Final Reflection

Valerie Kominer

Professor Ashton

WGST 1001

20 December 2021

 

Upon entering this class, I thought I knew what to expect. Just by simply looking at the name of the class, I thought that it would be a generalized version of women, gender, and society. After the first day of class, I quickly realized that this class was not going to be the “typical” class. It was a breath of fresh air to have a professor take time in the beginning to ask how people’s days and classes were going. More specifically, it was so nice to have the professor give actual feedback to the student’s personal problems and care about them, rather just asking for the sake of seeming nice. Additionally, the class took a very informal approach to education as a whole. We spent a lot of time talking about current issues and how they connect to sexism and misogyny. The same applied for assignments, as students would get a voice on both the progression of assignments and the rubric. Overall, it was a great class to take as I entered my final year of college.

There were a couple of interesting topics that we covered over the course of the semester. One that was particularly interesting was our discussion of TERFs. Finding out about a radical group of women who denounce the trans-community due to extreme ideals surrounding gender was shocking. I found it interesting to hear the professor’s comments about the hypocrisy surrounding the group, along with their strange definitions of activism. Another topic that stood out to me was the discussion of the history of transgender activism. Reading an article about the first protests and civil discourse that surrounded it was very moving. The professor would often connect the topics that we were learning, with her research from the book that she is currently writing, which gave a very interesting perspective on both how little and how much progress has been made.

The blog posts were my favorite part of the class. It was nice to get one topic and focus your research on that and that only. It allowed me to write a piece that contained a lot of information from both the text and my background knowledge. Having time in class to ask your peers for edits was also insightful, because I was able to hear people’s opinion on both my writing and the information before submitting it for a final grade. The two-step writing process, of a draft and a final, was a nice addition to the class, because it allowed me to improve my writing in order to get the best grade possible. I got very lucky with the peers who reviewed my writing because they really took the time to read and give me great feedback. As a result, I found myself doing the same when I was asked to review other’s work, which hopefully gave them the opportunity to improve their writing as well. It also gave me so many different perspectives on what we were learning, which aided in my understanding of the topics and provided me with more comprehensive answers to share out in class.

The group that I was in for the final project chose to research gender stereotypes. I really liked being able to choose a topic and have full creative control over the presentation. Because of this freedom, my group chose to cover different professions which resulted in a great presentation. Personally, I really like to study history, so I chose to cover the historical perspective in relation to hegemonic masculinity and toxic perceptions of gender. We were given plenty of time to work on this in class, which was helpful as we did not have to worry about reaching out to people outside of class to meet. My group discussed everything that we needed to in class and worked on it together. This not only decreased my stress levels but made me more confident when presenting.

Overall, I think that the format of this class took into consideration the student and craziness that is this pandemic. There was a lot of discussion about the topics, the assignments, and the ways for students to deal with everything as a whole. I think that I truly improved my public writing skills and learned a lot about the ways that gender has been misconstrued over the course of history.

Personal Reflection by Balakirova Dana

It feels as if a tide is turning in our culture in the United States. Women’s issues are being taken seriously. There is also progress being made for transgender liberation. While there is a lot of disheartening news in today’s age, such as the current consideration to overturn Roe v. Wade, and marginalized communities are still under constant threat of surveillance and violence being perpetuated against them, there have also been events, such as the Women’s March, where millions of citizens walked and protested in defense of women’s rights. During this class, I have been able to work through the current literature in these subjects, as well as develop my own personal beliefs on these matters. Under the guidance of a great professor, I was able to expand my working knowledge of the current theories in gender and the intersections that factors like race and class play in its development.

One of the most powerful readings from the class blog was the post about love and self-love in particular. Self-love is something that I have been thinking about incredibly deeply lately. As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued, I have noticed many people around me continuing habits they started during the lockdown, like smoking cigarettes, or not exercising their bodies, and this has gotten a lot of individuals, from what I have gathered from talking to them, with this feeling deep down of shame and depression. In our society, self-love has been turned into a product. Every day people’s mental health becomes worse off from the stresses of pandemic life and now the economic downturn, which has resulted in inflation on almost every day-to-day good while wages have remained stagnant. Since we live in a ruthlessly capitalistic world, companies have cropped up all over the place, promising silver bullets in the form of meditation and remote therapy apps. When I click on those apps, however, it is always an expensive subscription service being thrust on people who are desperate for a change in their lives. There was a point in my life where the hyper-consumer culture we live in, especially when it comes to self-love and self-development, disgusted me to the point where I almost believed it was better to have self-hate since it seemed more objective and less shrouded in consumer fantasy. Yet, as Angela Davis herself stated, one cannot change the world without first taking care of themselves. I have many peers who have ambitious plans, yet they focus too much on the hustle and grind of the world, never giving themselves enough time to rest. This leads them to burnout and, ultimately, a feeling of deep disappointment because we have been conditioned to think even a small break is a compromise. This is because our society runs on our constant productivity. The learning that I have done in class has conjured many of these thoughts. As a woman, I have always thought about gender and the norms placed on women in society, but have not been able to verbalize them as clearly as I can now. Partially, this is due to the readings themselves, which I have more thoughts on in the following paragraphs of this response, but it was also due to the writing assignments. Writing assignments such as the one assigned during this course do a tremendous job at helping students think their thoughts through, be able to edit and refine them, and then present the most coherent, structured version of their arguments to an audience. I believe, as a consequence of this class, I have been able to strengthen my writing skills, especially when it comes to the topic of civil rights and gender equality. These are incredibly important topics to discuss candidly.

From this class, I have learned that the culture that has influenced our warped perspective on self-love has also externalized those beliefs onto other people. The media, family, and social systems, such as public education, are where our empty perspectives about the world are shaped. The blog post about gender ideology in media shared sentiments that I have fostered for a long time. It is interesting that even the movies that are celebrated for being progressive often still have debated gender ideologies. One example of this is the recent remake of Spielberg’s West Side Story, which I was interested in watching because of the interviews saying that the director played close attention to how he portrayed the Latinx characters, making sure to not characterize them as had been done in the original version of the film, to the point where mostly white actors were cast for the roles and wore brown face during their performances in order to appear more Latinx. However, when it comes to gender dynamics, as was explained in the blog post in the bit about “Iron Maiden,” a detail that has stuck with me, the film was incredibly poor. While the woman lead did strive not to conform to the gang war around her, the entirety of her story relies on being the interest of a white man, even as a troupe at this rate in Hollywood. This is because to make a movie, one requires money and connections. Historically, people of color have been excluded from production and acting roles, as evidenced by the original iteration of that movie. Many of the people currently living in Hollywood are thus white men. As was described in the blog post, they thus encourage “unconscious ideologies” that reinforce the white male perspective. This was most evident to me during the duration of writing and revising my assignment, which I used to explore different gender and race dynamics in contemporary artists and how they broke against the norm, often to the dismay of fans and even their own families. This shows how, for people who exist outside of the gender spectrum or are in another marginalized group, simply being genuine to themselves self can be dangerous. This is what makes it triumphant, however.

In terms of my final project, I believe I brought this passion and interest in the subject to the assignment and gave it mine very all. Looking back on the group project about gender stereotypes, I believe it gives an excellent overview of how gender norms are normalized from an incredibly early age. The group project had given an extensive breakdown of what gender stereotypes are and how they are perpetuated. Not only that, however, it presented a breakdown of the current philosophical, psychological and sociological concepts surrounding the development of gender. That said, I made sure all of my research for this project was up-to-date and thought-provoking. I worked hard not to simply regurgitate the information presented in the class, but also to give my impressions and genuine thoughts about it. The aspect of the class that I enjoyed the most was the freedom to explore my own preconceived notions and what norms I had internalized and which stereotypes I have turned down simply naturally.

That said, I believe taking this class has been of the highlights of my college career. It was very informative and the class seemed like it was full of nice, interesting, and accepting people. Everything was well organized and easy to understand, even if it required a lot of critical thought to fully accomplish. A lot of professors struggle with keeping media and assignments on their pages easy to access and it can be easy to be bogged down with links, however, I never experienced that problem in this class. Instead, every week, I was excited about new developments being posted. It was truly an enlightening experience.

Dana Balakirova Blog Post Draft 2

Gender is on one hand complicated, and on the other, quite simple. The norms of our world are what makes breaking with gender stereotypes a traumatic experience for many. Although we have heard the phrase “just be yourself,” if your version of your best self does not coincide with the norms of the time, then that advice is sure to lead to ostracization. All people want to feel included, especially in their most intimate communities. Judith Butler’s “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” the author delves deep into the history of societal gender norms; her paper, alongside contemporary examples from popular culture, can show readers how gender norms are not as set in stone as our culture proports them to be.

In Judith Butler’s essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” the author explains that despite the way gender has historically been linked with one’s birth sex, it has never been a steady identity in and of itself. Instead, gender and the cultural norms surrounding it are perpetuated and evolve through social agents. Butler names a number of these social agents as being language, gesture, and symbolic social signs (Butler, Judith, 519). Gender is not set in stone, but rather is a spectrum. Recently, I have been going through and watching the late Patrick Swayze’s filmography. I believe he was a good example of what Butler was talking about. As a horse rancher and chain-smoking stoic, he fits all of the stereotypical trademarks of manliness. However, he was also a classically trained dancer. During interviews, especially during the press run of the film Dirty Dancing, often talked about how people back home often didn’t understand how a man like him could be into ballet. Funnily enough, they accepted it because he was from such a tough family, and himself, from a very young age, showed a lot of grit and determination. Artists have always been generally progressive on subjects such as gender identity. To make art means breaking down one’s world and critically analyzing the norms in it. Throughout the years, there have been many artists who have exemplified Butler’s feminist theory.

Gender identity is kept rigid in our society because allowing full expression of one’s gender identity means breaking down the norms that govern our entire reality. Butler writes, “One may want to claim, but oh, this is really a girl or a woman, or this is really a boy or a man, and further that the appearance contradicts the reality of gender” (Butler, Judith,527). The musician Arca, who makes an experimental noise-pop and has collaborated with major figures in the music industry such as Kanye West and Lady Gaga, often portrays herself as a non-binary machine in her music videos. Arca said she identifies as a trans woman, going by she/her pronouns, yet in the music, she embraces technology as a metaphor for being off the binary of not only gender but the limits of what can be considered pop music. She plays with images of computers and wires, using them as cultural symbols for both the new age, yet also a sort of soullessness. However, she embraces that lack of emotion not as a hindrance, but rather as a way to transcend one’s humanity, including negative emotions, such as bigotry or self-hatred. Arca does not see herself as succumbing to technology, but rather as an organism adapting around it. This relates to the aforementioned section of Butler’s paper, where she mentions cultural symbols and how they can be picked up by individuals and internalized as part of their identities. Although Butler is specifically referencing gender expression specifically in her writing, I believe her theory could be easily re-contextualized to fit many aspects of one’s personality. The media we consume and our aesthetic interests often define us to one extent or another. For an artist as forward-thinking as Arca, for example, her futurist beliefs are directly intertwined with her gender identity. While for a man such as Patrick Swayze, dancing was his way of balancing out the rigid and traditionally macho lifestyle, as well as a way to connect to his mother; yet most people are still struck by how easily he was able to channel feminine energy during his romantic films, which is what made him such a star in Hollywood. This shows how gender expression, in addition to social variables such as language and symbols, can also be adopted simply through one’s relationship with technology, family, or any number of outside influences.

Butler concludes that deviations from the performance of gender often lead to ridicule. She compares gender to a theatrical stage here by mentioning how theatrical performances can be met with censorship, bad criticism, or even violence (Butler, Judith, 527). This definitely parallels the experience that many trans people have when coming out. Although the concept of being trans has been normalized a bit since it first hit the public discussion, there are still many places in the United States and abroad where stepping out in one’s desired gender expression can mean retaliation. This risk doubles for marginalized communities. Unlike artists like Arca, who have the privilege of wealth, people in a poor socioeconomic position are incredibly at severe risk of being victimized. Seeing gender as a performance and making that the norm would give a lot of people a lot of emotional freedom since it would allow them to try things they had always wanted to do, yet we’re afraid of being ridiculed over.

Gender should, by the end of this paper, feel much more complicated than it appears at first. For one, the intersections between race and gender are evident. Artists of a certain caliber are allowed to express themselves openly because they have the favor of the public behind them. Individuals without public support are always living in fear of whether to live authentically or to conform in order to avoid any backlash. Looking at Butler’s essay, in conjunction with how artists of an elite economic hierarchy express themselves, shows how economics, as with anything else in our hyper-capitalist society, is intertwined with gender.

WORK CITED

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Love


What is love, where can love be found? What type of love is the best? Just recently, I have learned about the topic of self-love, about what it is, and how to achieve it. Self-love is the state of self-acceptance of one’s worth and the regard of happiness for one’s self. Self-love can be portrayed in many ways such as going out on dates with yourself, practicing positive self-worth affirmations, dressing up on casual days, and/ or finding peace within the things you do for yourself. It involves a great amount of reflection on past mistakes and learning how to accept those mistakes to carry on to the future. The gestures you do for yourself come a long way, they make you realize how much worth you carry within yourself, you start to believe in yourself, and learn to remove what no longer serves you.

During the speech given by Angela Davis in Northern California, Spring 1981, Davis says, “ANYONE WHO’S INTERESTED IN MAKING CHANGE IN THE WORLD, ALSO HAS TO LEARN HOW TO TAKE CARE OF HERSELF, HIMSELF, THEIRSELVES.” The quote itself is very straightforward, self-love and self-care are a form of personal growth and development. Davis’s quote illustrates the importance of practicing self-care because of changes in an individual’s perspective of the world leading to internal and external changes in life. With self-love, you become more confident with yourself, not letting anyone tell you how to live your life, tell you who you are, and who you aren’t. We see this in the documentary, “Pay it No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson”, Marsha P. who is the protagonist, shares her life as a drag queen, and she makes a huge impact on the world because of her way of expression. She shows how she loves the work that she does and the appreciation she has for herself. This is very empowering because it illustrates how one’s confidence and self-love can reflect on others and also make an impact on other people’s lives. Self-love is like watering a plant because, in the end, the outcome is beautiful and brings joy into others’ lives.

When I was fourteen, I thought I met the love of my life, funny right, I was head-over-heels for this person and after four years they left for someone who they said was “better than me”. During this time I was naive and accepted a lot of their behavior along with all the nasty comments they would direct to me. Beforehand, this was one of the only types of love I was exposed to and the only love I knew of. For months I spent thinking that I was worthless and questioning myself “why was I not enough?”, but now with certainty, I can answer that question and say that I am enough and always have been. What lacked before was the love for myself and the confidence to leave certain situations that I knew were not worth staying for. The time apart from the immature and abusive individual allowed me to grow and heal the remaining scars they’ve left, I felt free to be able to do the things I was never allowed to do in their presence. I look back now and laugh, I know I have accomplished the growth I’ve been waiting for and I am now happier with being on my own.

For those still struggling with loving themselves, I’d like to say it is not an easy process as I also wish it was, but when the journey starts, the road begins to clear up and life begins to brighten up. Love yourself and embrace who you are, you are capable of anything and everything.

WORK CITE

Pay it No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson. (n.d.). Retrieved December 9, 2021.

Self practice – Angela Davis on radical self care. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.selfpractice.com.au/self-practice/angela-davis-on-radical-self-care

The Loop of Gender and Religion Social Constructs

What makes a man, a man? What makes a woman, a woman? Why is it that we are assigned to these categories since the moment we are born? And why are we expected to play roles in society that deems as feminine or masculine? 

Gender stereotyping has a massive part in the social construct of gender and deems certain things as being masculine or feminine. Stemming from the idea that sex and gender are connected: “Gender, specified as masculine or feminine, denotes the psychosocial attributes and behaviors people develop as a result of what society expects of them, depending on whether they are born female or male”(Hubbard, 157). 

There is the idea that men are meant to be the breadwinners and women are meant to be the homemakers. Some other gender stereotypes are that women are emotional, men are tough and they are not supposed to show emotions, hence the saying boys shouldn’t cry. Stereotypes can also apply to jobs like nursing is a heavily female-dominated area of study, which relates to another stereotype that says women are naturally more nurturing therefore they are nurses or teachers. On the other hand, STEM fields are more likely to be dominated by men because they are more logical. Women that pursue careers in STEM are discriminated against by their male peers, professors, etc, and this is the same as men pursuing careers that contain mainly women.  

Religious institutions also have a part in furthering these stereotypes of men being breadwinners and women as homemakers. “In the US, religious ideology and gender role attitudes are deeply intertwined and interdependent institutions”(Siordia, 231). By promoting the idea of men and women being fundamentally different, religious institutions go on to cultivate men being a part of the public sphere and women in the private sphere, hence solidifying the previously mentioned stereotypes. In addition mainstream religious institutions have a strong bias with the idea of monogamous heterosexual marriage as being the norm(Siordia, 231). Gender becomes a man and woman, a perpetuated idea that there will always and ever be two genders. 

The Western assumption is the root cause of there being only two kinds of people. This is a result of there being two sexes that form coupling which leads to producing offspring. “That coupling, if it does not grow out of the teachings of Western religions, it is surely reinforced by them”(Hubbard, 158). Furthermore, Western colonization is the reason why many groups of people in different countries have been shunned for having a third gender. In many cases, prior to this, there have been instances where groups of people such as Native Americans of having a third gender. They were known as nadles or berdaches and were honored despite being neither male nor female(Hubbard, 160). 

Society strives to control the common person. By enforcing these ideas, it becomes easier to control people, restrict their expression and redirect their attention to things that benefit society for itself and those in power.

Citations:

Hubbard, Ruth. (1996). Gender and Genitals: Constructs of Sex and Gender. Social Text, 46/47, 157–165. https://doi.org/10.2307/466851

Siordia, Carlos (2016). On the Relationship between Gender Roles Attitudes, Religious Ideology and Familism in a Sample of Adults in the United States. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 17(4), 229-244. https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1895&context=jiws.

Gender Stereotypes and Western Ideologies in Media

Imagine being stuck in a time loop where you are persistently vouching for the rejection of old traditions pertaining to gender stereotypes and Western ideologies. But, always in the end the men with institutional power rise above your words and have an inconceivable amount of influence over society. No matter how much you chant, talk or fight, you always lose. Gender stereotypes have been deeply ingrained into human beings consciously and unconsciously. And to be honest, how do the men with institutional power even have this much control over society? The answer is with media and capitalism. We as a society consume mass amounts of media and live in a capitalistic economy that fuels off of our consumption and purchase of products. Of course it is fused with unconscious subliminals and a dash of the yearn to control women. Consequently, gender stereotypes are further encouraged by media and capitalism.

There are various forms of media used to control the influence of gender stereotypes but film is a visual story-teller that encourages unconscious ideologies like no other. Naomi Wolf explains it best in her text “The Beauty Myth”. It states, “The resulting hallucination materializes, for women, as something all too real. No longer just an idea, it becomes three-dimensional, incorporating within itself how women live and how they do not live: It becomes the Iron Maiden. The original Iron Maiden was a medieval German instrument of torture, a body-shaped casket painted with the limbs and features of a lovely, smiling young woman” (Wolf 3). The women that do not meet the standards of what it means to be a woman are subject to punishment. They will not find love because no one wants them to bear their child and they will be shunned from society. It is exactly like being placed in the Iron Maiden forced to conform to what society wants you to be while you live unhappily. A perfect example of this is in the feminist horror film Jennifer’s Body which challenges the false ideologies set in place for what categorizes as femininity and addresses women’s rights in a frightening way. 

Jennifer defies the gender stereotypes set in stone for femininity or I would say, uses it to her advantage. As the monstrous feminine Jennifer lures in her male victims through oozing sex appeal, scares them and disembowels them. She feeds on their organs but is fueled by their fear. Jennifer is the complete opposite of what would be categorized as feminine traits, she is aggressive, dominant and independent and as a result she is rejected. This film takes the ideologies set in stone for female sexual identity and the generic stereotypes with the goal to encourage women to realize mens fears is women that can inflict the pain they do. 

Although Jennifer was visibly not conforming to the ideologies set in stone for women and was rejected, the women that strived to be the perfect housewives were also rejected and and even unseen. For example it states in the text “Women, Race and Class” written by Angel Davis, “(The woman) has been isolated in the home, forced to carry out work that is considered unskilled…Her role in the cycle of production remained invisible because only the product of her labor, the laborer, was visible” (Davis 233). It is clear that the women will always deal with the short end of the stick because nothing we do is ever perfect. Even being the perfect housewife that fends off the fear that she is letting life escape her while she is chained to her home is not enough. Being a full time parent is not enough. But women are still influenced by these stereotypes and forced to fulfill them.

In addition, gender stereotypes are further controlled by capitalism. For example in the text, “Women, Race and Class” by Angela Davis, states, “The “housewife” reflected a partial reality, for she was really a symbol of the economic prosperity enjoyed by the emerging working classes” (Davis 229). As a result of the house wife being the symbol of economic prosperity it added another layer of what it meant to be the perfect housewife and that was spending money excessively. Although women were forced to fit the mold of what it meant to be a housewife or else their motherhood was at stake, they were now seen as what Seccombe states “the housewife has tremendous ‘purchasing power’ and that her ‘changing tastes’ affect the market place dramatically, they portray housewives as superficial social parasites, consuming but never producing” (Seccombe 1).

I have come to the conclusion that it is not about us women being enough. We can conform to gender stereotypes and blindly abide to Western ideologies unconsciously or consciously. But men will still yearn to have control and I am willing to fight for a change. Overall, gender stereotypes are further controlled by media and capitalism.

References:

11. Angela Y. Davis. “Women, Race and Class”.2

32. Wally Seccombe. “The Housewife and Her Labour Under Capitalism”.4

52. Naomi Wolf. “The Beauty Myth”.6

Self Love

What do you define self love to be ? When you go on social media, do you see any forms of self-love in women? Self-love is defined as regard for one’s own well-being and happiness. When I am on social media, I see women who are appreciating their self time which is a form of self love because they are taking the time out to reflect on themselves. Reflection is important because one can see how they have changed, which could be a good thing. Change brings about growth which brings happiness. You are now in tune with your inner-self and you have a positive mindset. Picture yourself taking a day off to just relax. You are reading a book and you have on your face masks. How did that make you feel? Were you calm and relaxed? If yes, you have just done a form of self-care. This self-care ties into self-love because you are taking time to love yourself with no distractions. You are able to take a breath and just relax. 

     In the documentary “Pay it No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson”, Marsha P. Johnson’s form of self-love was her being a drag queen. She dressed up in her fancy outfits who made her unique while making thousands of people laugh at the shows. It made her happy to see her put a smile on others faces. She has also made progress in this world by herself because her showing her true self made others show their true selves as well. It’s like she made them fall in love with themselves over again. Marsha P.Johnson had a positive outlook on life and that happened because of the self- love she had for herself. Yes, people would be cruel and call her names for that matter but what did she do? She continued to be amazing. To accept self- love, you have to let go of what people think of you whether it’s good or bad, don’t compare yourself to others, trust in yourself when it comes to decision making, etc. Once you do these things, you’re on the right journey to self-love. If someone tells you something about you that hurts your feelings, turn it into a positive statement. If you find yourself comparing yourself to other people, think about how wonderful you are. If you have a hard time making a decision, just trust that the decision you make is one that will be a positive outlook for you. 

    There was one day I decided to have a self-care day. I put my phone down and watched the show I was binge watching at the time. The whole day I went without texting my friends or going on social media. The night came and I did my skincare routine and I felt so relaxed. For me, that was my form of self-love because I tuned out  all distractions to focus on me. I was happy I did so because I got to reflect on myself and while I was reflecting, I noticed that I am someone that always wanted things to be done how I want them to but I came to the conclusion that it’s not possible. I have to wait my turn for when things happen in my life and not rush it. I say this because there was in time I would see all these relationships on social media and I wanted it to be me so badly. I wanted that to be me the same time it was for everyone else. I had to sit back and think “their timing right now,  doesn’t mean it’s yours”. I had to focus on loving myself more because how can I want a relationship with love without loving myself first ? Self-love always starts within yourself is what I’ve learned from this experience. My mom also told me to pray for things that I want to happen and she taught me that God will make it happen when my time is ready for it. This for me was progress and a change I saw happening for myself.

 I hope from this you take that self-love is important for us women because it allows us to bring in the new us. We have to want to do this for ourselves so we can stay connected and not feel like the world is caving in on us. 

The Falsity of the Notion of the Sex Binary

The concept of a gender binary, the notion that you are either man or woman, has been thrown into public discourse enough times that it is now considered to be debunked in many respected academic circles. Many parts of society have already started moving past the notion of fixed roles and expectations based on your sex at birth, which is supposedly determined by your chromosome combination. This is seen in the slow acceptance of the existence of transgender people, with life and identity-affirming accommodations becoming more commonplace. These include the gradual embracement of concepts such as someone choosing to undergo hormone replacement therapy, bottom and top surgeries, and asking for preferred name and pronouns, regardless of how it may appear in identification documents. However, what is far less discussed is the falsity of the sex binary, the idea that you are either a biological male or female. Even within trans circles, there exists the misconception that your biological sex not only exists, but it cannot be changed. It is said that XX chromosomes mean you are female, and XY mean you are male. This concept is not as rooted in biology as some people may think it is. The very existence of intersex people debunk this construct; their very existence showing how sex is far too nuanced to be arbitrarily grouped into just two categories.

Intersexuality, as defined by the Intersex Society of North America, “is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.” It is estimated that “approximately 1 or 2 percent of children are born with mixed or ambiguous sex characteristics.” This means that anywhere between 79 to 158 million people on this planet do not squeeze into this archaic binary that we know as sex. The notion of the sex binary implies that you are either biologically male or female. If you are male, you must have XY chromosomes, a penis, testicles, and an Adam’s apple. If female, you must have XX chromosomes, a vagina, a set of breasts, and ovaries. Intersex people may have some combination of the above-mentioned traits, or just entirely different traits altogether. One such example of this is the existence of people with XXY chromosomes, known as Klinefelter Syndrome. The fact that people can have a different combination of chromosomes than that which the gender binary mandates the arbitrary grouping of is enough in of itself to debunk this myth altogether. Additionally, it is important to note that referring to people with XXY chromosomes as a syndrome is stigmatizing and it is only seen as such in the context of a gender binary, being perceived as a sort of sickness, rather than a valid form of identity.

People whose biological makeup does not conform to the sex binary continue to be mutilated as newborns without the ability to consent. Hubbard writes, “In the last few decades, in conformity with the binary paradigm, medical interventions have been developed to try to
‘correct’ the genitals of infants who manifest any form of sex ambiguity.” These operations are, admittedly, sometimes necessary for health reasons, such as to surgically create a urethral opening, as some intersex newborns are not capable of passing waste on their own. Despite often having a physical makeup that poses no immediate risk to the infant in question, their genitals are operated on in order to conform to the sex binary, meaning that they will be shaped into either a penis or vagina. Such operations are done without the consent of the patient, as newborns cannot consent. These procedures are more for the sake of appeasing the society around the patient than it is for the patient’s own wellbeing. The notion of a sex binary justifies the mutilation of vulnerable people, leaving them with more questions than answers as they grow up.

Society needs to undergo massive changes so that this notion of a harmful sex binary is abolished. It is not rooted in biology, as the very existence of intersex people disproves that. It is used as justification in order to violate the bodies of newborns. Schools should teach about sex as a spectrum rather than the black-and-white dichotomy of male and female. On the medical level, an intersex newborn should be operated on as minimally as possible, with procedures being decided upon as medically necessary.

 

References:

Hubbard, R. (1996). Gender and Genitals: Constructs of Sex and Gender. Social Text, 46/47, 157–165. https://doi.org/10.2307/466851

Klinefelter syndrome. Intersex Society of North America. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://isna.org/faq/conditions/klinefelter/.

What is intersex? Intersex Society of North America. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex/.