Body, Gender, and Sex

Body, Gender, and Sex

Introduction

According to Oakley, gender is the traditional psychological, social, and representational distinctions between men and women, which are determined in the social sphere and vary from one culture to another. This definition of gender has been the basis of many studies that seek to reveal how most of societal actions and practices or behaviors characterize maleness or femaleness of an individual are due to socialization or social learning rather than inherent. Also, the definition stated above allows us to study the relationship between the biological body, which is categorized as either female or male and the learned experiences of gender embodiment. This paper focuses on the human body as the most significant element as to what gender is. Besides, the article discusses the importance of this element that defines gender as a foundation of social meaning and influence.

Body

Societies tend to use the terms sex and gender interchangeably. Although the two words relate in meaning, they are not the same. When a child is born, people assign the newborn’s sex as either male or female depending on their bodies. A baby having the biological characteristics of a female human being will fall into the classification of the reproduction of females. In contrast, a baby with the physical anatomical features of a male human being will fall to the category of the sex of a male. Some countries offer a third option for people born with bodily characteristics of both males and females..

Once sex is assigned, people go ahead to presume the gender of the newborn. Most people are not further concerned about the gender of the new member of the society since their gender is in line with ideas and assumptions related to the gender associated with their sex. While gender begins with sex, it has a complicated relationship with the body.

According to Thomas Laqueur, the differentiation in the representation of the body and particularly of reproductive anatomy, started after 1800, when different illustrations started highlighting the differences between bodies. This illustration came alongside some arguments that differentiate male and female bodies. Since the anatomical function of ovaries was not clear, scientists in the seventeenth century referred to them with the same word that was used to refer to testes. However, it was later established that ovaries were an essential element to the description of femininity.

The Body as an Important Source of Social Meaning and Power

Male and female anatomy in the 19th century was increasingly represented based on contrast and opposition. From the late 18th to the early 19th century, middle-class women faced a rapid transformation in their social, economic, and political strata. Such women experienced a level of public participation until the 19th century, where the rise of the capitalistic system became a key ingredient in their exclusion from key positions in public (Houson, 2013). The feminine body was understood indifference from the masculine body as a dark island where the developing profession of scientific medicine would explore. Therefore, this interpretation of women was a political and social effort to exclude women from the public sphere owned by the bourgeoisie.

Conclusion

Many scholarly articles affirm the natural inferiority of the female body as the ancient societies viewed it. Laqueur claims that, as political and social revolutions, deviations, and transformations questioned the place of women in society, anatomists paid attention to the biological differences between male and female bodies. The differences between male and female body parts were later used as a center on which to make assertions concerning the inferiority of the female body. That is, understanding the human body has become part of the way that gender is interpreted as a part of the binary system, in which men and women are naturally and socially different (Houson, 2013).

References

Houson, A. (2013). The Body, Gender, and Sex. In A. Howson (Author), The body in society: An introduction. Cambridge, UK: Polity.