Responding Post

In this week's readings "Dueling Dualisms" and "That Sexe Which Prevaileth," Fausto-Sterling opened my eyes more to the wider spectrum of gender and sex (which aren't talked about as often). After reading the many definitions for the terms, gender, sex, and hermaphrodite, I was curious to see what definitions were given in various dictionaries; therefore I looked up these terms in three dictionary websites, what I think are most consulted websites: Google dictionary, Merriam-Webster, and Dictionary.com. For the term "sex" the general definition went along the lines of "either male or female," for "gender" it went along the lines of the behavior aspects associated to the sexes and for "hermaphrodite" its common trend talked about someone having put reproductive organs. Besides "hermaphrodite," the other two terms' definitions are problematic. Society is rooted in the idea of binaries and that is no different for gender and sex--there's only a female and male (at least what is acceptable in society).

While reading "Dueling Dualisms," I thought about Caroline P (and other female athletes) and how they would have responded to Pierre de Coubertin's claim: "women's sports are all against the law of nature" (2-3). Although females have made it into the athletic realm, I think Coubertin's ideology still lives on. Besides the examples Fausto-Sterling provided in this chapter of females athletes being questioned for their gender, I can think of two recent highly publicized accounts of this: 1) South African runner, Caster Semenya (2009) and 2) the controversy over the age of the Chinese gymnastics in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Even though, I didn't follow these two accounts in detail--I don't know the final results of these two examples--but all of these examples exemplify a common theme: the controversy of women sports seems to revolve around the idea of their ability to actually perform in their sport area (whether questioning their gender, their age, etc.). To follow this point, I don't think there is any mass media coverage on men sports that question their ability to play (and I don't consider Michael Phillips, ARod, and other males athletes who use drugs and steroids--these are external factors that can't compare to questionings a females age/gender/sex). Instead the media focuses on male athletics like OJ Simpson's murderer case, Tiger Woods sex scandal, etc.; all of these stories have nothing to do with the male athletes' biological makeup. The point being, society still embrace the idea that "sports are outside of "women's sports are all against the law of nature" (2-3).

In relation to Coraline C's post and the examples she provided, I also want to add how it seems with today's medical advancements the gender/sex guidelines seems to be more difficulty to define. However, trying to select which gender box one belongs in is not the problem, but the problem is the great amount of people who are actually trying to alter their bodies. To make it clear, I am not against a person wanting to become another gender they self identify better with, but my main concern is the ways people are altering their bodies to fit into what society portray as the "prefect" men or women. Just think about plastic surgery, breast implants, and facial or bodily alteration, etc. And it doesn't even have to be this extreme either, our alteration of our bodies include botox, hair growth products, anti-wrinkles creams, height alteration (heels). To think about it: is society really that scared of aging and looking unattractive? It seems bothersome that people are now actually are more and more deliberately changing themselves.

Lastly, what I liked about Fausto-Sterling is unlike other authors who don't give us the clear answer to what comes first (the chicken or the egg), she clearly states that "our beliefs about gender affects what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place" (3). In others words gender and sex are social constructs that we are in control of. Our first step can start with discarding this binary of only two genders (male and female) and start to openly accept and acknowledge the variations in the gender/sex spectrum.