Monday, March 21, 2005

Let's Talk About Sex

Content warning from 2021 - this post contains a lot of ignorant, harmful and flat-out wrong statements about biological sex, which exists on an amazing spectrum and is not determined by genitals, chromosomes or the desire to make pithy internet content. 

So D and I were ordering some stuff online the other day, and he was filling out some forms and he goes "Don't look!" so I of course look and I see my absolute number one infuriating form section of all times that drives me completely bonkers:
Gender:
1)Male 2)Female
And that sets me off for a good five minutes or so, and by the time I'd calmed down I'd composed a short novel on how SEX AND GENDER ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS AND YOU CAN'T JUST USE THEM INTERCHANGEABLY LIKE WHEN YOU DON'T WANT TO PUT THE WORD "SEX" ON A FORM BECAUSE EW THAT'S DIRTY SO YOU JUST PUT "GENDER" INSTEAD 'CAUSE THEY'RE THE SAME THING RIGHT, EXCEPT NOT AT ALL#$%$ However, much of that short novel (including most of the swear words) can be condensed into a simple primer: 1) The terms "male" and "female" refer to SEX, that is, whether an organism is equipped with male or female anatomy. For example, people, dogs, plants, etc. can be divided into "male" or "female" versions of a single species eg. "Hey Mary, what kind of dog is that?" "Well, Bob, it's a female golden retriever!" 2) The concept of "gender" is a social construct, and refers to characteristics which people assign with the labels of "masculine" or "feminine". ONLY HUMANS HAVE A GENDER. The following terms refer to gender: girl, boy, woman, man. eg. "What kind of dog is yours, Bob?" "Well, it's a cross between a woman chihuahua and a man poodle so that makes it a boy chihuadle!" "Why, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Bob! Also, "chihuadle" is a funny word!" So - when you're asking me if my gender is male or female, it's like asking me to give my height in pounds or my weight in decibels. THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. Between the two of them, gender's by far the trickier concept. Sex, for humans and animals , boils down to this simple question: do you have testicles (male) or ovaries (female)? That's it. That's all it takes. Except in rare and expensive cases, you get one or the other and that's that. Gender, however - well, like I said, that's a social construct. Our society has decided that certain things are feminine (long hair, make-up, crying at movies, the urge to buy many, many shoes, etc.) and certain things are masculine (short hair, 3-piece suits, the need to drive real fast, scratching one's crotch, etc.) Females are expected to be feminine and do feminine things, and vice versa for males. A young female is called a "girl" and expected to do girly things, and when she grows breasts and starts menstruating she is a "woman" and expected to do womanly things, which are a lot like girly things, only with more cleavage. And, conversely, "boys" do boyish things (like eat bugs) and grow up into "men" (sometimes) and then do manly things, (like eat bugs on TV for money). "Wait!" you might say. "That's a gross overgeneralization! After all, some women eat bugs on TV for money too!" That's right. In fact, nowadays, men and women and girls and boys often share many of the same attributes and activites. Some men cry at movies. Some women drive sports cars. But often, in the eyes certain members of society, this makes them "less masculine" or "less feminine". That's because gender, as a - all together now! - social construct, depends on interpretation. From person to person and culture to culture, concepts of gender change. For example, in most Western countries, skirts are"feminine" and pants are "masculine" - think of the little dudes and dudettes on the washroom sign. But ask Sir Sean if his l'il kilt is an expression of his feminine side, and he'll probably clock you but good. Of course, he'd probably do that if you asked him what time it was, too - he's kind of a drunken lout, I hear. However, the point remains that depending on the context, a skirt can be girly or manly. Now, let's look at drag queens for a second. No, really, have a look. Those men? Have a lot more "feminine" characteristics than I do. And yet they're called "female impersonators". Well, they're not "female" impersonators, unless they've hidden some makeshift ovaries up there. And, if gender is a social construct based on a series of attributes described as either "masculine" or "feminine" then they've certainly got all the boxes checked off for "woman", except for the one that says "female" and so, despite the fact that many of them are much hotter as women than I'll ever be, they are still called "impersonators". And thank God, because did I mention that they are much hotter than I am? Seriously, it's bad enough having to compete with all the hot females out there. Really, what drag queens are doing are challenging the notion that man=male and woman=female with their own little equation that woman=male can exist too. And this makes a lot of people uncomfortable, for one simple reason: PEOPLE LIKE STEREOTYPES. To some extent, every person likes to think that there exists a series of generalizations that you can make about other people based on their physical appearance. And it's not just about someone's sex - black people are good at basketball, asians are smart, latinos and latinas like salsa (the food) and salsa (the dance), Russians like vodka, Canadians are polite, Americans are ignorant violent jackasses...the list goes on and on. And while society has, to a large extent, at least acknowledged that stereotypes based on ethnicity or nationality are harmful, we still REVEL in our sex stereotypes. Don't believe me? Just watch a beer commerical Next time: This was originally going to be a piece about gender vs. sex that led into a discussion of homosexuality in the context of sex and gender stereotypes, but I think I have the carpal tunnel syndrome now, so I'll let that brew a little longer in my noggin' while I go ice my wrists. Also - there's been a related discussion on Pixie that's pretty interesting.

1 comment:

floyd said...

Well, colour me corrected. It all reminds me of the great Mme. McFarland crusade to get the whole "even if there's only one guy in a group of one hundred women it's still "ils"" thing taken out of French language. Which happened at Stelly's, where you did not go but we all think you did anyway.