Dichotomy of Our Gender System

Dichotomy of Our Gender System

While the idea that we live in a black-and-white universe may be comforting for some, reality continues to disrupt this assertion. Even the categories of "male" and "female" - a dichotomy that very few ever feel the need to question - are not as stable as one tends to believe. While Spelman argues against the conceptualization of women as being on the inferior end of the mind/body dichotomy, she nevertheless ends her argument by asserting that the mind/body split can still be a useful intellectual paradigm. This conclusion is shattered by the analysis of such writers as Fausto-Sterling (2000). Fausto-Sterling explores the subject of intersexuality - that is, infants who are born with ambiguous genitalia that poses a direct threat to the socially constructed norms of gender. Lucal (1999) clarifies many of the concepts introduced by both Fausto-Sterling and Spelman by articulating the idea that gender is a social construction. Sedgwick expands the debate on gender to encompass yet another dichotomy - the distinction made between homo- and heterosexual desire. Following on the heels of Michel Foucault, Butler situates the dichotomous conceptualization of gender as a product of discourse, just as Foucault (1990) realized that homo- and heterosexuality were both discursive products. A number of writers have challenged the gender dichotomy by attempting to explore the question in relation to other axes of cultural differentiation, such as class, religion, and race. Finally, first-hand narratives of women's own experience dealing with the gender issue form a significant part of the literature on the challenges imposed by the gender dichotomy.

The Dichotomy of Our Gender System

While the idea that we live in a black-and-white universe may be comforting for some, reality continues to disrupt this assertion. Even the categories of "male" and "female" - a dichotomy that very few ever feel the need to question - are not as stable as one tends to believe. In what follows, I intend to review part of the vast literature exploring the dichotomy of our gender system as a means of disrupting a paradigm that can no longer be upheld. I will begin by evaluating a feminist reading of ancient philosophy that purports to show that the male/female dichotomy is analogous to the philosophical mind/body split. I will then show how such a dichotomy can be readily shattered in the case of intersexual infants. Such instances, as they manifest themselves in the real world, effectively show that the gender dichotomy is a social construct, as the work of Lucal demonstrates. I will then go on to explore gender's intersections with key issues of sexuality, as they emerge in the work of such authors as Butler and Sedgwick. This work is vital in that it also shows how gender can be conditioned by a number of other cultural factors, such as race, religion, and class. Finally, I will take a look at the autobiographical narratives of a number of women who have had lived experience of the problems posed by the gender dichotomy.

Spelman (1982) begins her inquiry into the gender dichotomy through another dichotomy - the philosophical distinctions made between the mind and body, and attempts to link that dichotomy to the question of gender - a question that Western philosophers have typically avoided. "This part of philosophy," writes Spelman, might have not merely accidental connections to attitudes about women. For when one recalls that the Western philosophical tradition has not been noted for its celebration of the body, and that women's nature and women's lives have long been associated with the body and bodily functions, then a question is suggested. What connection might there be between attitudes towards the body and attitudes toward women?

Spelman goes on to read Plato in terms of his delineation of the soul and the body, with the former assuming importance over the latter; the "irrational" parts of the soul are related to physical desire - the needs of the body - and must be overcome lest the state fall into chaos. In Spelman's opinion, much of the women's liberation movement up to the period of her writing (1982) had in fact supported this phallocentric version of the mind/body split; that is, feminists up to that point had put forward the idea that the pathway to liberation would be to neglect the body with an eye on developing one's mind, in order to put women on par with the intellectual accomplishments of men.

While Spelman argues against the conceptualization of women as being on the inferior end of the mind/body dichotomy, she nevertheless ends her argument by asserting that the mind/body split can still be a useful intellectual paradigm. This conclusion is shattered by the analysis of such writers as Fausto-Sterling (2000). Fausto-Sterling explores the subject of intersexuality - that is, infants who are born with ambiguous genitalia that poses a direct threat to the socially constructed norms of gender. These infants are neither female nor male, and often become the subject of corrective surgeries at a young age to "normalize" their bodies and transform them into one of the properly (i.e. socially) defined genders. Instead of allowing doctors to surgically assign genders to gender-ambiguous infants, Fausto-Sterling argues, a new treatment protocol should emerge that takes a more ethical, less drastic approach to the event. Fausto-Sterling cites a number of cases in which gender assignment surgeries have often failed the individual later in life, when they experience severe identity crises related not only to their gender, but to their sexuality in general. "It should be noted," writes Fausto-Sterling, "that success in gender assignment has traditionally been defined as living in that gender as a heterosexual."

Fausto-Sterling concludes her argument by suggesting that gender, as a category, be erased from all legal discourse in order to take into consideration the fact that previously held notions of the gender dichotomy might no longer be valid in today's world.

Lucal (1999) clarifies many of the concepts introduced by both Fausto-Sterling and Spelman by articulating the idea that gender is a social construction. Lucal's analysis stems not only from her profession as a sociologist, but as an individual who has lived herself lived outside the "boundaries of the dichotomous gender system." As a woman who is frequently mistaken for a man, Lucal is able to elucidate the role that both performance and social conditioning play in dominant perceptions of gender.

Unlike Fausto-Sterling's analysis, Lucal is also able to make the delineation between sex and gender; whereas Fausto-Sterling confusingly discusses gender with regards to one's genital configuration, Lucal shows that gender is most often rooted in how society perceives an individual within the dichotomous system that comprises the status quo.

If the analyses of writers such as Spelman, Fausto-Sperling, and Lucal tell us anything, it is that no discussion of gender is complete without a complimentary evaluation of sexuality. In this regard, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick has been on the cutting edge of gender and queer theory since the publication of her book Epistemology of the Closet. Sedgwick expands the debate on gender to encompass yet another dichotomy - the distinction made between homo- and heterosexual desire. Just as the gender dichotomy has not been able to stand up to critical scrutiny, so the related distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality must be challenged, as the most potent effects of modern homo/hetero sexual definition tend to spring precisely from the inexplicitness or denial of the gaps between long-coexisting minoritizing and universalizing, or gender-transitive and gender-intransitive, understandings of same-sex relations.

Sedgwick's work effectively denaturalizes both heterosexuality and homosexuality as objective categories, arguing instead for a more fluid understanding of sexuality; this puts her in line with the arguments made by such theorists as Fausto-Sterling.

What Fausto-Sterling, Lucal, and Sedgwick all grapple with in implication is the vitality of transsexualism as a means of disrupting the gender dichotomy so prevalent in our society. Wolff (1977) defines transsexualism in the following manner:

Transsexuals are people who believe that their mind is trapped in the wrong-sex body, and they want to get rid of it by any means possible. Male transsexuals desire to live as women, and female transsexuals want to live as men. Some are satisfied with hormonal treatment, but many insist on a surgical transformation. Men who feel and react like women, women who feel and react like men, experience a violent clash between sexual and gender identity. It is not the dubious "masculinity" and "femininity" which bothers them, but a sense of belonging to the opposite sex.

While few would object to Wolff's basic conceptualization of transsexuality, writers such as Lucal might certainly object to her normative positing of the categories of "men" and "women" in the second sentence above, as it seems to affirm the gender dichotomy that many contemporary writers find to be oppressive and constraining.

Judith Butler (1990) attempts to forge a definition of gender that transcends this dichotomy in her landmark study of the issue, Gender Trouble. "Gender," she writes, "is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being."

Following on the heels of Michel Foucault, Butler situates the dichotomous conceptualization of gender as a product of discourse, just as Foucault (1990) realized that homo- and heterosexuality were both discursive products. The maintenance of coherent norms in the realm of gender through cultural discourse is intertwined with the positing of heterosexuality as the norm. This is why, for example, when a young boy "dresses up" as a girl and/or plays with dolls, his parents frequently express concern that this is a sign of burgeoning homosexuality and punish the child.

Butler would interpret the child's act as a "performance" and the parents' intervention as a means of correcting that performance in order to condition the child towards "acting the right way" - that is, enacting the role of maleness as it is rigidly codified by the heterosexual norms upon which our society is based: