What is sex? What is gender?

An analysis of sex and gender using quotes from the two articles below:

The Gendered Society by Michael S. Kimmel

"If gender varies across cultures, over historical time, among men and women within any one culture, and over the life course, can we really speak to masculinity and femininity as though they were constant, universal essences, common to all women and to all men? If not gender, must be seen as an ever-changing fluid assemblage of meanings and behaviors. In that sense, we must speak of masculinities and femininities, and thus recognize the different definitions of masculinity and femininity that we construct. By pluralizing the terms, we acknowledge that masculinity and femininity mean different things to different groups of people at different times" (Kimmel, 118)

and

Where's the Rulebook for Sex Verification by Alice Dreger

"Sex is so messy that in the end, these doctors are not going to be able to run a test that will answer the question. Science can and will inform their decision, but they are going to have to decide which of the dozens of characteristics of sex matter to them" (Dreger, 124)

      Going along with the perpetual problem that humans have this desire to categorize everything, gender and sex always cause strong debate. The first article describes the many predispositions that humans are faced with regarding the thought of gender in society. Delving into the fact that men and women are regarded as being "interplanetary" beings, Professor Kimmel truly shows the strict divide that we have created between the two genders. By referring to each other as the "opposite" sex, we really are creating a line that should not be crossed without consequences. He also touches upon the "biological determinism" and "differential socialization", (nature and nurture) aspects of gender construction. He talks about the fact that yes, there may be differences biologically between men and women from birth, but that they're not as radically different that we should deem them opposites. The article goes on to describe how immediately from birth, we are treated differently, and ultimately given ideas on how we should be or act in order to fit into the mold. He also opens up the reader's mind to the inevitable truth that throughout history, only women have been studied based on their gender, whereas masculinity studies are seldom seen. He discusses the fact that within society, a man's actions are never researched for correlations related to his gender, but instead other factors, whereas a women's actions may be looked into regarding hormonal imbalances, female socialization, and femininity. We learn that, as a society, we never bring masculinity to the foreground, but instead focus on the characteristics of femininity and being a women. Very similar to the idea of "whiteness as an unmarked category", we act as if gender should only be applied to women, leaving men unaware of the impact of their gender on different aspects of their lives. The article really shows that fish truly are the last to discover the ocean...The main points that the article describes are that men and women are not that different, yet society arbitrarily dictates what are appropriate characteristics for a man and a woman, even though there are many different perspectives depending on geography, sexual orientation, etc., and thus an unspoken set of guidelines, or rulebook, has been conditioned into our thought process. 

      This idea directly connects to the second article, in which Professor Dreger discusses the trepidation one can feel when being labeled one gender or another, and how we have constructed an illegitimate "rulebook" for the "game of sex". Just as in the aforementioned article, this article describes how "sex" was simply described by basing it on the natural biology. She delves further into the debacle however to describe that the biological intricacies can in fact be very abnormal. Professor Dreger goes on to describe how simply looking at a person's chromosomes is certainly not at all an accurate representation of their biological sex due to the many abnormalities that can and do often occur relating to hormones, genes, or organs. The main point that the author makes in her article describes how in order to make a decision on one particular person's sex, the doctors may be influenced by their scientific findings, yet their decision will ultimately be made based on their subjective choices of what characteristics are salient. Even though there may be many difficulties in making these decisions, we will always subjectively decide based on our own beliefs, and categorize based on what we believe to be important...

      These two articles really opened up my eyes to the truth about is sex and gender. Having been a psychology major, I was aware of the biological differences, and some of the preconditioned psychosocial constructs, but these two articles enlightened me to think about sex and gender much differently. Regarding the first article, I found it amazingly interesting to realize that as a society, we do in fact tend to look at things from a feminine perspective, and seldom research the masculine influences. As a male, I was amazed to sit back and introspectively analyze the fact that I didn't even realize this contention! I truly was a fish in the water, until I read this! In addition, while reading the article, there were many moments where I was truly intrigued by the in-your-face facts that are so easily overlooked. One of them was that as a society we do truly refer to the other as the "opposite", inherently making it impossible to have overlapping traits. Another was that we never look at the differences among men and among women, but due to the "opposite" belief, we think that the only comparison we can make is between the two. Fascinating! The only conjecture that I would contest in this article is seen in part of the quote I stated above. I understand his idea that it may be necessary to pluralize in order to understand that there are many differences influenced by different situations, yet I feel that by having the terms still be categorically different, still having the words "masculine" and "feminine" as the root, doesn't assuage the turmoil, but instead just adds to the ambiguity of it all. I feel that he may have found a potential solution to his problem of not addressing the differences among men and among women, but those terms do nothing for the differences between, in fact they make the lists of each longer, just drawing a bigger line between them. Don't get me wrong, I loved the article, but that was the only part that I was unsure about...

      The second article also made me realize how difficult it is to truly categorize a human being. The past articles I've read have addressed the difficulties of labeling based on race and ethnicity, yet gender is just as complicated. After hearing about all of the overlapping characteristics and biological predispositions that a person can have, and then hearing the story of the South African runner, it is an amazingly arduous task to try to assign a category, yet for some reason we feel that must do it...A concept I still don't understand. What bothers me about this concept is that even with moderately identifiable scientific evidence, humans will use their own opinions to ultimately decide...I guess I will just have to keep reading to find out how subjective we can be as a society...and maybe the other aspects of my life that I've overlooked...

      These two articles really reminded me of several different occurrences in my life recently. The first being an exercise that I did with my class discussing the idea of multicultural leadership, and the second being a quick reminder of gender roles as I was shopping for Father's Day cards.

 

      One powerful exercise that I did with my class was a role-play exercise in which my two Teacher's Assistants acted out a scene as I narrated. One was male, and one was female, and the exercise entailed the man walking into the room first, followed by the woman, the man sat on a chair and put his feet up on the table, the woman sat on the floor, the man took a sip of water, nodded, then the woman drank her water, and then the man ate a cookie, nodded again, and then the woman ate her cookie. After the demonstration I asked the class what they thought, and as expected, based on my preconceived notions of what Western society thinks that scene depicted, I got a litany of words describing how misogynistic the male character was, and how terrible he treated her. My favorite reaction was when one of the female students just stood up, and with a grotesque look on her face exclaimed, "disgusting"... After I obtained the list of words, I told them the truth about the scene, describing that this was a culture where women and the earth are valued, men walk in front of women to sacrifice themselves for them, they cannot touch the earth directly as women can, being that the men are not worthy, and the men test food and drinks before the women in case they are poisoned...The class was floored, and they looked at me and then the list of words, and just said, "Oh, that's not what we thought", or "I would have never thought of that"...The entire time I was reading the first article, I thought of that exercise, and how we have constructed what society should look like. My class didn't see a powerful woman kneeling on the floor, but instead a servant, and they didn't see an unworthy man protecting that women in power, but instead a "misogynistic pig", as one student also stated. 

      The other instance in my life that related to these articles of what "gender" is occurred last night, while shopping for Father's Day cards. I was looking at the cards, and truly enjoying the fact that I had never been looking at them from a diversity perspective until this class. The cards ranged from alcoholic beverage jokes, to half-naked women, to motorcycles, to golfing, to hunting or fishing, to handy-work. While perusing, I looked at my girlfriend and said, "Sweetheart, look at all these cards - golf clubs, tools, fish, deer - what has society come to that people think this is what is manly or representative of a father" - she just looked at me and said, "Yeah, that's how it is, plus it's Walmart hun..." In addition, the back of the store had a bin that said "Movies for Dad - Cheap! $2.49!" - and what did the movies encompass - Horror films, martial arts films, westerns, crazy intense action sequence films, the bond movies, and movies with half naked women on the cover... I think it's really interesting to see how we just overlook all of these little nuances that society presents to us, and just accept them as they are. I personally wouldn't have wanted any of those cards or gifts if I was a father, I truly would have loved the one card that said, "Hey, you know all that stuff you do... I see it, I appreciate it, and I love you more than you know". Society really has a hold on us, and if we don't change or at least attempt to influence the change, we're going to just keep having these same issues...

      The more articles I read for this class, the more I feel that we are truly ignorant as a society, and it fascinates me, because in a world where our intellectual ability is literally infinite, we focus on learning so many things besides those aspects that truly effect all of us everyday. This is why I am so excited to co-teach a class on Social Justice and Diversity this coming fall to college students, because I have the chance to hopefully influence the minds of future generations, with the hopeful intention of having some impact on issues of diversity...

Thanks for reading again!