Multicultural Summer Institute
 2005

"0 OR 1": Understanding Binary
Monday, July 18, 2005

 

Reading Fausto-Sterling, Anne. "The Fives Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough." The  Meaning Of Difference: American  Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, and Sexual Orientation. Eds. Karen E. Rosenblum and Toni-Michelle C. Travis. McGraw-Hill,1995. 68-73. 
Lorber, Judith. "The Social Construction of Gender." Women's Voices, Feminist Visions. Mountain View: Mayfield Publishing Company. 2001. 121-124.

Anzaldúa, Gloria. "La conciencia de la mestiza." Borderlands: La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Press. 1987. 77-91.
Supplemental Reading Vilain, Eric. "Gender Blender." The Los Angeles Times  19 Apr. 2004: M3.
Assignment

Paper # handed out at the end of class
GOAL 1) Understanding that sex, in addition to gender, is a social construction.
2) Obtaining a visceral understanding of the nature to which binary thinking (like gender and sex) is embedded in society
3) Introduction to the concepts of hybridity and the deconstruction of binary opposition

OUTLINE 

  1. Social Construction of Gender

  2. Social Construction of Sex

  3. Mestiza Consciousness

II. Social Construction of "Gender"
GENDER: the characteristics, assumptions, expectations and 'scripts' ascribed by societal forces to a particular biological SEX.

SEX: the dimporphic biological characteristic of humans known as maleness and femaleness.

The point of today’s class is to get a full appreciation for the inherent nature of binary thinking in our culture, specifically gender hierarchy and the degree to which it is embedded in our society.

Many dictionaries will define gender and sex as synonyms. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is credited for promoting the use of the word “gender” for “sex” in legal parlance because she was embarrassed to use the word sex due to its association with sexual intercourse. In fact of the 1964 Civil Rights Act only included “sex” as a category of prohibited discrimination because people thought that would cause the bill to NOT pass. [The categories are: “race, national origin, color or sex.” When she was an employee of the ACLU in the 1970s Justice Ginsburg won 6 of 7 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court concerning equal rights for women, which is why when President Clinton nominated her to the Court some feminists called her “our Thurgood Marshall.”

Define term: signifier (term) -> signified (meanings associated with term)

A signifying chain: female/male -> feminine/masculine -> whole host of socially constructed ideologies

Similar to Black  <-> (African American) -> dark skin -> hypersexual

The Fausto-Sterling piece is a distillation of a classic article which details the generally surprising way the identity characteristic of sex is also a site of contestation and a social construct, as opposed to gender, which is generally accepted/expected to be socially constructed.

But first, let’s think about the ways in which the social construction of gender is similar/different to the social construction of race. In "The Social Construction of Race" Ian Haney Lopez discussed features of “race formation”:

  1. races are human constructs
  2. race is an integral part of a whole social fabric that includes gender and class relations
  3. meaning-systems around race change rapidly
  4. races are constructed relationally

Clearly “gender formation” has all these features and more. It is a binary, i.e. there are only two genders: masculine and feminine

The fact that gender has a dualistic nature means that it also has a dichotomous hierarchy: (masculinity is superior/femininity is inferior).

Note, though that not all the characteristics associated with one half of the binary is positive, and that not all the corresponding characteristics on the other half are negative. This is (not?) similar to the White/non-White binary.  

Discussion:
Q: How is the border between the binaries regulated or policed? 

A: Imputation of homophobia

III. Social Construction of "sex"

Professor Julie Greenberg is one of the leading legal experts on analyzing transsexuality and the law and has been cited in numerous legal cases, the most prominent being Littleton itself, as well as Estate of Gardiner (Kansas Supreme Court, 2002).

Fausto-Sterling and Greenberg disrupt the popular notion that sex is an innate biological characteristic that is only male or female by introducing the concepts of intersexuality (Fausto-Sterling) and transsexuality (Greenberg).

Intersexuals have a combination of both male and female sexual characteristics. Examples, are the herms (short for hermaphrodite) having both testes and ovaries, the merms have testes and XY chromosomes but also a vagina and clitoris, while ferms have ovaries, XX, sometimes a uterus but some external male genitalia.

Transsexuals are individuals who feel that their (mental) gender identity is discordant with the biological sex of their body and undergo sex reassignment surgery to align the two.

The point Fausto-Sterling is making is that sex, far from being a strict binary feature, should really exist on a continuum from male to female.

Greenberg highlights this point in addition to the fluidity/plasticity of sex by pointing out that the taxonomy of individuals by sex occurs on an 8-point scale :

  1. genetic or chromosomal sex (i.e. XX, XY, though even here one can get all sorts of combinations like XXY, XO, etc)
  2. gonadal sex (testes or ovaries, that produce gametes)
  3. internal morphological sex (uterus, prostate glands, etc)
  4. external morphological sex (penis; vagina, breasts etc)
  5. hormonal sex (testosterone, progesterone, estrogen)
  6. phenotypic sex (beard, wide shoulders, low voice; wide hips, high voice, smooth skin)
  7. assigned sex/gender of rearing (nurture: raised as a boy or girl)
  8. gender identity (mental/emotional self identification)

Why is it important to have an official sex designation?

You have the right to be a wife/husband; to not be drafted into army; to not be subject to sodomy laws; to state a gender-based claim of discrimination or equal protection violation; to be a father/mother; in the past: the right to vote (prior to 19th Amendment in 1920), the right to engage in specific professions, the right to attend schools, et cetera)

GENDER 101: A LAYMAN'S GUIDE

Sex: Physical sex of the body, either at birth or after reassignment.
Gender: Behavioural, cultural or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.
Gender identity: The sense of belonging to a particular sex, biologically, psychologically and socially.
Transgender: Umbrella term used for anyone who alters or wishes to alter, through appearance or medical intervention, her or his gender of birth.
Transsexual: Person who believes they were born into the wrong biological body; usually someone who has undergone some or all of the steps (hormone treatment, surgery) to change his or her gender.
Intersex: Having ambiguous sexual organs and reproductive system, caused by a variety of genetic and hormonal irregularities. Also known as hermaphroditism; in extreme or mild forms, occurs in an estimated one in 2,000 births. One in 500 people has a genetic karotype other than XX or XY.
Crossdresser: One who wears the attire associated with the other sex. Formerly known known as "transvestite." Some people crossdress for sexual stimulation; others for recreation or exploration.
Drag Queens and Kings: Those who dress as the other gender, for certain occasions, often when performing.
Androgyne: Also called Third Sex or Epicene. Those who feel they are neither male nor female, or are both

Anzaldua “La conciencia de la mestiza”/mestiza consciousness

What’s a mestiza? a woman of mixed racial ancestry (European/indigenous)

Consider the beginning of the piece:

“Jose Vascocelos, Mexican philosopher, envisaged una raza mestiza, una mezcla de razas afines, una raza de color—la primera raza sintesis del globo. He called it a cosmic race, la raza cosmica, a fifth race embracing the four major races of the world. Opposite to the theory of the pure Aryan, and to the policy of racial purity that white America practices, his theory is one of inclusivity. At the confluence of two or more genetic streams, with chromosomes constantly “crossing over,” this mixture of races, rather than resulting in an inferior being, provides hybrid progeny, a mutable, more malleable species with a rich gene pool. From this racial, ideological, cultural and biological cross-pollinization, an “alien” consciousness is presently in the making—a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a consciousness of the Borderlands. (77)

Discussion/Analysis: Argument, Method, Audience, Objective, Assumptions.

Intersectionality: assumes a single, fixed intersection of discrete identifying chracteristsics, such as race, gender, national origin, class, language, political affiliation, age, etc cetera.

hybridity: assumes that one can occupy or be a part of different parts of an identifying characteristic simultaneously and that this “positionality” can be fluid and mobile situationally. i.e. you can be Black and White, speak English, Spanish and Farsi, a citizen of Jamaica and U.S.A., simultaneously. “Riding the hyphen: Mexican-American” (not one or the other but both)