HLTH 107 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Binary Opposition, Parenting, Intersex
Document Summary
Sex: a determinaion of male or female on the basis of a set of socially agreed upon biological criieria. The division of human populaion into two categories is a binary construcion ( based on the idea that a given phenomenon can be located within one or the other of two mutually exclusive categories) Categorizing based on binaries: implies that these group are diametrical opposites ( opposite sex) Feminist theorist: needed a way to disinguish between biology and the social efects of biological diferences -> gender" was created. Sex is a binary opposiion of male and female. Gender is a binary opposiion of masculinity and femininity. Anthropologist emily marin: how scienist draw on discourses of gender to explain concepion( story of egg and sperm) Sperm: aggressiveness (masculinity) . egg: passivity ( femininity) Feminist work is try to convince biologists that their social assumpions shape their scieniic accounts of the natural world.