Anatomy and Destiny (Post for Sex and Gender 10/01/11)

In our modern age, anatomy is no longer destiny. While culture may define what femininity and masculinity consists of, modern science has allowed people to transcend their biological gender. Someone born male in this day and age can be surgically transformed into a woman, and vice versa. Our modern culture is opening up strict views toward gender, which in the past were justified by our religious traditions.

According to Brettell and Sargent (2009), “few people deny the anatomical and hormonal differences between men and women; they disagree about the importance of these differences for gender roles and personality attributes. A significant body of research, much of it conducted by psychologists, suggests that male and female infants cannot be significantly distinguished by their degree of dependence on parents, their visual and verbal abilities, or their aggression as measured by activity level. These characteristics tend to emerge later in the development process, indicating the importance of environment” (p. 1-2). We as humans self-organize and self-criticize ourselves according to our culture and our current circumstances to fit the mold that our environments present to us.

Throughout history men and women have been limited by the cultural forces that determine their roles for a group and society. Men, the stronger gender became the hunters of dangerous and heavy prey, as they had the greater physicality for the hunt and had to carry the carcass many miles back to their homes. Women became the caretakers and maintainers of the home and children, which necessitated their remaining in a safe location. This became tradition, and tradition became deified in the creation of our religions. Our religions became our codes of conduct, laws, and other rules to follow.

“As the preceding discussion reveals, none of the primary rationales that have been forwarded to exclude women from being able to “officially” serve in combat roles provides a legitimate basis for maintaining the current restrictions on women’s participation in combat” (Peach, 2009, 30). With modern technology and techniques, women are just as capable of being efficient killing machines as men, and just as capable of being soldiers as well.

The history of the vibrator in the Harding reading, speaks about gender culture. It was legal, and tolerable for millennia, for men to go to brothels and visit prostitutes, while women had to go to a doctor as if their sexuality was a medical problem to be solved. Both genders have the same frequency and intensity of desire in their biological instinct to mate, culture has just defined how we go about it, and the permissible steps to arrive at our satisfactions. Sex is biological; gender is just how it is performed. Masculinity and femininity are just the terms for how each gender should perform these roles

As far as essentialism, or the belief that sexuality is already biologically defined at birth and checked by social forces, and constructivism which states that sexuality has no biological precursor but is determined by the cultural forces surrounding the individual, is a difficult argument to consider. On the one hand one can say we are determined by our biology to pursue our sexual interests, while on the other hand our sexual interests are only limited by what attitudes our society has towards sexuality. I personally believe that I am biologically predisposed toward the opposite sex, and that this type of behavior serves the biological purpose of procreation. But if society did not have stigmas against homosexuality, and even made it a common practice, then the only stigma would be against those who did not participate in a culture’s common practices. It is hard to know if my personal distaste comes from biology or cultural shaped forces.

Works Cited:

Brettell, C. B, & Sargent, C.F. (2009) Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective 5^th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall.

Harding, J. (2003) Investigating Sex: Essentialism and Constructionism. LaFont, Suzanne. Constructing Sexualities: Readings in Sexuality, Gender, and Culture. (pp. 6-17) Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Education, Inc.

Peach, L. J. (2009) Gender and War: Are Women Tough Enough for Military Combat. Brettell, C.B, & Sargent, C.F. Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective 5^th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall.