WST 100 Lecture Notes - Ascribed Status, Achieved Status, Puberty
Document Summary
Sex and gender have specific, and separate, meanings. Sex refers to the two biologically differentiated categories to male and female. (weitz, et al. Determining if someone is male or female at birth is based on different criteria in western medicine: 1 in 100 people"s bodies are not clearly male or female according to the medical community"s guidelines. At times, members of medical community make a joint decision. Intersex: bodies that do not neatly fit into the the culturally accepted categories of sex. Penis length (baby girls born with extended labia and were sometimes surgically acted upon, often without asking for permission. Done because it was considered a burden on parents) Intersex is a catch-all for 3 major subgroups with some mixture of female and male characteristics: true hermaphrodites (combo, male pseudo-hermaphrodites (male internal organs, etc, but female organ, female pseudo-hermaphrodites (female internal organs, ovaries, but penis)