SY210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Male Privilege, Heteronormativity, Raewyn Connell
SEX AND SOCIAL ORDER
The Social Construction of Biological Sex in Western Culture
• Commonly encountered view: biological sex is a given but gender is socially constructed
• In fact, easy to demonstrate that historically notions of “biological sex” have been shaped by prevailing ideas of
gender (i.e. that biological sex also socially constructed)
• Late 1700s: transition from “one sex” model to “two sex” model
What was the “One Sex” model?
• “Seventeeth century Europeans didn’t believe in “opposite” sexes and didn’t even believe in two sexes… just in a
superior and inferior version of a person… Men and women were seen to have identical reproductive organs, just
arranged differently: a man’s were pushed out of the body when exposed to “heat” during fetal development, while
women’s genitals remained inside”
• All human beings come into being with the same physical body and differences appear due to “heat”
Another Summary
• “That the existence of two sexes, with fundamental anatomical and mental differences between them, is a recent
notion would appear at first sight to be counter-intuitive. So accustomed are we in Western societies to talking
about men and women that is difficult to appreciate that before the 1700d, as argued, human beings were
represented by one sex… males and females were so similar anatomically that is was merely a question of their
genitalia being turned outward or inward.”
The One Sex Model: Anatomists Saw What They Wanted to See
• Saw the vagina as an inward version of a penis
How Did Europeans Justify Gender Inequality Before 1750?
• Same way they justified racial inequality, pointed to religion and tradition
• But by late 1700s, early 1800s → both justifications being undermined by science
The Problem Facing European Elites: How to Legitimate Gender Inequality in this New Context?
• What area of social life had the prestige previously associated with religion and tradition?
• And scientists obliged by providing the two-sex model, which said that males and females were born with
fundamentally different bodies
• Result: a cultural “scaffolding” that allowed claims of gender inequality to be rooted in biology
• Another example of something we’ve encountered before: best way to legitimate inequality is the make people
believe it’s “natural”
• Tend to overlook: “science” provided rationales for both racial inequality and gender inequality
The Transition to the “Two Sex” model now recognized as critical shift in European thinking
• “Laqueur’s legacy has been more enduring among modern historians of sex and the body for whom the transition
from the one- to two-sex model serves as a sort of creation myth for binary ideas about sex differences.”
Brainsex theory #1 (19th century)
• The claim: Males are more intelligent and more successful in public sphere because they have larger brains
• First problem: ignored alternative explanations for date
• Second problem: relative brain size is greater in females
Standard Pattern in Supposedly “Scientific” Brainsex Research
• If a focus (i.e. brain size) supports gender stereotypes and male privilege, it is considered important
• Once it become clear that focus does not support gender stereotypes and male privilege, focus is abandoned
• Suggests: evidence is less important (in “science”) than “getting the story to turn out right
Document Summary
The social construction of biological sex in western culture. Sex and social order: commonly encountered view: biological sex is a given but gender is socially constructed. In fact, easy to demonstrate that historically notions of biological sex have been shaped by prevailing ideas of gender (i. e. that biological sex also socially constructed: late 1700s: transition from one sex model to two sex model. That the existence of two sexes, with fundamental anatomical and mental differences between them, is a recent notion would appear at first sight to be counter-intuitive. The one sex model: anatomists saw what they wanted to see: saw the vagina as an inward version of a penis. How did europeans justify gender inequality before 1750: same way they justified racial inequality, pointed to religion and tradition, but by late 1700s, early 1800s both justifications being undermined by science. The transition to the two sex model now recognized as critical shift in european thinking.
