in his drawing to reveal a child inside. This is because "the more Renaissance anatomists dissected, looked into and visually represented the female body, the more powerfully and convincingly they saw it to be a version of the males"

• Physiologically, the one sex model explains that "in the blood, semen, milk and other fluids of the one sex body, there is no female and no sharp boundary between the sexes" 
• Different levels of each of the fluids are what would determine gender. 
• The body was also seen as composed of four humours: cold, hot, moist, and dry. Just like with fluid composition, individuals varied in the humoral composition as well. "Though women were always dominated by cold and moist humours, and men by hot and dry humours, difference in sex were seen as differences of degree." 
• In terms of reproduction in the one sex model, the sex of the child produced by a couple was based on the intermixing of the fluid of a couple. Both males and females were thought to emit a sperm like substance during intercourse. If both partners produce a strong sperm, then a male will result; if both produce weak sperm, a female is born; and if in one partner the battle has gone to the weak and in the other to the strong, then the sex of the offspring is determined by the quantity of sperm produced". 

• Scientific advancements in the eighteenth century were not reason enough to bring about the two sex model. Knowledge about the differences in the male and female anatomy had been around since antiquity, but many people chose not to focus on the differences, but rather the similarities. 
• In the eighteenth century "distinct sexual anatomy was adduced to support or deny all matter of claims in a variety of specific social, economic, political, cultural or erotic contexts."
•  In the Eighteenth century people deliberately tried to find differences between the sexes and "wherever boundaries were threatened or new ones erected, newly discovered fundamental sexual differences provided the material".
• In the eighteenth century, anatomists began to produce a female skeleton to demonstrate that women and men are not only different on the inside, but on the outside as well. Gradually, the genitals of the female anatomy began to move on the anatomical illustrations and the vagina began to look less penis like. 
• Organs that used to be associated with both sexes started to have their own names as a result of the discovery of the sperm and egg. "'Testicle' could not stand alone to designate unambiguously the male gonad; it no longer carries the modifiers 'masculine' or 'feminine'. 'Ovary' not 'female stones' or 'testicle feminine' came to designate the female equivalent.
• Language was important in the development of the two sex model. As soon as organs were given different medical names, they were seen to be markedly different from each other.

• In terms of reproduction, in the two sex model it was now thought that the male sperm was superior to the female egg. 
• Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered that the male ejaculate was not just liquid but "he detected innumerable small animals in the masculine sperm" and "sperm and egg could now stand for man and woman."
• The egg quickly began to be seen as just a source of nourishment for the sperm and the sperm was viewed as being far superior to the egg. 

• Female body as the "DARK CONTINENT" to be studied by science
• natural, weak, troublesome
• naturally inferior to the male body, reason for exclusion from society
• UNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT THE HUMAN BODY BECAME THE WAY THE GENDER WAS NOW UNDERSTOOD BY SOCIETY-MEN AND WOMEN ARE NATURALLY SOCIALLY DIFFERENT

THE FEMALE BODY AS AN OBJECT OF SCRUTINY

• examining the female body
• development of medicine which emphasizes the differences between the male and female body with specialists who examine, scrutinize and evaluate the female body
• gynecology
• the body can be compartmentalized like a machine and inspected and then repaired by technology
• women's bodies are more subject to malfunction in this respect

•  HYSTERICAL BODIES (Hysteria)
• "wandering womb"
• symptoms (Uterine malfunction)
• fainting
• weeping
• weight loss
• loss of appetite
• excessive screaming or laughing

•  heightened the notion that women were irrational and out of control because of their bodies
• women's bodies were pathological and in need of containment and control
• PMS today??????
• reaction to inability to have access to social and political structures, failure to meet standards of beauty or success or femininity?????
• SERVED TO JUSTIFY EXCLUDING WOMEN FROM THE PUBLIC SPHERE

• Modern medicine as a patriarchal structure based on these ideas
• demise of midwifery
• rise of "witches"
• medicalization of natural processes
• menstruation
• menopause
• pregnancy/childbirth

• BLEEDING WOMEN: Views of menstruation and female body processes
• PMS as hormonal imbalance
• symbolic "safety valve" where women give expressions to the social contradictions that accompany expectations which can not be met around production and reproduction in capitalist society.
• why didnt my grandma get PMS?

• CULTURE and the female Body
• The obvious fact that the female body is naturally weaker, inferior, unstable, different and deviant when compared to the male body continues to be used as evidence of women's moral and intellectual inferiority
• FEMALE =NATURE/MALE=CULTURE (metaphorical associations)
• female body
• commodified (prostitution, pornography, nudes in art!)
• subject to medical scrutiny
• contained (for instance menstruation taboos)
• controlled (violence, abortion laws, contraception laws, uniforms)
• association of women's ROLES as the result of natural processes
• pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, nurturing "INSTINCT"
• menstruation
• physical strength (lack of)

• Male body 
• Rarely viewed in this way (associated with or reduced to the body)
• exception: sports/activities which emphasize physicality and strength

Modern Day anthropological theory sees gender as a PERFORMANCE, and the body as a MEDIUM for this display, rather than gender as an innate display of bodily differences.

CONFOUNDING CATEGORIES

• Native American categories
• BERDACHES (bodies are accepted and perform roles in costume, not sexualized)
• Two-spirit people” is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as berdaches, indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles in First Nations and Native American tribes.
• Third gender roles historically embodied by two-spirit people include performing work and wearing clothing associated with both men and women. 
• The presence of male two-spirits was a fundamental institution among most tribal peoples. Male and female two-spirits have been "documented in over 130 North America tribes, in every region of the continent.
• There are many indigenous terms for two-spirit individuals in the various Native American languages — including Lakota: wíŋkte, Navajo: nádleehé, and Mohave: hwame. Koskalaka is another word used in some languages for a two-spirit person or berdache.
  

  

  
  
  
•  HIJRAS (bodies are rejected and castrated, then costumed & sexualized)
• Hijra", is one of the many terms in the culture of South Asia used to refer individuals who consider themselves as transexual or transgendered. 
  • Transgenders are also known as Aravani, Aruvani or Jagappa in other areas of India. Hijras, are also known as chhakka in Kannada , khusra in Punjabi and kojja in Telugu
  • InPakistan, the hijras identify themselves as either female, male, or third gender.  'khwaaja sira'(Urduا), and can identify themselves as transexual person, transgender person (khusras), cross-dressers (zenanas) and eunuchs (narnbans). 
  • In general hijras are born with typically male physiology, only a few having been born with male intersex variations. Some Hijras undergo an initiation rite into the hijra community called nirwaan, which refers to the removal of penis, testicles and scrotum (everything off!)
  • Since the late 20th century, some hijra activists and Western non-government organizations (NGOs) have been lobbying for official recognition of the hijra as a kind of "third sex" or "third gender," as neither man nor woman. 
   
  
  
  

• Masculinity, Physicality & Space
• The body is a CULTURAL ARTIFACT SHAPED BY IDEAS
• dominant versions of masculinity and femininity will inform how poeple DO GENDER
• 3 main characteristics of HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY
• emphasizes herterosexuality
• exists in relation to emphasized FEMININITY (and visa-versa)
• provides a particular kind of male body , a MUSCULAR BODY/PHYSICALITY
• adult males and boys need to occupy space as an aspect of muscularity.  as boys learn the social significance of SIZE, GESTURE and ACTIVE ORIENTATION
• sitting with legs apart
• positioning themselves in the center
• walking styles
• rough and tumble games and other interactions with boys help to develop coordination, physical confidence and an active sense of being-in-the-world (Phenom.)=a sense of oneself as an active subject (not so often with girls...TOMBOYS????)
• SPORTS: affects this as well if one participates. -particular forms of physicality shape identity during our developmental years (jocks???)

• These images influences self-identity and shape bodily conduct

Race and Masculinity

• Black athletes become subject to the commodified gaze of wealthy white owner
•  draft is a time when bodies are deconstructed and evaluated
• scrutiny normalizes a conception of masculinity that controls the labor potential of "hyper-masculine" physique, while reasserting class dominance and White privileged

.Men Doing Gender as a Social Practice

• Male Dancers: challenge ways in which men should use their bodies- physicality is not enough. it is a certain TYPE of physicality
•  masculine ideal has to distinguish itself from this "feminized" body (in the process) by redefing muscularity
• Women who are physically active also challenge this masculine body. Women who lift weights are considered different from other women (freaks=manlike)
• no man wants a woman who is physically stronger or bigger than him

"Looking-glass Self" (Coolie)

•  "throwing like a girl"
• know how to properly throw and are in the process of looking at yourself doing it to see how you measure up ( in your view and society's)

The Objectified Body (& femininity)

•  (Rich) Woman's body is a "problem" to her
• female body as an object (De Beauviour)  that can be seen in many cultural practices
• foot binding, corseting, plastic surgery, fattening, circumcision, 
• (Berger) men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at (ART, for example)
• womens bodies must be displayed and produced (as spectacle)
• women are conscious of being watched and so invest in their bodies and present them as an expression of themselves(clothing, makeup, etc.)
• RACISM: exacerbates the power asymmetry of this "gaze" (Foucoult) so much so that black women have been objectified to the point of being painted as breeders, sexualized, and body parts have been coopted and explained as enlarged for these pursuits.
• Black women will aim to reproduce white female norns of beauty in public display because of this gaze
•  (Merlaeu-Ponty) awareness of one's own body as an object is experienced as ALIENATION (lack of embodiment)
• feminine modality (Young): Women comport and carry themselves in certain ways
• short strides
• pull back to catch things
• arms near their sides when they walk
• avoid the gaze of others in public
• use their arms to shield and protect themselves

• why should women do this?
• they exist in a CLOSED SPACE which has discouraged physical engagement (lack of confidence due to under-use)
• they are conscious of the "male gaze" which acts to discipline them and encourage docility

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF BODY IDIOM (in both men and women)-the knowledge of how to comport oneself as a man or a women and how to move in space as well.

CHALLENGING GENDER BOUNDARIES

• doing gender in ways which confound norms  and expectations typically to gain access to some activity or occupation that is restricted or exclusionary-PASS AS MEN

• BILLY TIPTON: Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Tipton grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was raised by an aunt after his parents' divorce. He subsequently rarely saw his father, G. W. Tipton, a pilot who sometimes took him for airplane rides. As a high-school student, Tipton went by the nickname Tippy and became interested in music, especially jazz, studying piano and saxophone. He returned to Oklahoma for his final year of high school and joined the school band there^.
  As Tipton began a more serious music career, he adopted his father's nickname, Billy, and more actively worked to pass as male by binding his breasts and padding his pants. At first, Tipton only presented as male in performance, but by 1940 was living as a man in private life as well^. Two of Tipton's female cousins, with whom Tipton maintained contact over the years, and perhaps some of his later paramours, were the only persons privy to both sides of Tipton's life

• Cross-gendering (transvestism)
• takes a huge amount of work to perform gender through exaggerations of female performance and BODY IDIOM
• conceal body parts/create body parts
• emphasis on achieving a credible performance. 
• RuPAul "drag queens"
• "drag kings"

these presentation lead us to QUESTION the innateness of gender and sex "norms/constructions based on heterosexuality) and see them as OVERT PERFORMANCES.

• women (and men) may also assume/perform varient and multiple styles of femininity and masculinity in different context. 
• (example of girls and how they represent themselves in dance spaces)
• girls in sports versus going out (cleaning up well)
• professional/back presentations

JUDITH BUTLER: Bodies That Matter

• sex and gender are not separate, but both are implicated in the other in a discursive loop.
• ideas about sex and gender are tied to the LANGUAGE we use, which fixes our conceptions of the body over time. As we create a new category which we name, does this help create other possibilities?
• FACEBOOK
• now 50 ways you may describe your "GENDER"
• what is the significance of this?
• Does Butler's view dismiss the significance of the body as FLESH and its experience in the world when it takes this largely philosophical view of gender? Or is there an aspect of gender identity which is wholly  part of experience?

HOW DO PEOPLE DO GENDER ONLINE????

• do people draw heavily on the physical body as a common point of reference, still? Even though they might avoid this with text?
• SNAPCHAT? INSTAGRAM? How are the visual still important in our "doing of gender"?

CHANGING BODIES: Transsexuality & Transgendering

• Transvestism is about surface change, transsexuality is about changing the physical structures of the body.
• transgendering is about surgically changing body parts to identify with another sex ("substituting")
• not just about replacement of body parts and hormones, but also about PERFORMING gender in CONVINCING WAYS
• appearance & dress
• gesture: learning to "act" like a woman to be taken for granted as a women for instance
• voice quality and tone
• movement
• posture
• language
• 
  
• BOYS DONT CRY (click here to watch)