ANTH1008 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Mastectomy, Phalloplasty, Mental Disorder
ANTH1008 Lecture Five: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
• Sex is the observable physical characteristics that distinguish the two kinds of human
beings, females and males, needed for reproduction (Lavenda and Schultz 2015:11).
Sex is about genes (XX and XY) and genitals (vaginas or penis and gonads) but also
includes secondary sex characteristics such as enlarged breasts in females
• Sexual dimorphism is the marked difference in male and female biology, beyond
breasts and genitals (Kottak 2011:419). These include differences in size, faces and
teeth. Over human evolution sexual dimorphism has decreased as male body size
decreased and female body size increased. Modern humans are one of the (if not the)
least sexual dimorphic primates. (see image 1).
• Most people will say that there are only two sexes: male and female, but some authors
will say that there are actually three sexes: the observable bio-physiological
characteristics of females, males and intersex persons (Jacobs and Roberts 1989:454).
Intersexed: those that cannot be classified as clearly male or female. Estimates of the
prevalence depend on the definition of intersex that is employed and range from 0.018-
1.7% of human births (Sax 2002; Fausto-Sterling 2000)
• Sex is more of a continuum in which people fall along. "Breasts, penises, clitorises,
scrotums, labia, gonads--all of these vary in size and shape and morphology. So-called
'sex' chromosomes can vary quite a bit, too. But in human cultures, sex categories get
simplified into male, female, and sometime intersex, in order to simplify social
interaction, express what we feel, and maintain order... So nature doesn't decide where
the category of 'male' ends and the category of 'intersex' begins, or where the category
of 'intersex' ends and the category of 'female' begins. Humans decide. Humans (today,
typically doctors) decide how small a penis has to be, or hoe unusual combinations of
parts has to be, before it counts as intersex." (Intersex Society of North America
website)
• Sex categories are a social construct. Therefore, sex, a continuous aspect of human
variation, is divided up into discrete categories by humans. These categories are not
given or inherent, they are social constructs.
• Doctors participate in the social construction of these categories: "Modern surgical
techniques help maintain the two-sex system. Today, children who are born 'either/or-
neither/both'--a fairly common phenomenon--usually disappear from view because
doctors 'correct' them right away with surgery." (Fausto-Sterling 2000:31)
• Determining someone's sex is not as easy as it seems. There are at least four ways sex
can be observed and the results of which may be at odds with one or more of the others:
-chromosomal sex (genetic sex): sex as determined by the presence of XX (female) or
XY (male) genotype in somatic cells, without regard to phenotypic manifestations
(physical traits in interaction with the environment, e.g. climate, diet, etc.)
-gonadal sex: that part of the phenotypic sex that is determined by the gonadal tissue
present (ovarian or testicular)
-morphological sex: that part of the phenotypic sex that is determined by the
morphology of the external genitals
-phenotypic sex: the phenotypic manifestations of sex determined by endocrine
influences
• In the West, most people see sex as a binary opposition, and surgery is frequently used
to 'correct' those that do not fit into the two categories of male and female. In the
Dominican Republic and New Guinea, intersex people are assign to a recognised third
sex
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• People everywhere pat attention to sex, it is a cultural universal. However, different
societies attribute different meanings to sexed bodies. Sexed bodied have no meaning
other than what we give them. There is nothing inherently meaningful about bodies.
"There are no 'facts', biological or material, that have social consequences and cultural
meanings in and of themselves (Yanagisako and Collier 1987:39). What's more, the
biological differences between males and females are miniscule compared to the
cultural difference we map onto these bodies.
• 'Gender' was introduced into feminist studies in the 1970s. Feminists argued that
societies differed greatly with regards to the status and treatment of women and the
work that women were given. Therefore, the division of labour, status and treatment of
women couldn't be natural. These things couldn't be based on the physical differences
between the sexes or we would see uniformity across cultures. The separation of sex
and gender was crucial to feminism because it disputed the biology-is-destiny
formulation (Butler 1990:6). The basic idea that while sex, being based on biology, is
difficult to change, gender is cultural and therefore we can change it more easily
• Defining gender:
-The cultural construction of beliefs and behaviours appropriated for each sex (Lavenda
and Schultz 2015:11)
-The social categories based on physical sexual characteristics and the meanings,
behaviours, and values associated with these categories (Eller 2009:109)
-The roles that people perform in their households and communities and the values and
attitudes that people have regarding men and women (Bonvillian 2010:240)
-Gender is learn as a part of socialisation and becomes a primary aspect of an
individual's personal identity. It is also performed and accomplished by the individual
and therefore becomes a primary aspect of their social identity
• Gender is a social or cultural construct, it's part of our ideas, meanings, values and
norms that we learn. Therefore, it is culturally specific--gender depends on the ay each
society defines and differentiates gender. It's about beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviours
and roles, perhaps even status. Gender is talked about in terms of men and woman, boy
and girl, masculine and feminine. Gender is related to sex. It is a primary aspect of one's
personal and social identity. It develops in earliest socialisation through the ways that a
baby is handles, treated and spoken to, and we continue to learn gender throughout our
lives. Gender it learnt as part of our enculturation. It's dynamic--ideas about gender
change and people change genders. Many authors have emphasised that gender is more
correctly thought of as what one does, not what one has. This has been expressed in
many ways: gender as activity, gender as performance, gender as accomplishment. In
fact, the performance of gender though bodily adornment is a cultural universal
(Bonvillian 2010:244). So, gender is a social construct, it is learnt, it is dynamic, and it
is a performance or activity. Gender informs our decisions
• There is also some confusion concerning gender and sex. Sex and gender were in the
past referred to as the same thing. Today, even though many academics have clarified
the difference, people still confuse them.
• In the West, there is an essentialist notion, sex is typically seen as determining gender.
Essentialism is the belief that certain phenomena are natural, inevitable, universal and
biologically determined (DeLamater and Hyde 1998:10). The idea is that if you are
born a male, you are a boy and then become a man, vice versa with females. Westerners
are taught to think of gender as fixed and natural. Others believe that gender is a social
constructionist notion, this idea that things are constructed by people by the
interactions.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
