Envisioning a Genderless World
This is purely a theory wank.
In this week’s New York Times Magazine, Alissa Quart discusses the effect of trans-gendered college students on traditional women’s colleges. She spends quite a bit of the article talking about Rey, who was born with female sex organs, but is living his life as a man. Rey is on hormone therapy and has had “top” surgery to remove his breast tissue, but has not had and does not plan to have “bottom” surgery. Amongst other things this means that his long-time girlfriend, a lesbian, is now in a heterosexual relationship. Although Quart doesn’t discuss this, I am intrigued by the possibility that Rey - a man - could, at least in theory, have a child.
During the 1970s, feminists discussed the idea that biology is inherently sexist. Women get pregnant and have children; this is an experience that men cannot have, and as much as I enjoyed being pregnant, it does take a toll on the body. Pregnancy carries with it added weight, sleeping difficulties, heart-burn, fatigue, nausea, etc. Childbirth is dangerous business; anyone who has visited a cemetery can attest to the number of women who died in childbirth. Men avoid all of these things, simply because they were born with different sex organs.
But now, men like Rey, who still have the right equipment, could (again, at least theoretically) make the decision to have children. I don’t know the exact medical probability of it happening; no doubt Rey would have to stop hormone therapy, and he would probably have to stop it months in advance to give his body a chance to recuperate. I don’t know if Rey would want to have a child; but certainly we all know men who have said, “Oh, I’d love to have that experience.” (My guess is they were probably lying. It’s all very well and good to volunteer for something when there’s absolutely no chance you’ll have to follow through with it.)
One challenge for a transgendered man who decided to have a child would be the possibility that the rest of society would then see him as a woman. But imagine this could be overcome. Through careful selection of wardrobe, Rey - who is described as wearing baggy pants and over-size shirts - might be able to go through a pregnancy without it showing. And then he could give birth to his child.
Rey and some of his friends dream of a world without gender, without “he” and “she”, male and female. I imagine in this genderless world, children would continue to be born - after all, the desire for offspring is deeply rooted in biology. And those children would, of course, be born with sexual organs, though they would not be forced to assume a gender. Would some still choose to be female or male? Or would the genders simply fall away? Would it become common-place to see men having children? (That question in itself is problemetic because in this world there is no such thing as man or woman.) If gender no longer exists, does biology cease to be sexist?
And - since this is, after all, a Mormon blog - what would that mean for religion? Is gender really eternal, if we can opt out of it altogether?
Quimby,
It seems unclear whether Rey’s “gender” is originally male or female based on the information given. Since there are many different conditions would could result in being born with Female sex organs but living as a man. I guess it’s not clear to me that Rey is choosing to be a man, or in fact, choosing to be a woman.
There are a list of complicated biological and hormonal conditions which I could go through - many of you are probably familiar with them but based on the information given, I am unclear as to what is really going on here. If Rey is truly able to conceive and carry a child, I believe whether or not he wishes to be, he is, in fact, a de facto female.
Comment by bandanamom — March 17, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
Sorry - Rey was born with female gender organs, raised as a woman, and has chosen to become a man
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
This is the sort of topic that both fascinates and endlessly confuses me insofar as stuff like healthy (rather than overtly limiting) identity construction goes: what about “penis at twelve” condition, or XXX? I’m getting back to that Patti Smith quotation I’ve thrown out before, because it seems aptly ironic here: “being any gender is a drag.”
I’ve know of lesbian couples where one of the women admits she’s always felt male and is thus a straight man in a woman’s body. In some cases the partner stays with the individual after sex reassignment surgery and in others they leave. But if they stay, then they’re lesbians in straight relationships, once again indicating that the line between sex and gender isn’t tidy or purely biology v. culture. (I’ve admitted before to being uneasy when we indicated sex is “just as” constructed as is gender, and I still feel that way. The way academics use the word, gender is always constructed but sex perhaps not. Still, no tidiness).
As for your last question, iI can only offer the same theory I posed when TPOTF first came out: maybe stuff like Penis at Twelve and transgendered people imply that in some sense gender is eternal like the document says. The document doesn’t say if we all were born into bodies that match our eternal gender, however. Nor does it say if there are only two genders. (Please nobody call for my excommunication. I’m not being flip–there’s some leeway, isn’t there? Maybe?)
Somebody who’d obviously studied this a lot commented a week or so ago on the topic. I’m going to try and track them down and see if they’ll join in your interesting question.
Comment by Janet — March 17, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
oh dear Quimby… WOMEN’S college, not girl’s (school/college). clearly you didn’t go to one, or you would have had that drilled into you long ago…
Comment by actualifanonlesbian — March 17, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
BTW, that last paragraph isn’t what I definitely believe. But it’s an idea that seemed appropriate for your thread, and one I toss around now and then.
Comment by Janet — March 17, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Whoops, #4 - sorry about that. I’ll try to explain my very obvious mistake - I’m in Australia and college is high school (from year 7) so I’ve become fairly sloppy about calling them “girl’s college” (since you’re not really a woman in year 7) and although I know that in the US college is what we call university (because I am American after all) it’s kind of hard to retrain the brain to say “women’s college” when the brain is constantly telling me that “college” is for years 12 to 18.
I’ll go back and change the original now, sorry.
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
“Rey and some of his friends dream of a world without gender, without “he” and “she”, male and female.”
If Rey dreams of a genderless world why would he want to be a “man”? He is picking a new gender therefore creating a distinction and a preference between the two. Why must he be a “man” in his relationship if he doesn’t like gender differences? I must say his actions seem to contradict his dream. I know you can’t answer these questions for him but it does make me wonder.
In your genderless world with sex organs would there be breasts, penises, vaginas? Would we all have the same oragans as one another? What if we were all the same and someone like Rey still didn’t like what they were given? I think it is part of our human nature to be unsatisfied and want to be different. So, yes, I do think people would still group themselves, change themselves, and try to define themselves apart from the whole. It may be flipped though in that we would be fighting for the rights to be different rather than to be equal.
Comment by Liz — March 17, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
Those are all sex organs (pertaining to biological sex and not to constructed gender) - so of course we’d still be born with a sex, but we wouldn’t necessarily have a gender. How much of our gender is determined by our sex? How much is simply a choice we make or a choice that is made for us by our parents/society at large?
BTW, it’s not *my* genderless world (I’m terribly confused as to whether or not I think it’s even a good idea) - I’m just intrigued/confused by the thought and curious as to its practical implications
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 5:27 pm
Biologically female - but does biology trump social construct? Would it be possible for Rey (or any other transmale) to have a baby and still be male gendered? Or would society dictate that he was actually a she because of the biological act of child-birth, even though he felt like a he and wanted to live his life as a he?
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
Eh - removing the male/female dichotomy from gender - creating a third (or fourth? fifth?) gender - excuse me, I think my mind just exploded!
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
I find the notion of a completely genderless world quite frightening, actually. Child development research abounds with studies pointing to identity markers as useful in helping a child feel secure and happy with themselves. The problem is when we’re too rigid about constructing gender, yes? You know, with exceedingly unhelpful crap such as “little boys don’t cry.” Too narrow parameters for gender (or really hard and fast ones) negate a child’s self-worth rather rapidly unless they happen to meld seamlessly into their particular culture’s idea of what it means to be a “boy” or a “girl.” We need a lot more flexibility, but while I agree with Quimby the practical implications of a genderless world are fascinating, I’d be reticent to embrace the notion. I’d say we need to retool the world we’ve got rather significantly, however, and be a lot less ethnocentric and myopic about how we look at both sex and gender.
Comment by Janet — March 17, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
#10–there have been documents floating around at UN conferences proposing we recognize at least 7 genders. The main opponents to said documents were religious delegations of Catholics and Mormons. I still can’t figure out what the 7 genders would be . . . and my SIL (who was one of the LDS delegates and who loathes my politics) wouldn’t share, possibly for fear I’d get scary ideas.
But seriously, 7? I can only come up with about 4 and then I join you with the cerebral explosion :0.
Comment by Janet — March 17, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
Ah, ok I see what you are saying now. I was thinking more Sci-fi than that. =)
The genderless world you describe is getting closer to becoming a reality. But even if we were born into a world that didn’t have the traditional gender roles that we are taught I still think there would be grouping and differentiating. I think the human race is far too big not to segment itself into catagories. Sadly, we don’t need sex organ differences to stereotype, fight against, or supress one another. So, while it may be possible to do away with “gender” roles you would still have all the problems that gender roles create, it would just be based on other things.
Comment by Liz — March 17, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
Liz, your comment makes me wonder what life will be like on the “other side.” Surely “if ye are not one ye are not mine” doesn’t equate unity with identicality, so we must learn how to take our differences and use the the way Paul envisions in the NT, where different “parts” form a functioning body. But imagining a world without the stratification and attendant contention this realm thrives on is just so hard. I dream of it, always have. Still, I can’t work out in my head how exactly it would work on a practical level. Obviously we can’t predict how gender will work (too many cultures and all that here to guess) but it’s an interesting question nonetheless.
Comment by Janet — March 17, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
1 Cor. 14:33
Comment by aloysiusmiller — March 17, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
#14, I am excited to see that day, when sharing one purpose makes all of our differences important and useful.
Too often you see people, situations, and communities who really do have one purpose but can’t seem to see it because they are so caught up with the differences of others.
That would make a great post: Unifying purposes and utilizing differences.
Comment by Liz — March 17, 2008 @ 6:06 pm
I think you bring up a very important point. A lot of faithful LDS families have to deal with this issue, when their children’s bodies don’t develop as initially thought.
At BYU, my genetics prof talked about a family whose son turned out to be female, which they didn’t realize until he was 13 and didn’t go through male puberty. They called church headquarters in panic and were surprised that this was not an uncommon question; the person who handled their call was very matter-of-fact; they were told to pray for personal revelation, and assured that in cases like this it was fine to have surgery that would make the child functionally one sex or another if they wanted to do that. They were told to have the bishop do paperwork to rescind the priesthood should they choose to change the gender to female:) The family moved from a southern suburb of SLC to a northern suburb so the child could have a fresh start (or vice versa).
But did the person have to choose one of the two more common genders? I don’t see how. It wasn’t their fault they were made like that.
Comment by Naismith — March 17, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
One of the things which struck me with the article was that genderless seemed to mean the absence of female. She spoke with one student, biologically a woman, who refuses to use gendered pronouns and who “passes” for a man. Rey claims to want a genderless world but has chosen to live his life as a man. Isn’t this also sexist? If genderless means denying all things female (even mundane things like skirts and certain colours) doesn’t that also reinforce the patriarchy?
Naismith, I’ve often wondered how transsexualism works in the LDS culture. What a difficult thing for any family to go through - but particularly a family that is so entrenched in a culture which strongly accepts and reinforces the differences between the genders.
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 7:34 pm
There is a difference with being biologically born a specific gender and deciding later in life to be the opposite gender and being born with both male and female organs and having to make a choice on which gender to assume. Lately, many who are biologically both genders are choosing to remain that way instead of having surgery and deciding on becoming male or female. It would be interesting to know the Church’s position is on this? Do they require a choice to be made?
Comment by Andrea — March 17, 2008 @ 7:39 pm
The sex/gender dichotomy has a history of about 150 years, and has been in constant flux because the terms are unstable. Part of the problem is that it is tied up with “sexuality” and the issue of gender was for many years, and still is, connected to sexual orientation. Gay men were thought to be “gender inverts,” creating another gender. Thus, today we have distinctions between sex, gender, and sexuality, but all of these are unstable as well. The case of trans couples is evidence of exactly the problem. I actually know a couple who is in almost the exact situation as the couple described in the article. The fact is that “sex”, “gender,” and “sexuality” do not refer to essences, but are all products of culture.
Recent discussion has argued that the number of those who are born with ambiguous genitalia are upwards of 3% of the popular. Some have noted that there are 7 “sexes.” 1) Penis; 2) Vagina/Uterus; 3) function penis/functioning vagina-uterus; 4) non-functioning penis/functioning vagina-uterus; 5) functioning penis/non-functioning vagina-uterus; 6) non-functioning genetalia; 7) non-existent genitalia. For an excellent scientific and philosophical discussion of this, see Anne Fausto-Sterling, _Sexing the Body_. Butler gives the theoretical framework for this issue, especially with regard to trans and intersexed persons, in _Undoing Gender_.
Others have argued that there are 2 sexes and 6 genders, when gender is defined with respect to sexuality (homo; hetero; bi).
As far as the UN document goes, I am not sure exactly whether they are defining gender with respect to sexuality or gender with respect to biological makers.
The argument that “sex” is a cultural construct is nothing to do with whether sexual differences exist. The issue is about how these differences are interpreted, and which differences are interpreted. Which differences in people matter and why? Why are people distinguished with respect to sex organs? Sex as an organizing principle in society is cultural in the same way that all things are cultural. Nature is simply unquestioned culture.
A world without sex or gender? It would be a lot like a world in which eye color doesn’t matter. That we say that it matters is a particular cultural choice.
Comment by TT — March 17, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
Based on my experience with the two kids I used to babysit (not exactly and exhaustive study, I know) you can try to kill gender all you want but it ain’t happening. Their mother limits their TV; she discourages violence and doesn’t go out of her way to encourage “girly” attributes in her daughter. The son loves Batman, Transformers and all things loud and strong. The little girl cherishes her many “babies” as if they were her own.
Some gender “attributes” (like skirts) are cultural constructs. Some are the result of biological wiring. They’re here and constant across cultures, languages and millenia. We associate them with particular genders because — though there is always an exception somewhere — by and large they are the rule. They’re not going to go away because a few people try to redefine them.
Comment by Proud Daughter of Eve — March 17, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
But PDoE, someone who claimed that all gender was socially constructed* could argue that, despite the mother’s best efforts, the children were gendered because of the general society in which they live - that society as a whole forces a gender construct.
(*that person isn’t necessarily me; I really don’t know where I fall in this debate. Certainly I’ve known enough people who don’t fit the neat little binary of “I’m a man and I have a penis” that I can’t accept that sex and gender necessarily go hand in hand; but at the same time, I struggle with the idea that gender is purely a social construct, because then couldn’t you socialise transgendered people into having a gender that matched their sex? And yet that is one of the most damaging, hurtful things you can do to a person in that situation.)
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 8:45 pm
Quimby, I think the Family Proclamation answers your original question “Is gender really eternal, if we can opt out of it altogether?” The Family: A Proclamation to the World says, “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose”.
I certainly hope we aren’t gender neutral in heaven! My feminine characteristics are a lot of what make me who I am. I would be sad to lose those characteristics in eternity. I also enjoy and appreciate the masculine characteristics my husband has. I certainly wouldn’t want him to lose them to become more like me for eternity. Our differences are a good complement to each other and help make us to become “one”.
I wonder how it will work in the after-life. I think that we take our addictions, temptations, strengths, weaknesses with us when we die. So, I anticipate that someone who feels like a man trapped in a woman’s body would still feel that way immediately after death. I don’t know about all eternity because I think that the Atonement applies here. I am not sure how it all would be reconciled, but I firmly believe that anyone who accepts the Atonement will be made “whole”. I do have a great deal of compassion for people in these struggles, and I know the Savior does, too. Considering that He took upon himself the infirmities of all mankind, He knows how people in this situation feel, so I am confident that if they turn to Him for answers, they will find them.
Comment by Stephanie — March 17, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
Well-said.
And yet that’s exactly the sort of violence that you would have to carry out against society as a whole in order to bring about the “genderless” society that you project, or even to neuter the idea of marriage in the views of all of society. We’re talking about an incredibly intrusive and devastated kind of brainwashing, carried out on a massive scale.
Comment by Christian — March 17, 2008 @ 9:03 pm
Don’t start throwing arrows at me, but I think that people who claim that ALL gender is socially constructed are wrong. I have four sons. I honestly don’t know where they came from - they are so foreign to me and my feminine mind.
Comment by Stephanie — March 17, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
#12- I think some of it goes on what is defined as gender. Its been a decade since I took Human Sexuality…and certainly there would be more research now— but from memory, embryos are ‘female’ as in organ composition when in development. Sex organs develop after conception, I don’t remember when.
We also studied chromosomes, XY = boy, XX = girl.
But also other chromosome combinations (mutations?), such as XXY, XXX, etc. I think there cannot be YY but I don’t remember why (unintended pun). I do remember a study on death-row inmates that they were more likely to have XYY, but other than increased acne in puberty, had no other commonalities- except that they were on death row.
So… you could get a human born with female genitalia, but have XY chromosomal composition, which would make the human genetically male. So- which is “it”? Likewise, you could get a human born with male genitalia, but with XXY chromosome, so they also develop breasts at puberty. I am not sure if these examples constitute other genders (thereby making the 7 genders mentioned in another post).
I think the question is—what defines gender? Science or spirit or???? If we can define gender, maybe we can decide if there are 1 or 7 genders or more. Scientifically, if we look at physicality- so sex organs alone, there are more than a few cases where a baby is born with male and female body parts. Historically, they have cut off the male parts because that’s apparently easier to do than to construct additional parts to make a ‘whole set’. In western medicine now, if there is a human born with both genitalia- I think they would opt to test for chromosomes in hopes of getting an XY or XX answer. Again, this is science. If spirit assigns gender and our bodies are imperfect and temporary, perhaps we ignore the science and go with what we feel.
I don’t have the answers, just more details to make it more confusing. Dang that Human Sexuality class!
Comment by Spunky — March 17, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
It would be hard to decide what to do as a parent with a child born with both genitalia (or some characteristic that would make the child sex ambiguous). That would be a time I would be so grateful for personal revelation - grateful that I could go to my Father in Heaven for answers. I would trust that He loves that child enough to guide me as a parent.
Comment by Stephanie — March 17, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
If gender existed before this life, and will exist after this life, then how could it not be eternal, even if some hypothetical society managed to put it under erasure?
The fact that we live as mortal beings during this life, doesn’t change the fact that immortality is part of our eternal nature.
Comment by Christian — March 17, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
This post/thread reminded me of a quote from the Jan ‘08 VT message. It is by Julie B. Beck. “As spirit daughters of God, women ‘received their first lessons in the world of spirits and were prepared to come forth’ (D&C 138:56) on the earth. They were among the ‘noble and great ones’ (D&C 138:55) who ‘shouted for joy’ (Job 38:7) at the creation of the earth because they would be given a physical body with the opportunity to be proven in a mortal sphere (see Abraham 3:25). They wished to work side by side with righteous men to accomplish eternal goals that neither can attain independently.
“Female roles did not begin on earth, and they do not end here. A woman who treasures motherhood on earth will treasure motherhood in the world to come, and ‘where [her] treasure is, there will [her] heart be also’ (Matthew 6:21). By developing a mother heart, each girl and woman prepares for her divine, eternal mission of motherhood. …” (“A ‘Mother Heart,’ ” Liahona and Ensign, May 2004, 76).”
Comment by Stephanie — March 17, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
Stephanie, that quote bothers me. It is unnecessarily limiting and equating “female roles” with nurturing. This is the subject of an up-coming post I’m working on, but that is precisely the sort of attitude which confines women and makes them feel abnormal if they don’t particular want to be a mother.
And again I come back to the bigger question: What is a gender role? While I would like to think that gender isn’t entirely a social construct (mainly because I identify strongly with being a female and I’d hate to think I’m that gullible that I’d just buy it hook. line, and sinker), I can’t think of anything that I would say is strictly female or strictly male, and I think we do far more damage than good when we try to assign certain traits to a specific gender.
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
It probably shouldn’t be your decision. Your child is the one who will have to live with it; your child is the only one who should make that decision (or not make it - your child might decide to be ambigendered or ungendered).
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 11:28 pm
Sorry, Quimby. I like the quote. I found it particularly inspirational that month when I taught the VT lesson - highlighted it and all.
I don’t know that I would make a decision on the spot with the doctor there asking me what I would want to do (well, I and my husband). It does seem that a “wait and see” approach is more common these days. But I do know that if I had just given birth to a gender ambiguous child, I would hit my knees praying on the spot until I got an answer about something. And, like I said before, I trust that the Savior would love that child enough to give me some kind of guidance as a parent.
Comment by Stephanie — March 17, 2008 @ 11:36 pm
Eek, but “a mother heart”? Really? That doesn’t bother you? It doesn’t bother you to see all of the myriad experiences of being a woman reduced to one role - and at that a role that is so politically loaded, so mythologised and idealised, and yet so full of plain old drudgery* and chance, as motherhood? Why reduce women at all? And why reduce women to a purely biological function that many, many women will never experience?
(*I mean that in the nicest possible way. I love being a mom but I hate wiping poopy butts, particularly when she squirms around and gets poop on the clothes; I hate having to pick up every single friggin’ book and toy and DVD and pillow in the house every single friggin’ day because she thinks it’s such fun to tear everything apart; I hate the oooodles of laundry and dishes; etc. It’s drudgery.)
Comment by Quimby — March 17, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
#30 I don’t think it’s so much about “assigning” gender characteristics as it is “recognizing” and “accepting” gender characteristics. Recognizing and accepting that yeah, there are differences, and yeah, it’s okay. I think that boys are often misunderstood and unnecessarily punished or medicated for just being boys (warning - threadjack here). My boys like to fight, wrestle, compete, bounce off the walls. They have a look of rapture on their faces while they do it. It repels me a bit. But, I recognize that those are pretty typical boy characteristics, so I bite my tongue and let them be boys. How damaging would it be for me to stop them or belittle them because I don’t like those things? I don’t expect them to be like me. And I know that some girls like those things, too. It doesn’t make those girls masculine. It is just more typical of boys. I don’t think that is a dangerous thing to say. It seems to me that in general, when schools try to be gender-neutral, they are careful to include the girl things like toy kitchens, but they leave out the typical boy stuff.
Comment by Stephanie — March 17, 2008 @ 11:57 pm
Quimby, just wait until you have four butts to wipe each day (one being your own). That is REALLY fun. My glasses may be colored a bit because currently my whole existence is kind of being reduced to one role: motherhood. I don’t have time for anything else. I am trying to enjoy it to the best of my ability and have faith that it will get better from here. I think that is why I enjoyed the quote.
It made me feel that the way I am spending my time matters.
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 12:03 am
Oh, and I didn’t include the last part of the quote, but since you brought it up, she also said, ““In my experience I have seen that some of the truest mother hearts beat in the breasts of women who will not rear their own children in this life, but they know that ‘all things must come to pass in their time’ and that they ‘are laying the foundation of a great work’ (D&C 64:32–33)”.
A woman in my ward is a YW leader. She doesn’t have her own children, but she “mothers” so many of our YW. They are always at her house, learning from her good example and feeling her love. There are lots of ways to mother.
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 12:07 am
Oh, no! And I like a lot of Julie Beck’s quotes… but ‘mother heart’ makes me very uncomfortable.
I think what you are saying in #36 Stephanie, is akin to Sheri Dew’s speech titled, ‘Are We Not All Mothers’? (sorry I am not clever enough to post a link)
What about infertile people? Arguably, many of these XXY, XYY, etc people might have serious fertility issues, though no discernable genitalia problems. So, if they can’t have children, does that mean they can’t have a gender? If a human is born with female chromosomes but male body parts, is that human only assigned gender if and when they reproduce? Poor single women without children… oops… I mean, single ‘its’ without gender assignment based on their lack of reproduction. (PC all the way!)
Know what? I love Zachariah, John the Baptist’s father because he stay married to Elisabeth, didn’t take a lover and worked in the temple and loved her till her old age fully believing they would never have a child. THAT to me is nurturing. So is Zachariah the nurturing woman and Elisabeth the strong man? No wonder they had fertility issues with those messed up gender roles!
It is like you quoted from Beck: “In my experience I have seen that some of the truest mother hearts beat in the breasts of women who will not rear their own children in this life, but they know that ‘all things must come to pass in their time’ and that they ‘are laying the foundation of a great work’ (D&C 64:32–33)”. I don’t personally take the ‘all things must come to pass’ and ‘great work’ to be limited to the single assignment of rearing children as a mother. Does that mean I am man? Dang, I need one of those chromosome tests!
And if it were up to me, I would go to Priesthood rather than Relief Society because I prefer the company and find the discussions more intellectual because they are not always bringing up motherhood. But by gender, I am assigned to attend RS on Sundays for at least 45 minutes. Yuck. Feels longer. So if this bothers me as much as it does, I can’t imagine the freakiness of someone who was gender-mystery being outside assigned a gender for their whole life.
So again I ask- is reproduction the only means to define gender?
Comment by Spunky — March 18, 2008 @ 1:33 am
#35- BTW, Stephanie- I DO think that the way you are spending your time matters.
Comment by Spunky — March 18, 2008 @ 1:40 am
I had an odd thought that reminded me of this thread as I was sorting laundry tonight.
I bet that LDS couples are members of the only religious group in the Western world where husbands and wives wear each others’ underwear completely by accident.
Comment by Christian — March 18, 2008 @ 2:11 am
If a man said that the motherhood topic makes a discussion less intellectual, we’d say the statement was misogynistic, wouldn’t we? If you’ve not been a mother, I can understand why a discussion about motherhood would feel alienating, but attributing that to a lack of intellectual depth seems just wrong.
Comment by Christian — March 18, 2008 @ 2:22 am
Quimby 22,
“I struggle with the idea that gender is purely a social construct, because then couldn’t you socialise transgendered people into having a gender that matched their sex? And yet that is one of the most damaging, hurtful things you can do to a person in that situation.”
I am not sure that I am following your logic. What exactly is so horrible and damaging about transpeople “performing” gender? Does that prove that it is something which can be transferable? Are you saying that transpeople are better off not passing as their new gender? I don’t get your point.
Stephanie 27,
You should read the accounts of people who had this “corrective” surgery done to them as babies. They aren’t happy with it. Who is it serving, your expectations for “normal” or the child? It is a little like foot binding in China, where horrible, painful procedures were done for a certain aesthetic. Claiming that God would reveal to you which sex to decide is a little like saying, “Hey God, thanks for this child you just gave me. I couldn’t have done it without you. How would you like me to mutilate it?”
Comment by TT — March 18, 2008 @ 5:56 am
FWIW, in my parents-in-law’s ward, there was a trans M-to-F in full-fellowship. She had undergone the surgeries while a member of the ward and in consultation with the bishop. The church now has a relatively reasonable policy on this issue that was developed (ironically) in the mid-90’s.
Comment by TT — March 18, 2008 @ 5:59 am
I don’t think so, Spunky. I just remembered the quote and liked it and wanted to share it. The parts I was getting at were that we were “spirit daughters” of God, which shows we had specific genders in the pre-mortal life and that our mission is eternal. The Family Proclamation already tells us this, though, so I suppose it wasn’t entirely necessary to share the quote. I can see why some women would find it limiting.
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 6:29 am
okay, …okay…
Comment by Stefan — March 18, 2008 @ 6:48 am
What exactly do people think that it means to have “premortal gender”? Do our spirits have sex organs? What are the eternal masculine or feminine traits that our spirits supposedly possess?
Comment by TT — March 18, 2008 @ 7:08 am
Sorry, one more quick point. Saying that something is constructed is not the same things as saying that it is socializable through behaviorist training. Constructivism doesn’t necessarily side on the nurture side of a nature/nurture dichotomy, but rather rethinks the dichotomy all-together.
Comment by TT — March 18, 2008 @ 7:44 am
#37 Spunky,
In RS they talk about motherhood, in preisthood they talk about using the preisthood. It seems that either class you attended would have a defining sex subject in it.
#46 TT, so if you aren’t born with it, and you aren’t taught it, it must needs be costructed. Did I get it right? =)
Well, I’m not sure if it is my nurturing or their nature but my children are all so very different from each other and they make a great gender role study of nature vs. nurture themselves. Yes, my boys are boys. But my oldest, a girl loves pink and it a total tom boy. My youngest (also a girl but raised by the two boys before her) loves sparkly shoes and would wear nothing but dresses for a whole year and she knows how to play dead, with all the gory dramatics, and she shoots anything and anyone in site. My son nurses his teddy bear every now and then, and my son wants to be the family cook. But we do gender role in the clothing department.
So, I want to ask those of you who really dislike gender roles (I’m not sure how many there are here or even if there are any), would you feel comfortable letting your son wear a dress, not a kilt, a dress in public? Because as open as I am to letting my children be who and what they want to be I still make my children wear sex appropriate clothing (thought they get to make their choices in those areas). I will admit that pregarment I had a few pairs of men breifs that I would wear because they were oh so comfy, and I won’t care what my kids choose when they are older, but for now….
I had a neighbor who’s son liked sparkly things. The problem was that the only sparkly things (shoes, bike handles, shirts, socks, etc) that they could find were “girl” things. But she let him buy, wear, and use them. (shew as an awesome mom). He was happy but was teased to no end and has huge social issues now. And I wondered, couldn’t she buy sparkly paints and make male saprly things for him so that he could have fit in and had his way too? It just seemed wrong to expect a child to break the gender role norms of society. Anyway, I’m not making a point so much as I am just blabbing about things I’ve noticed.
Here are some questions, though. Would a genderless world be void of any gender specific roles or would people just be free to choose what they want? If you had a female who wanted to be nothing but a mommy who loved to iron and wear pink lace would that be bad? Or would that be more accepted than it is in today’s modern feminist world because there would be no expectations and we are all just free to be who we want to be without judegment? Wouldn’t it be a open gender world instead of a genderless world? That is a world I wouldn’t mind. “Gender Free” just makes me shiver.
Comment by Liz — March 18, 2008 @ 8:24 am
I think the “eternal gender” concept is similar to the “being resurrected in your perfect form” concept. In eternity, we’ll all be perfect replicas of Barbie and Ken (circa 1950). Or Pamela Anderson (Lee) and Tommy Lee? Take your pick.
Comment by ECS — March 18, 2008 @ 8:32 am
ECS, What?
Is that your idea of perfection? I’m sure you are joking, or is that really your idea of being resurrected in your perfect form?
Comment by Liz — March 18, 2008 @ 8:41 am
Wow, that’s harsh. She didn’t even say she would pray to know what the “correct” sex was. She just said she’d pray for guidance. Is it okay to pray for guidance in that difficult situation, or can prayer only lead to mischief?
As far as corrective surgery goes, why assume that God always gives us our children whole and perfect? If you fix a child’s cleft palate, is that also “mutilation”? I’m not saying they’re identical cases; surgery on sex organs is much more ethically dicey. But given how complex the moral issue is, why can’t we acknowledge that there might be a variety of ethical options?
Personally, I’m not much of one for receiving personal revelation, but I think if my child were born with such an anomaly (is that a neutral enough word?), I would be praying like a maniac and wouldn’t rest until I had guidance (yes, “guidance”). And that’s saying a lot. I like my rest.
Comment by madhousewife — March 18, 2008 @ 10:20 am
Christian, thanks for the laugh.
Comment by madhousewife — March 18, 2008 @ 10:23 am
Actually, I just had a thought that if someone high up in the church hierarchy were to see Christian’s comment, we could find ourselves with a radical redesign on temple garments within the next three years. I hope the powers that be are reading FMH.
Comment by madhousewife — March 18, 2008 @ 10:29 am
Liz, I guess Pamela Anderson is outdated. Maybe Scarlett Johanson? Jessica Alba?
Also, I don’t think anyone has mentioned the book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (he also wrote The Virgin Suicides). It’s a fictional account of a teenager born with ambiguous genitalia who grew up as a girl but decided to become a boy. It’s a pretty good read.
Comment by ECS — March 18, 2008 @ 11:10 am
ok, i haven’t read the comments yet and this may have already been addressed, but this thought just occurred to me as i quickly scanned the thread.
if gender is determined in the womb by biological processes, does that mean God wiggles his finger while our bodies are being formed and says “you get a extra X, or you get a Y because that’s what you were in the spirit world.”
now i have trouble with that because i thought god was bound to natural laws and doesn’t really mess with that stuff (this can open a whole nasty can of worms)
and now my head is spinning!
i understand how i will be a female after i die, but before i was born and the chromosmes determined my sex?
like i said, spinning.
Comment by mfranti — March 18, 2008 @ 11:14 am
I’m glad someone appreciated the thought, madhousewife.
It is also kind of funny to flip the question around and point that non-LDS folks need special magic underwear to tell them who is male and who is female.
Comment by Christian — March 18, 2008 @ 12:37 pm
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969
Comment by Jim Cobabe — March 18, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
Thank you madhousewife (#50). That is exactly what I was saying - I just don’t know what, if anything I would do. I would turn to the Lord for guidance because I trust Him. 2 Nephi 4:34
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
Jim (#56), I read a few summaries on this book. I am unclear as to whether the people pair off for life (marriage), or whether they just find a new attractive partner during each sex cycle.
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
The Family:A Proclamation to the World does say a bit more about premortal/eternal gender than I quoted previously. Here is the whole paragraph:
“All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
TT #45 - My guess based on the Family Proclamation is that our spirits look a lot like our bodies (the whole hand in the glove Primary lesson), so my guess would be that our spirits do have masculine and feminine identities.
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
mhw 50,
I think that you’re right that I was being overly harsh here, but this is a rather serious issue. To be honest, before I had my child, I spent many nights thinking about this issue and trying to decide what I would do. I never came to a conclusion. My point is simply that I don’t think that we can defer our decision, whatever it may be, onto the will of the Lord in order to escape the responsibility of that decision.
Stephanie 60,
Can you clarify what you mean when you say that you think that our spirits look like our bodies with “masculine and feminine identities”? What exactly is a bodily masculine or feminine identity?
Comment by TT — March 18, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
I don’t know TT. I really don’t. But my guess is that I looked a lot like I do now when I was in heaven and I’ll look a lot like this after I die. I imagine I’ll feel the same, have the same weaknesses and strengths. I think I am “an immortal being having a mortal experience” rather than a “mortal being having an immortal experience”.
“My point is simply that I don’t think that we can defer our decision, whatever it may be, onto the will of the Lord in order to escape the responsibility of that decision.”
What about the decision of who to marry? Or whether or not to start trying to have children? Or where to go to school, what to major in, what job to take? Each time I face a decision like this, I go to the Lord. Granted, the formula is study it out in my own mind, and then ask (D&C 9:8-9), but I would never dream of trying to make such an important decision on my own, without asking God. The Lord has told us to pray over our flocks, our families. I even pray about what preschool to send my kids to. In fact, the more serious the issue, the more I pray about it.
I look at it this way: the Lord can see all of eternity. I can see about five minutes in front of me and five minutes behind. If He can give me some additional perspective and guidance, I would really like that. I appreciate all the help I can get. I
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
Stephanie,
I have responded to some of these issues here:
http://faithpromotingrumor.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/mormon-literalism-and-the-body/
Comment by TT — March 18, 2008 @ 2:36 pm
So prayer is just passing the buck? Honestly, I’m trying to understand. Is there any purpose to prayer, if it’s not to align your own will with God’s will? To me that’s what “seeking guidance” means. And I’m the type of person who trusts her ability to reason better than her ability to receive personal revelation. I do prefer to have my reason informed by revelation, even if I’ve found revelation elusive for much of my life. I’ve made decisions that were not the ones I’d planned to make in theory. These were decisions where I chose to go with my gut, sometimes contrary to my reason. I can’t swear all of those decisions have been correct, but some of them I’m really glad I made. I accept responsibility for all of them, regardless. (Even the ones I prayed about.)
All I can say is, when you prepare, you really prepare.
Comment by madhousewife — March 18, 2008 @ 2:36 pm
So, regarding sexual identity in the eternity, what do you think Heavenly Mother looks like physically? If we are without sexual identifiers than why would we have a Heavenly Mother? If there is no gender difference in the eternities than wouldn’t a single Heavenly “Father”, or being, suffice?
I can’t, or I choose not to, think that way. I like the thought and belief of Heavenly Mother and there has to be a reason why she is a “Mother” rather than just a being.
Comment by Liz — March 18, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
TT, I’m actually saying the opposite - that you can’t force a person who is biologically a female but is male gendered to be a female - that a person who is male gendered will be a man, regardless of his sexual organs, and that a person who is female gendered will be a woman, regardless of her sexual organs, and you can’t force them to conform to a certain gender based on their sexual organs. If gender was purely a social construct, then couldn’t you raise a transgendered child to be the gender that matched their sexual organs? But it is not possible (or at least not desirable) - gender seems to be, at least partially (even if it is only a very small part), in-built and in-born.
Comment by Quimby — March 18, 2008 @ 3:36 pm
“gender seems to be, at least partially (even if it is only a very small part), in-built and in-born”. Wouldn’t this support that gender is eternal? That the spirit is an eternal spirit of a specific gender?
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
TT, I read your link. It had a lot of big words and took me a while to comprehend (I’m not the smartest apple of the bunch). It made me think of something I learned at church: that our appetites will remain with us when we die, but we may not be able to quench them. For example, a person who wants to smoke but who physically cannot do it, so they spend eternity with the addiction. That would be painful. I also remember learning that our bodies will not have blood since we will be immortal. We won’t need to eat. Here is an idea: what about the person who is addicted to sex but will not be able to capitulate? Does that mean there won’t be sex in the after-life? Is it a temporal solution to an eternal principle? Is it given to us as an earthly means to pro-create, but also as an appetite to control? Based on this line of thinking, it would seem to me that those who learn to control it and use it properly will be given the opportunity to have the power to create for eternity. And those who are slave to the addiction will be slave to it for eternity.
Um, I think I have more questions than answers. I do feel confident that I am an eternal female, but whether or not that includes my sex organs, I don’t know. Good question. I think I will file it in the same category as polygamy - things I don’t understand but am willing to wait to learn about.
Comment by Stephanie — March 18, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
But again, Stephanie, I keep going back to - *what* is eternal about gender? There are no traits I can think of that are specifically female or male. I don’t know why I associate so strongly with being a female; I don’t know what makes me inherently female gendered. I really don’t believe it’s any of the “motherheart” stuff that Beck talks about. I’m not particularly nurturing, I’m not particularly compassionate, I’m certainly not selfless, and the lyrics to songs like ‘Love at home’ make me want to vomit. I can’t pin-point the essential nature of gender. I can’t think of why it matters . . . but at the same time, I feel so strongly female that the thought of losing my gender is discomforting.
Comment by Quimby — March 18, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Quimby,
What makes you “feminine”? Not by the world’s standards but by your own. Why are you glad you are female?
Comment by Liz — March 18, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
That’s just it, Liz - I don’t know why I’m glad I’m female. Heaven knows with the centuries of patriarchal baggage I have to put up with, I should yearn with every fibre of my being to be a man. But - don’t get me wrong, I love men, but I look at them and I think, Nah, not for me. I jokingly give Elaine’s reason from Seinfeld - “I don’t know how you can walk with that thing between your legs” - but it’s deeper than that. It has less to do with sex and more to do with gender.
You asked earlier about sparkly things and dresses for boys. I think if a boy wants to wear a dress or sparkly things, he should be allowed to do so. If it’s important to him, the parent will make it into a bigger issue if you say no, it’s not allowed; and the parent will send him the message that there is something wrong with dresses and sparkly things (and hence contribute to the continued marginalisation of women). And if, by chance, he is transgendered (and chances are he isn’t, but if he is), the parent would make that much harder for her child to approach her to discuss it. Sure, the kid will be teased; but kids are cruel, they’ll always find something to tease.
Comment by Quimby — March 18, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
mfranti (#54), I don’t know if there is an answer to your question. Sex is determined in the womb by biological processes; I don’t know that gender is. As premortal spirits did we have reproductive organs? I don’t know that we would have needed them. We have been taught (or at least I have been taught) that sex exists in the post-mortal world; but does it exist in the premortal world? Perhaps sex isn’t eternal. But if sex isn’t eternal and gender is, how does it work out that most of us (around 97%) are born with a gender that matches our sex?
Comment by Quimby — March 18, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
exactly!
Comment by mfranti — March 18, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
So then we come back to gender being a social construct . . .
Comment by Quimby — March 18, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
you see why my head is spinning?
Comment by mfranti — March 18, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
#40 and #47- I am not a mother, unless you count the pumpkins that sprouted from the compost heap, so I find parenting discussions dull. In truth, counting the number of women in my ward who are single, divorced, infertile, childless or past child-bearing years, the “young family” comments are for the minority by far.
Other posts:
I can 100% accept that in the premortal life we had clear genders, clear skin, perfect hair and maybe we didn’t even need to sleep. I think that genders are eternal because that is a part of perfection, not one gender better than another. BUT- as a result of the fall of Adam, we become mortal and fall victim to all of the issues of mortality- which sometimes means cancer, diabetes, acne, double joints, chromosomes and genitalia that don’t match, conjoined twins, etc. (if one twin or only develops as a growth, do we need to do the work for them - since they had a part-developed birth?) I do not believe that God “assigns” us all of our trials- I think mortality, and one of the conditions of mortality is that we get problems associated with being mortal, which might include social assignment of gender which might not be the correct spiritual assignment.
Some people “deal” with mortal challenges like diabetes, asthma, epilepsy, etc. for the whole of their mortal lives. I don’t see these things as diseases, but conditions of mortality. I think genetics and genitalia non-clarity is the same- a condition of mortality. In the next life, it will be clear. In this life, we need to make choices- do we take shots, get a pump, have a transplant, use herbal remedies, get a guide dog, etc. I don’t see an issue with a parent making decisions for a diabetic, asthmatic or epileptic child until they can look after themselves. I see the same for an unspecific gender child- support them until they are ready to make a decision, be it when they are 8, 12 or 18. I don’t understand that if we can accept that an epileptic will have epilepsy for the whole of their life, why can’t we accept that some people will have gender issues? Why do we need to know what is going on in their pants? Isn’t that their business in the long run? Don’t they deserve their own revelation on who they are?
Like Stephanie said, more questions than answers.
Comment by Spunky — March 18, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
Because it’s our business, darn it! Haven’t you been paying attention to what’s going on in New York and New Jersey?
Over-all I’m really not sure that I’d like a genderless world, but that particular aspect - caring less about what is going on in other people’s pants - definitely appeals to me.
mfranti, your head isn’t alone in its endless spinning. It’s certainly not a clear dichotomy.
Comment by Quimby — March 18, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
Not a trollish question, but an honest one -
In the case of Rey cited in the original cost, genetically, what is he/she? XY or XX?
On the question of social/eternal — it seems that you’re fighting a losing battle labeling gender as purely social, when Stephanie correctly points out that the Church has labeled it an eternal characteristic, unless you’re simultaneously rejecting their argument outright.
Comment by queuno — March 18, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
Rey is genetically XX and has female reproductive organs. Biologically he is female.
I’m not sure I am arguing that gender is purely social. That’s what I can’t wrap my head around - how much of gender is social? And what in particular about gender is eternal and essential?
Comment by Quimby — March 18, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
queuno 78: “On the question of social/eternal — it seems that you’re fighting a losing battle labeling gender as purely social, when Stephanie correctly points out that the Church has labeled it an eternal characteristic”
Losing for whom? I don’t think there in anything contradictory at all between something being socially constructed and also being “eternal.” The Lord himself defined “eternal” as something socially constructed in D&C 19.
Comment by TT — March 18, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
But now, men like Rey, who still have the right equipment, could (again, at least theoretically) make the decision to have children. … And then he could give birth to his child.
I’d still have a hard time calling Rey “him” or “his” after that.
Comment by queuno — March 18, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
As a parent of a disabled kid, I can’t tell you how many obnoxious sadistic intrusive sickos I’ve run into that say stuff like that. Telling me that my son is just autistic and that our efforts to find a cure is just our own failure to love him as he is, despite the fact that the last words that he said to us before he completely lost his ability to speak were “I need some medicine, mom.” TT, does it ever occur to you that parents might be more in touch with what their own children are and what they need than you?
I agree that not all the details are clear, but if we believe anything that the church teaches us, we cannot reject the clear and obvious message that eternal aspects of gender include the aspects related to our roles as husband and wife, and as father and mother.
Comment by Christian — March 19, 2008 @ 2:17 am
I know from experience that parents with kids with special needs, whether it be gender or something else, run google searches to look for discussions and ideas for how to deal with their tough situation.
I also know from experience that when they run into the sort of raving sadism that TT offers above in #41, that it’s like acid on a wound. If TT has something intelligent to say on the subject then TT should do so without shaming and making horrid accusations against parents that may have made well-intentioned and irrevocable decisions for their children — decisions that for all that TT knows may have turned out for the best.
Comment by Christian — March 19, 2008 @ 2:27 am
Christian,
I am deeply sorry for the pain that you are feeling. As a parent, I know the love and care that people have for their children and want them to live successful lives. I know that.
I don’t doubt that those who have chosen to perform sex operations on their babies are doing so with good intentions.
Nevertheless, there are massive ethical issues here. In the last 50 years, as we have acquired the abilities to medically and surgically regulate social norms on the bodies of those unable to offer input, we have also produced one of the greatest set of ethical questions for philosophers today. I know that there are activists who oppose all sorts of things, from circumcision, to “aborting downs babies, to repairing hearing loss. (Witness the current debate in England about the law that says that two deaf parents aren’t allowed to have children). I don’t know where the ethical line lies when choosing to “fix” babies, but if there is one set of activists that deserve to be heard, it seems that intersex activists are that group. When we attempt to surgically enforce a two-sex society by lopping off the sex organs of babies, I think that we need to have a serious ethical discussion.
Again, as I said in a follow-up comment, I am not sure I have the right answers on this issue either. In any case, I think that you have misunderstood my comment since you are calling me names that you don’t seem to know what they mean. I was opposing the flip idea that we can somehow skirt these ethical issues by appealing to God to reveal to us a clear path about what to do. I objected to this idea because it defers the responsibility to either seriously think about this issue or to accept responsibility for the choice that we make. I was actually objecting to the argument that this was somehow a clear-cut issue that could easily be resolved by pointing to the complexities around such an issue. I wasn’t taking the polarizing stance that you think I was, but urging us to take this issue and all of its complexities quite seriously.
If you don’t think that my comments are “intelligent,” that is your call. Let it just be said that I am the only one offering scholarly literature and attempting to let the voices of intersexed people be heard here rather than just regurgitating “what I heard in church was…”. Take it or leave it.
Quimby,
I think that you raise some very important points here about the politics of the nature/nurture debate. The interesting thing that Butler gets at in _Undoing Gender_ is how the competing notions of “nature” are debated in the GLBTI communities. While gay and lesbian activists often appeal to a socially constructed notion of “gender,” they invoke narratives of a “natural” sexual orientation. Others have objected to the notion of a genetic or inborn sexual orientation because these approaches have often backfired politically by not justifying or normalizing the “natural,” but by causing it to be eradicated. With eugenics and WWII, these fears are not unfounded. Transpeople, however, have often appealed to the constructedness of sex, while arguing that gender is what is natural. Indeed, this approach has been institutionized as part of the psychological examination one must pass for sex reassignment surgery. Intersexed people have argued the opposite, that sex is natural (all 7 kinds), while gender is the social construct. Here, the primary objection is to the two-sex model. As Thomas Laqueur and others have shown, the two-sex model is a product of modernity. The particular way we organize sexual difference is not universal or “natural,” even within our own Western history. In antiquity and the middle ages, a one-sex model was dominant (though not the only one) wherein men and women existed on a continuum, not as binary opposites. Here, intersexed persons were included within this continuum, rather than that being completely unthinkable or outside of the system as in our two-sex model.
Thus, the issues around what is nature and what is nurture are mobilized differently for different groups with different political agendas.
Comment by TT — March 19, 2008 @ 7:30 am
i was also one of those parents who stayed up at night wondering what i would do if i had a child born intersexed or with ambiguous genitalia. both are a LOT more common than most people recognize - sometimes even the parents aren’t informed fully - and i’m one of those people who considers worst case scenarios for everything. the conclusion that i came to was that, barring some pathology that could prevent normal functioning of the body (such as a penis that can’t release urine), we would leave the child alone and let them decide who they are, what they are, and what they want to look like, when they are old enough to do so. i constantly study gender and sex (they are DIFFERENT! it frustrates me to see so many referring to them as one in the same) and over and over i read stories of men and women who feel damaged, destroyed and awkward because their sex (and thus, because of our culture, their gender) was decided for them and they feel that the choice was wrong, or at the very least that it wasn’t their parents’ decision to make. it’s the rare person, it seems, who is grateful that their parents decided to allow cosmetic genital surgery to be performed on them in infancy or early childhood - even if they feel that they, themselves, would have chosen the surgery, and even if they feel that the “right” sex was chosen, they often feel violated that their right to choice in those circumstances was torn from them.
of course, i’m one of those crazies who believes that infant circumcision without medical cause is a human rights violation, and that while certain gender characteristics are often inborn as a result of sex (though not for everyone), gender is largely a construct that should be eradicated so everyone feels free to live fully to their personal potential and not have their destiny assigned to them by what culture believes their sex organs say about them . . . so what do i know?
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 8:56 am
“the issues around what is nature and what is nurture are mobilized differently for different groups with different political agendas”.
I think this is true for pretty much everything.
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 9:07 am
Quimby, I thought of a characteristic that is different for men and women. At the risk of being labeled “sexist”, I am going to share it. In general, I think that men are less concerned about their own mortality. They don’t think through the ramifications of their actions as carefully to assess the risk. For example, my little brother (who lives with me) built an explosive device in his bedroom – the one next to my nursery. He also blew up pumpkins in the backyard while he was baby-sitting my kids. He has made a series of decisions like this (so have my other brothers and my husband when he was younger. My sons do all sorts of crazy, gravity-defying things on playgrounds. If we go to a playground, the other mothers gasp and hold their hearts while my kids play. I just close my eyes and turn away because I know that boys need to be boys.
I think that in general, women are more cautious than men. I actually think that these characteristics help us in our “traditional roles”. Women need to be careful while pregnant and with our children. We need to protect our children, so we are cautious about what we do and where we go. We don’t want to do anything that will put our families at risk.
I think that in general, men’s lack of fear of their own mortality helps them in situations like war.
Here is an example beyond “traditional roles”. My brother and I both majored in business and like to invest. But, he takes more risks than I do. I am a much more cautious investor. He likes the thrill of the chance at extra profit and is willing to assume more risk to get it. I like security, so I take less risk. I actually think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that he is a man and I am a woman.
So, call this bunk if you want to. I don’t think I am sexist. I know that men can be cautious and women risk-free. But, with four sons and four brothers, I definitely see differences in this area. Oh, one more example. My friend has two sons. While she was gone one day, they played a game where they closed the garage and ran and slid to see if they could make it under before the door closed on them. Come on, how many girls that you know would do that?
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 10:42 am
Stephanie,
You haven’t met my daughter. She’s the most aggressive, fearless kid I know, and that includes little boys. That said, she is also very girly, loves to put on make-up, dress in super cute clothes, and is too boy crazy for my comfort. I wish I had her fearlessness– jumping off high diving boards, jumping off boats into the ocean while we were in the Bahamas, swimming with sharks. My daughter would’ve been the one sliding under that garage door with your boys if she had the chance, and calling any kid who wouldn’t join her a “wimp”.
Comment by Lulubelle — March 19, 2008 @ 11:04 am
Lulubelle, I wish my boys had a little more “cautiousness” in their blood.
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 11:08 am
Stephanie wrote:
And TT responded with:
So Stephanie’s “argument” that she could ask God for “answers” and “guidance” was flip and simplistic. TT’s thought-provoking suggestion that asking God for answers was like wanting to mutilate your child–that was addressing the complexities of the issue. I’ll have to remember that the next time I have a nuanced point to make.
Comment by madhousewife — March 19, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Only on FMH, of course. In church they can’t handle anything but regurgitated pablum.
Comment by madhousewife — March 19, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
madhousewife,
I have no beef with anyone here, but I don’t get people who don’t get things.
“TT’s thought-provoking suggestion that asking God for answers was like wanting to mutilate your child.”
How could you possibly deduce that this is what I was saying? Actually, in the half quote that you provide (45), I suggest that maybe one try to, um, I don’t know, ASK PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD THIS SURGERY DONE TO THEM! I guess I am just one of those people who think that when God said, “study it out” first, and then come to me, that he meant that we shouldn’t be so lazy as to expect him to “reveal” the “answers” to whether I should surgically produce a male or female child out of the intersexed one he gave me.
Comment by TT — March 19, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
TT, I think the problem is that no one was saying that they want a magic answer. They were just saying that they would keep an open mind, be open to revelation, and not rely on just a doctor’s suggestion. If you ask the people and their parents who have had such a surgery most will tell you that it was done one a doctor’s suggestion. I think the idea of listening to your heart and to God’s is a better method. And that doesn’t mean they are getting a definite answer either. Maybe Heavenly Father’s counsel would be to wait and see.
Comment by Liz — March 19, 2008 @ 1:07 pm
I think that your more recent comments have intelligent and thoughtful content. I was complaining specifically about your earlier incredibly smug and hurtful remark about “mutilation.”
I don’t have an answer for parents in that situation either, and I’d hope that they’d have a chance to hear different sides of the argument. But I know what it feels like to go looking for answers and then run into back seat drivers that offer nothing but hurtful words to accuse those that disagree with them of some form of child abuse.
Comment by Christian — March 19, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
Sorry for half-quoting you, TT. I will full-quote you this time:
[emphasis entirely mine]
So there it is in context. As you can see, it’s totally different when you say it that way..
Stephanie’s quote was provided in full the first time, but here it is again, in full:
[emphasis mine again]
The bolded words are my best guess as to where Stephanie was saying, “I’m too lazy to think about this, so I’ll let God make the decision and if anyone has a problem with it, they can blame him.”
There’s nothing to “get” here except that you made assumptions about Stephanie’s motivations based on your personal biases and nothing within the text of her comment. I’m sorry for picking on you. I guess I was just inspired by your obvious passion on this issue. I like to call folks to repentance, too. Fortunately, I’m over it now. So forgive me for being difficult. I’ll let this thing die a natural death.
Comment by madhousewife — March 19, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
I do think that telling parents to talk to folks who had the surgery done to them sounds like good advice. If it turns out that the majority feel that they’ve been mutilated, that’s useful information too, provided that it’s not a biased sample. It just seemed smug and cruel to suggest that the parents weren’t honestly trying to act in the best interest of their children.
Comment by Christian — March 19, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
i do believe that those parents who choose to surgically alter their child to be one sex or the other are doing what they think is best. i have no doubt that they fear the social and emotional repercussions of a child who is not firmly male or female and they believe that the alternative to making such a decision is serious social and emotional impairment. but reading the accounts of such parents, it seems obvious that one of the biggest questions that drives their consideration of surgery is how to raise that child - whether to raise them as a boy or as a girl. which i think speaks volumes to the original question of gender: what does it MEAN to raise a child as a boy, or to raise a child as a girl? i think of the way that our two children, a boy and a girl, are being raised, and i think that if it somehow became apparent, perhaps at puberty, that genetically the child was actually the opposite sex, it wouldn’t matter at all. they’ve been raised as gender-neutrally as we possibly can. we’ve done this very consciously with the intent that whether our daughter is a born femme, and our son was born with a deep-seated machismo, or vice versa, we never want to set ANY restrictions on their personal self-identities. it’s not for us to say that our son can’t play with dolls and our daughter can’t hurtle herself off every high surface she can reach. or vice versa.
what i see very often is that we SAY that we raise our children the same, but we rarely do in actuality. multiple studies have demonstrated this principle: girls are touched more, their emotions receive more mirroring, they are encouraged to cry, while boys are not. stephanie, for example, speaks of her sons as though they are very foreign to her, and reflects that because of her experience with her own children, obviously, SOMETHING is inborn genetically in males. she seems not to take responsibility for shaping their gender. but in the same breath she says things like, “boys will be boys,” “boys need to be boys,” “that’s all boy,” and comments “how many girls would do that?” to something daring and risky. those are the phrases that create gender in our culture, however subtly.
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 6:51 pm
i don’t think anecdotes can be used as very good evidence here. stephanie uses her sons as an example of “all boy,” but then there are my children: my son, who is outgoing, active, loving, gentle, sweet and loves pink, sparkly things, and my daughter, who is risky, demanding, fiery, intense, confident, competitive and opinionated. based on this “evidence,” and taking into consideration how intent we are on raising them without a predestined gender construct, what does it say about gender in our culture that my children are like this? probably nothing.
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
Good observation chandelle, although I never claim to be raising gender-neutral children, or claim that my parenting tactics are gender-neutral. I think that you are correct on both counts: my sons are foreign to me (I struggle to understand them) AND I reinforce their gender.
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 7:02 pm
i didn’t mean that you are trying to raise them without gender, but i’m glad that you are aware of the ways that you construct their gender and don’t try to brush it off as something innate (which is what it sounded like in most of your posts).
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 7:08 pm
i think it’s interesting (without judgment) that your boys feel foreign to you, stephanie. my children are so radically different from each other but i identify powerfully with both of them. i suppose it might be because i feel so dichotomized within myself, and i can see so much of myself in both of them despite the vast differences between the two of them. which i think is one of the joys of blurring the lines: we can recognize ourselves in others, there is very little black and white to fight over, and it’s impossible to judge.
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
No, I am definitely making a conscious effort to raise them as boys (okay, we do have a couple of dolls and a toy kitchen), but I do also think that there is something innate about them being boys. We have the dolls and kitchen, but do they play with them? No. Well, sometimes they throw the doll at each other . . .
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
Well, I do see a lot of myself in #3 - he’s the one who likes to argue a lot.
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 7:15 pm
ok, but again, anecdotes. your boys don’t like dolls or kitchens, so you draw the conclusion that it’s because they are boys. but my boy loves dolls and kitchens - the play kitchen is his favorite thing at school, and dressing dolls, loving them and “nursing” them is also one of his favorite activities. my daughter on the other hand, being one 14 months, is much more inclined to throw the doll on the floor and stamp on it than she is to love it and hold it. we can’t draw conclusions from these small, exclusive experiences.
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
sorry - being ONLY 14 months old.
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
my question is, what does it mean, to you, stephanie, to raise your son “as boys”?
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
Chandelle,
As gender free as you’ve raised your kids do you still see gender boundaries even in your family? I have tried to leave my kids free to choose but there are still limits and I admit I set them and support them.
Do your kids have the same haircut (some people do)? Do they get to choose how long or how short or do you choose right now? Would you let your son wear a dress and Mary Janes to the store? Do you offer your children underwear and clothes from both sections of the clothing store? How would you dress them to attend a funeral or a wedding?
I’m not saying you are doing anything wrong, I just wonder how far even your “raising them without a predestined gender construct” goes. I’ve often thought that clothing is the largest hurdle we have to face in the gender construct issue and I know it is the toughest one for me where my children are concerned.
Comment by Liz — March 19, 2008 @ 8:04 pm
Oh, not be repulsed when they show up with frogs, crawdads, lizards. Allow them to play video games for 1 hour per day even though I hate video games. Try not to freak out when they jump off things twice as tall as me. Let them wrestle with the neighborhood boys all afternoon (although I do send everyone home if they actually start fighting). I buy them boy clothes.
But, I don’t freak out when #2 is surrounded by girls at school (he is so cute, after all).
Are you incorporating my comments from the other thread on motherhood? Because, for the purpose of this discussion on gender differences, the only characteristic that I could come up with that I think is a gender difference (in general) is that I think boys have less concern for their own mortality and girls are more cautious. Obviously, I am projecting my own experiences, and this is my opinion. I know there are examples that defy that. But, in general, that’s my observation.
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 8:04 pm
stephanie - i haven’t read your comments on the other thread other than the one above the comment i responded to by janet, so…no.
as for everything else you said, i’m not sure how anything you’ve mentioned means you are raising them “as boys.” do you mean that you consider video games, fascination with animals, wrestling and daring activities mostly “boy things”?
liz - i’ll try to explain as well as i can.
clothing has been the easiest hurtle for us so far. we just dress them in the same stuff. our daughter wears our son’s hand-me-downs. for most parents, this seems to play out in dressing both children in “boy clothing,” but i’ve tried to avoid that as well. they both wear clothing that is cut neutrally (”girl cuts” is possibly the most confusing thing about clothing to me!) and they wear solid colors in unadorned, simple styles. we avoid media influences so, so far, we haven’t had to grapple with spiderman underwear and the like. my daughter is still in diapers (and those are neutrally-colored as well :), and when she gets older we’ll put her in plain underwear, i assume the same as what her brother will wear (are there differences, other than color?). my son is just barely starting to wear underwear and he just has basic plain white underwear; i don’t think it could be defined as boy or girl.
they don’t have the same haircut because their hair grows differently. but i did let my son grow his hair to almost his waist before i chopped it. (he has amazingly beautiful hair.) i chopped it with the intention of getting rid of the baby hair so it could grow in thicker and stronger, and it did. i never intended to keep it so short, and it’s not. he has essentially a pageboy (boy!
with bangs. the bangs are to keep things like peanut butter out of it. this haircut wasn’t really planned; it’s just how it’s worked out.
we talk to him about whether he’d like to cut his hair. he goes to school with another little boy with long hair so i don’t think he’s received the message, as of yet, that’s it weird. but if he decides he wants to cut it, we will. encouraging bodily autonomy in our children is very important to us. i imagine we’ll treat our daughter’s hair the same way. at the moment i’m letting it grow out and it’s past her ears on its way to her shoulders. (our kids have very thick, fast-growing hair.) at some point i’ll get sick of the baby stringiness and cut it and then let it grow out again from there, if she wants, or we’ll cut it short, if she wants. luckily by the time that choice needs to be made, she’ll be old enough to decide, as my son now is. but it will never be the same haircut, i’m sure. they have very different hair, for one thing, that will require different needs. and they’ll have different desires as well, of course. when i chose to cut my son’s hair, i talked to him about it and he was willing (as willing as a 2 1/2 year old can be, i suppose). a few days later he got ahold of some scissors and cut it a LOT more. i’d cut it to just below his shoulders and he cut it up to his ears. he was extremely upset about it after i trimmed it all to make it even. but it’s grown out since then. when he saw me cut his father’s hair short, he expressed an interest in having his hair cut. so i trimmed his bangs and then asked him if he wanted more, if he wanted it to be like papa’s. he said no. so that was that.
would i let my son wear a dress?…hm. that’s an interesting question. at home, definitely. to the store, it’s possible. it would probably depend on the circumstances. right now, there are no dresses in our home; nobody in our house wears dresses or skirts of any kind. so such a thing has not, as yet, occurred to him. but this situation has occurred to a friend of ours, who is trying to raise her son without gender. he wanted to wear a dress to school. she felt very trapped. on the one hand, she didn’t want to encourage thinking along the lines of, “‘girl things’ are bad, shameful, embarrassing.” but she also didn’t want him to be traumatized by teasing. in the end, she told him that dresses are for home. she just couldn’t deal with the idea that he might be taunted and possibly hurt. in a similar situation, i am not at all sure what i would do. luckily, he goes to waldorf school and there’s every possibility that such a thing would be accepted there.
but out of school…i just don’t know. but i don’t think that says anything about me - it says something about our culture. i couldn’t care less if my son wears a dress. it means absolutely nothing to me. but it DOES mean something to the world at large, and instinctively i want to protect him. that’s a difficult issue, i know.
as for offering them clothes from both sections of the store, well, no, i don’t. at this point in the game, they wear what *i* like. they don’t really have preferences yet. and i hate pink (just i dislike bright red and primary blue, and wouldn’t put them in those colors either), and think dresses are torturous inventions. so i wouldn’t put either of my kids in a pink dress for those reasons. i want them to be comfortable, to feel free to run and play. i never want my daughter to hear that she shouldn’t run and play hard because she needs to keep her skirt down or because she’ll get dirty. most girl clothes seem to me to be extremely impractical for hard, dirty playing, and i want them to play hard and get dirty. we buy all of our clothes secondhand, and it’s true - i steer clear of the pink racks. but i also steer clear of glaring bright colors and army designs. so again, i don’t think it’s a “girl” issue.
to attend a funeral or wedding, i would dress them in their everyday clothes. they might be cleaner than usual, but otherwise - they’re kids. they’re going to play at some point. dressing a child in a tiny little tuxedo or flouncy white dress might be amusing for adults, but i doubt the child enjoys it.
this is all with the recognition that our children are still very young, and i have no idea how this will play out as they get older. already, i have extreme pressure from the world to put my children in gendered boxes. when my daughter was but a few days old, and i remarked to my stepmother that she was a lot louder and more demanding than isaiah, she said, “of course she is - she’s a girl.” this past christmas, everybody gave willow a doll. everybody. she got ten dolls. my son has never received a doll (except from us and waldorf-minded friends). i don’t think it would even occur to most people to buy a boy a doll. but *he’s* the one who plays with those dolls. my daughter could care less, though that will probably change as she gets older. (though i wonder if it will change all that much, given her personality.)
As gender free as you’ve raised your kids do you still see gender boundaries even in your family? I have tried to leave my kids free to choose but there are still limits and I admit I set them and support them.
i’m not sure what you mean by this. do mean as far as whether you would let your son wear a dress in public? or do you mean between husband and wife? or…?
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 8:55 pm
I think boys have less concern for their own mortality and girls are more cautious.
i would definitely consider that to be constructed, not innate. real boys is a wonderful resource for understanding the way that our culture encourages boys to suppress their emotions, especially fear, and to rely on bravado and recklessness to carry them through scary times and to be socially accepted.
Comment by chandelle — March 19, 2008 @ 8:59 pm
Chandelle, after I wrote that, I realized that those are probably all things I would do with girls, too. So, I have really been thinking about this, and I can’t think of much that I proactively do. I do buy them boy clothes (there is a difference in the cut of the underwear - boys have a hole in the front). They all have boy hair cuts (although all 4 have different cuts because each looks good in a different cut).
Beyond that, I mostly react to them. I buy them what they want for gifts. They choose their friends and activities. They choose their t.v. programs (within guidelines).
On the flipside, I let them play with my make-up while I put it on. I laugh when they put on my bras and high heels. I bought beads for my son to string into necklaces.
Sometimes I tease them (this must be it). One of them will say something like, “Mom, I want to be a pirate for Halloween”. And I’ll say, “Oh, a princess? Okay” and they’ll go “Moooooom!” And I’ll carry the game on for a few minutes. Or, they’ll say, “I want a Transformer for my birthday”, and I’ll say, “A Barbie? Okay”. We’ve never actually had an experience yet when they have asked for something like to wear a dress. I honestly don’t know what I would do in that situation. It would probably depend. I care deeply for my each of my son’s sense of well-being and confidence in themselves. I would never do anything to hurt their feelings. I may even turn to prayer (is it okay to say that on this website?
)
Oh, and I believe I perceive our culture a bit differently than you do, Chandelle (which is okay - we don’t have to see things through the same glasses). But, as I face this world I am raising my sons in, I actually see that our culture is currently suppressing a boy’s right to be brave, to be macho. I feel that our culture is “feminizing” boys a bit. Just my observation. “Bringing up Boys” by James Dobson is a good book that discusses this. (And I fully know that saying this on a feminist website will get barbs thrown my way, but that’s okay. I’m not afraid to share my opinion.
)
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
Chandelle,
oh that last part you quoted was just an open question. It does get a bit more interesting as they get older. I also tried to raise my children as gender free as I could (with respect to my husband’s wishes and without making them open to brutal public mocking). Then my daughter turned 5 and she finally confronted me with her desire to have pink shoes and her dislike for brown and black shoes. I didn’t want to buy her pink shoes for many reasons, which I explained to her: They don’t match many things, they are expensive, they show dirt quickly, and they usually aren’t in a comfortable shoe. But, one day we came across a pair for only $3 and my daughter got her pink shoes. She is still a rough and tumble kid but she loves pink and purple and I am adverse to it. I am painting a wall hanging for my daughters’ room and I asked what they wanted. My daughter (oldest) asked for nothing but a bunch of pink hearts. I told her that I wanted to paint something that I was at least slightly interested in as well (we finally settled on mermaids).
Plus, as they get older they start caring what peers and others think and that is something that is hard to deal with. I was always rebellious in my clothing (modest but unique). My daughter doesn’t like to make waves and I have to support that. So, while I support gender free I also am trying to be flexible and allow my children to be as gender embracing as they each want to be. It is always hard to let a child go their own way when it is so different from the way you prefer.
Comment by Liz — March 19, 2008 @ 10:18 pm
Liz, can I trade a couple of my boys for your girls? I would love to paint a room with pink hearts.
J/K I love my boys. I wouldn’t trade them for anything (most days).
Comment by Stephanie — March 19, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
I must confess that I would find a genderless world boring. I say, Vive le difference! Seriously, I love both my boys and my girls, and I wouldn’t say any of them is stereotypical anything, but I can’t imagine them ungendered. To me their genders are part of who they are. The boyness manifests itself differently in each of the two boys, and the girliness manifests itself differently in each of the girls. It’s not any one thing or category of thing that defines their maleness or femaleness. It just…is. I don’t like to think about transcending gender; I prefer to think of gender itself being transcendent, not something that can be reduced to a set of behaviors or clothes or whatever.
My oldest girl had little interest in dolls when she was young. My oldest boy always loved dolls. He was used the pink dolly stroller much more than his older sister ever did. (He also pushed it around the neighborhood going “vroom vroom,” for what it’s worth.) In some ways he is more sensitive and nurturing than his sister. But it’s qualitatively different, somehow, from his sister’s brand of nurturing/sensitivity. I’m afraid I can’t articulate it properly. I wish I could. He’s not “like a girl.” He’s just like himself, and he’s a boy.
My oldest girl has Asperger’s syndrome, and some people describe autism as having an “extreme male-type brain.” I totally see that, and yet autism manifests itself differently in girls than it does in boys. (I know this from reading the literature and talking to other parents of girls with autism.) It’s not just a matter of “here’s a girl with a boyish brain.” My daughter is 100-freaking-percent girl if there ever was such a thing as a girl. In some respects her brain processes things in a more “typically male” fashion, but at the same time…it’s so different. I can’t quantify it. To me it’s just so obvious and doesn’t need to be rationalized.
Sometimes I think our perceptions of gender are what’s so rigid and narrowly defined. I don’t see gender as limiting in any respect. I don’t think it’s about conformity to a norm. To me it goes deeper than that. But I admit I have a very unintellectual approach to it.
Comment by madhousewife — March 20, 2008 @ 12:36 am
(De-lurking here. Hi all!)
Personally, I’d LOVE a gender-free world. I envision it that there’d still be people that are more agressive, more nurturing, more active, more cautious, more brave, more meticulous, more focused, more opinionated and more yielding than others, but that people would just accept that as being true for one person, and not for all people of that sex.
If you think of the current Western definitions of ‘gender’ as masculine = active, dominating, rational, disciplinarian, stioc, care-free, strong, funny and ambitous (for example) and feminine = passive, yielding, emotional, merciful, cautious, nurturing, fretful, undecided, not funny and willing to live vicariously (for example, and I know the feminine definition sounds much less positive but it is my bias that the masculine stereotype gets all the ‘goodies’ and I identify with it more), there’s no real reason why these traits should be linked. Besides, the gender definitions change over time - only a century ago, girls were considered inherently too flighty to be educated and boys were disciplined and intelligent, while now people think girls are inherently more disciplined while boys need to run and play and not sit still in school. In the Western world, physical strength is coded masculine and good (women are weak and cannot fully participate), while in certain parts of Africa, physical strength is coded feminine and bad (women are only good for hauling water and firewood, while men are weaker but more intelligent and therefore rule society). So, why not let everyone choose their own ‘gender,’ made up of the things that are currently stationed under ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’? At least that ‘gender’ would be true for the person, instead of the uncomfortable fit it is for many of us right now.
To me, it’d be wonderful if people could just BE and not be subjected to this whole slew of stereotypes and expectations just because they’ve got a certain genital configurations. There’d still be all the differences there are right now, only they’d be GENUINE differences instead of socially imposed differences that may run contrary to a person’s character.
The only drawback I can see in this, is that the semi-useful shorthand for ‘male’ and ‘female’ as implying character is gone. On the other hand, shorthand is usually stereotype, so I wouldn’t miss it.
Comment by Maartje — March 20, 2008 @ 4:08 am
maartje - yes, yes, yes.
stephanie - i’ve been hearing conservatives rail against the “feminization” of boys for quite a while now. it’s nothing new. and frankly, those opinions are a good indication, to me, that feminism still has a long way to go. characteristics that seem to be inherently female, to these people, are still being degraded and vilified. if a boy maintains some sense of his feminine self, he’s considered to be lesser, meeker, weaker. feminine attributes are not considered to be marks of power or accomplishment. they’re considered degrading and embarrassing.
those of us who are trying to raise our boys and girls without identity limitations feel that what we are doing is encouraging our boys to recognize, identify with and maintain the parts of themselves that are already feminine - not creating feminine attributes out of whole cloth (which i personally believe to be impossible). and we do this by sending a message to our boys and girls, as well as we can, that being nurturing, compassionate, and relational are just as important, powerful, and sincere as being competitive, strong, brave and intellectual.
(i recognize the confusion here because i don’t really believe in gender - so when i say that these are “feminine” attributes, i don’t really believe that. i think they are human attributes that have been painted as purely feminine. but in our culture these elements are considered to belong to women, and that they don’t come naturally to men. so that’s what i mean, when i refer to “feminine attributes.”)
i believe that we’re all a mix of feminine and masculine characteristics; nobody is completely one or the other unless they’ve been forced to abandon and vilify the parts of themselves that are the other way (such as boys who are called sissies for crying, and girls who are told not to play in the dirt because it’s not ladylike, etc.).
you say that boys are being forced to abandon their “right” to be “brave” and “macho.” but when i think of a person who is brave, i think above all of a person who does, says and thinks exactly what is true to themselves and never acquiesces to authority or culture over what they know to be true and good and right. in this way, indeed, boys, and girls, and men and women, and the old and the infant - we are ALL have our braveness suppressed by our culture. but i don’t think of braveness as being physically daring and taking dangerous risks, which seems to be the way that you are referring to it. i think of bravery as something that is within, and not necessarily demonstrated, in such obvious ways, without.
and when i think of someone who is “macho” i think of someone who has so smothered their feminine inclinations that the masculine attributes of themselves have expanded to exponential proportions to fill up that empty space. i think of a braggart, of someone who scoffs at women’s basketball, of someone who thinks that women need to be protected because they’re not very smart. i think of someone who has an awful lot to compensate for and they might do so by using their fists. that’s my perception, of course, but i’ve known plenty of “macho” men in my life and despite being rather “masculine” myself, i’ve never gotten along with them very well. it’s because, to me, they are not balanced people.
that’s what i’m trying to encourage for my children, above all: a balance. i think that smothering our innermost selves is a recipe for emotional disaster.
when my children come to me, as they undoubtedly will, and start asking for pink shoes and princess dresses, and some sort of violent toy or game, we’ll discuss these things. i’ll explain my hesitation. they’ll understand why it might be a concern for me that my daughter wants to be a princess (i.e. wants to sit around and look pretty instead of doing something important) and that my son wants to be violent and hurtful (even in imagination). i’ll try to find a positive spin for these things. but ultimately i understand that these are necessary hurtles for them to cross. they might get stuck at that hurtle, and forever remain a caricature of boy or girl, but hopefully i can encourage them over it, and they can have the motivation to become a more balanced person. that’s all that i really want for them, because i believe that our culture encourages extremes on the gender scale, just as we receive messages of extremes on the sexuality scale, when it’s much more grey than all that.
what i want for my children, quite simply, is to be their truest selves. i never want to look at them and wonder how i’ve shaped them through sidelong condemnation. if this means that my daughter grows up and wears nothing but pink dresses and sits in her mansion eating cupcakes and ringing bells for the servants, and if my boy grows up and works as a competitive, greedy, intellectualized CEO and barely makes it home for dinner, i might be sad for the lack of balance in their lives, but i would feel some comfort that they were living according to their deepest inclinations and not existing within the box i placed them in as babies. i just want them to be free of restrictions on identity and gender restrictions seem to be to be among the most virulent, pervasive and limiting in our society.
i’ve rambled on about this long enough, but there’s my…uh…30 cents or so.
Comment by chandelle — March 20, 2008 @ 7:47 am
Chandelle, I am glad you are happy with the way you are raising your children. And I am glad I am happy with the way I am raising mine.
Comment by Stephanie — March 20, 2008 @ 8:11 am
One last thing about raising children - I threw my “manual” out for how I was going to do it long ago. I had all these ideas of what it would be like, what I would do, how I would handle situations. My children have blown me away. I take it one day at a time, one prayer at a tiime.
Comment by Stephanie — March 20, 2008 @ 8:20 am
See, when I hear “macho,” I think Village People. This is probably not a shared experience.
My MIL gave us a series of books for children–I think it’s called the “Ready Set Grow” series–anyway, they’re old, she bought them when her kids were young and passed them on to us. I find them tedious to read, but my children love them. They’ve been extremely useful, actually, for teaching my older daughter about things like relationships and communication. One is a book about sex differences. (You can tell it’s an old book because it doesn’t use the word “gender.” Also, it’s called “You’re Either One or the Other”–talk about quaint!) It talks about how boys often look, think and act differently than girls (and vice versa), and how some people think all boys should look, think and act in certain ways, but that this isn’t true because each boy (and girl) is a unique individual. As the book says, “There are many different ways for a boy to be that are OK.” (It uses the same language in the chapter about girls.) And it talks about how boys use their bodies in different ways (lifting weights vs. gymnastics or dance), they can like any color they choose to like, decide for themselves if they want to wear jewelry or not, play sports or play chess or whatever. One thing is not more “boyish” than the other.
Forgive me as I quote the book at length:
Again, it uses the same language when talking about girls. I really think that gender identity is important to children, and sometimes you see the extremes in childhood because they are just starting to carve out their identities and figure out who they are. Also, some children are just extreme.
But I don’t think it’s an unhealthy thing. My daughter went through a prolonged period where she said, “Boys do this, girls do that,” and we would tell her, no, that’s not necessarily how it is, and she’d say, “Well, I know girls can do anything they want to do”–so impatient with our dimness–but it was so important to her to make distinctions. I don’t think either of my older kids (the ones who are old enough to have self-awareness vis a vis gender) ever felt like they were limited by gender roles. My son played with dolls and Barbies and also fought with light sabers and killed bad guys. (I’m a big believer in letting boys pretend to kill bad guys–and monsters. Girls, too, if they’re so inclined, but boys tend toward that more.) My daughter loves all things sparkly and glamorous but also likes to play football with her dad and brother, especially the tackling part. To them gender is not about what they can’t or shouldn’t do. Yet they each identify very strongly as their respective genders, and not just because they have certain body parts. It’s intuitive for them.
Re the “feminization” of boys–I don’t think it’s about creating feminine qualities out of whole cloth or teaching them to embrace their “feminine” side. It’s about treating perfectly normal boy behavior as something negative that needs correction, rather than something natural and good that needs refinement. It’s about thinking that boys are defective inasmuch as they’re not like (typical) girls. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with teaching boys to be compassionate or how to relate to other people. That’s part of socializing them (as humans, of course!). But in elementary schools especially–where almost every adult is female–the so-called “feminine” qualities tend to be elevated and rewarded, whereas the typical “masculine” characteristics are not encouraged (and sometimes actively discouraged). It’s a major factor in boys falling behind girls academically. Honestly, I understand that every individual is different. My son loves school, and my daughter hates it. But generally speaking, schools cater much more to girls’ needs and proclivities than they do to boys.
Comment by madhousewife — March 20, 2008 @ 10:33 am
I’ve heard nothing of the sort. What I hear is complaints about educators ignoring the educational needs of boys, focusing on an educational system that’s designed for the needs of girls, and then playing stupid as the boys fall behind. Or worse yet, making bigoted remarks about how it’s good to give the girls a “head start” anyway by screwing the boys out of an education.
Comment by Christian — March 20, 2008 @ 11:09 am
My house sounds like chandelle’s- my preschooler girl uses her play kitchen as a jumping platform. she loves to play pretend with her animals- they talk, then eat eachother, over and over. yesterday she pulled wings off a bug. she likes to feed the baby, she likes to pillowfight and she has zero interests in pink or glitter or dependent/demurring/cutesy stuff. Her clothes are at least half brother’s hand-me-downs, and his hair is longer than hers simply because his has been growing longer, they have the same cut/style. He is the more sensitive one, the cautious guy who gets his feelings hurt, gets scared of things, asks her to help him with life skills he can’t do yet even though he’s older.
anyway, stephanie, reading about your brother’s lack of caution regarding explosives and investing, I thought of two clear explanations not related to gender that have proven links to risktaking behavior.
1- he’s younger
2- he has no children
also, it sounds like he’s single and not self-supporting- why should he have the prudent, developed caution of a parent?
Comment by cchrissyy — March 20, 2008 @ 11:45 am
cchrissyy, two different brothers. One lives with me, is 12 years younger, is not self-supporting and likes to blow stuff up. Lack of maturity is probably a good explanation of his behavior. The other is 2 years younger than me, a successful college graduate with a family. He is the one who enjoys risky investing.
I am not saying that there are women who don’t enjoy risky investing. I am saying that my brother who invests and I have very similar backgrounds, but I am more cautious in my investing than he is. I do believe this has something to do with my innate sense of caution.
Comment by Stephanie — March 20, 2008 @ 11:52 am
http://advocate.com/issue_story.asp?id=52664&page=1
Quimby, did you see this?
Comment by z — March 20, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
Fascinating article, Z, thanks for sharing it!
Comment by Quimby — March 20, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
That’s interesting stuff, z, but the writer’s made a legal claim that is foolish and erroneous, one of those leftist factoids that gets more removed from fact every time the propaganda gets repeated. There are not 1,100 federal rights of marriage. There are about 1,100 state and federal laws combined that are affected by marriage, a large number of which could not be construed as rights or even as benefits per se.
Also, in humans, wanting to have a biological child is a natural female desire but at best a culturally instilled male desire. Women naturally know that they are related to their children (it’s a pretty good clue that it grows inside you) but men require a cultural structure that tells them that they are fathers and that they have some relation to the child. Nurturing is common to men as well as to women, and women are as likely to be lousy parents as men are, but actual knowledge of parenthood and therefore the desire to be parents can only be innate in women.
Comment by Christian — March 21, 2008 @ 7:58 pm
christian…are you serious? that’s possibly one of the most negative opinions of fatherhood i’ve ever heard, and coming from a father himself, and an LDS father no less, it’s pretty surprising. i think most men want to be fathers at some point in their lives; it’s not only nature to want to propagate the species but it seems normal for most relationships to naturally evolve to the point that they want to create a family together. fathers may not be encouraged to be nurturing in our culture but they certainly can be. and relation to a child arises naturally by raising it, barring a psychological pathology. it’s not a cultural construct that makes my husband want to carry his children in a sling so they can be comforted by the rise and fall of his chest, or that makes him instinctively comfort them when they fall, or that created an impulse in him to catch our baby daughter as she came out of me. quite to the contrary, he’s had to fight culture to be so nurturing and fully involved in his children’s lives. i think you’re way off base here and i’m surprised that you have such an unhappy opinion of fatherhood.
christian, i hope you don’t take this badly, but i’ve noticed a trend in your comments of late. i’m wondering if you are having some personal struggles, the frustration of which might be spilling out in your comments here, or if you have just come to sincerely dislike the content of this blog. your comments seem so angry, and often bordering on disrespectful. this wouldn’t be surprising for other posters (ahem, like me) but it is surprising in you. especially in terms of your writing off thoughts that you disagree with as some sort of “leftist,” “liberal” propaganda - attaching labels to end a conversation before it’s even begun - that is something that seems quite new. i’ve always known you to be among the most respectful, kind commentators on this blog; even if i have disagreed with you i’ve never been personally offended by anything you’ve said because of the equanimity with which you presented your opinion. are you becoming increasingly frustrated by the opinions presented here and that discomfort is creating emotional dischord? i’m just wondering why your comments seem so unfriendly recently. i hope this line of questioning doesn’t offend you…and i hope your life is well.
Comment by chandelle — March 21, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
Chandelle, I am interested that your husband has had to “fight culture to be so nurturing and fully involved in his children’s lives”. Where has that culture come from? Parents, friends, church? Despite the fact that my husband and I are both fairly traditional people, both from long lines of LDS families, we’ve never really felt that. He’s never faced any opposition from anyone for being nurturing and involved in his kids’ lives. I’ve heard a lot of older women say that things are different in the church now: men take the babies out during sacrament meeting, men change diapers. It seems like opposition to fathers being involved is more old-school or last generation. I would be interested to hear from you (or anyone else) where it happens now.
Comment by Stephanie — March 21, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
well, i can’t really speak to experiences in the church anymore, but while there certainly is more support for fathers’ involvement, there is still the unspoken (or perhaps, within the church, spoken) rule that men are secondary caregivers to mothers while their primary purpose is monetary support. when a father wants to be primary caregiver, and particularly if he wants to take the role of staying home while the mother is the primary breadwinner, he is generally treated with at least some suspicion if not outright scorn and skepticism. this experience is different for everyone, of course. my husband receives a lot of support and admiration for his active role as father and partner from most of our friends (most of whom have sort of “weird” lifestyle issues like we do), but there is definitely suspicion from both sets of grandparents and most of the more, i suppose it could be said conservative? folks in our lives, who seem to view it as emasculating to be so involved. my parents (who are not LDS) are especially suspicious, particularly in his involvement with our daughter; they think it disturbing that he gives her baths, changes her diapers alone and that she shared a bed with us. i admit that is probably an extreme reaction but overall, from the mainstream influences in our lives, the reactions to my husband’s intimate parental involvement have ranged from bemused to derisive.
Comment by chandelle — March 21, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
when i say that my husband is primary caregiver i mean alongside me, not instead of me - just to make it clear. we try to be equally involved in our children’s lives as much as we possibly can.
Comment by chandelle — March 21, 2008 @ 10:34 pm
i have to say that it’s actually quite odd that my parents have reacted this way to my husband’s parenting…i would say that i grew up in a pretty feminist home; my parents were moderately conservative but they never impressed motherhood or wifehood on me as the ultimate goals and actually were quite disappointed when i got married and had children so young because they thought i’d never make anything of myself outside of the home. i was raised to be very independent and in fact when we got married, at 19 and 24 respectively, my husband had never lived alone except for his mission, while i had already lived alone for almost four years. but interestingly their tune changed a lot when i actually got married, to the point that they told my husband that he was “in charge” of me now, and that he needed to “provide” for me, and it’s not uncommon for them now to go to him with important information, instead of me, treating me like the delicate little wifey who can’t handle bad news. it’s quite bizarre. so i recognize that my parents’ reactions to my husband’s parenting is not really indicative of the greater culture, but their perspective seems to be just a more extreme and confrontational version of the confusion and scorn we get from most anyone else who isn’t in our little “alternative” circle.
Comment by chandelle — March 21, 2008 @ 10:40 pm
Okay, I can see why you guys would be fighting against that. For the most part, everyone in both our families treats my husband and I equally except my mom. She just doesn’t respect women as much as men, and it drives me crazy.
Chandelle, I hope you don’t take this wrong, but you remind me of my sister. It makes me want to reach out and hug you.
My sister and I like each other, but we never talk politics. 
Comment by Stephanie — March 21, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
well, i can’t take it right or wrong since i don’t know your sister.
but if that’s the only thing you can’t talk about, that’s a pretty positive relationship. we don’t talk about ANYTHING with our parents, and with some of my husband’s sibling, because we don’t agree on ANYTHING.
Comment by chandelle — March 22, 2008 @ 9:19 am
I parented my sister for a while (she lived with us when she was on her own at 16) like I have parented half my siblings. It wasn’t until I stopped trying to parent her (when she was like 19) and instead just accepted her and loved her that our relationship changed so we can just enjoy being sisters. She’s not too crazy about family gatherings because our entire LDS family is at different stages of this (some still try to corner her every chance they get), but she and I get along fine, and she is a really great aunt to my kids. They love her. I love her, too.
Comment by Stephanie — March 22, 2008 @ 9:42 am
Your construction of what I said is way off base. I have a very happy opinion of fatherhood. The fact that fatherhood-identity is culturally taught, as opposed to innately biologicaly hardwired, does not make it less real or less important. Marriage is also culturally taught: humans do not naturally pair up for life. But civilization as we know it would collapse without marriage and fatherhood.
Natural and hardwired are not synonyms for good or happy Chandelle. Maybe in your perfect world every good thing would be programmed into us genetically, but that’s not how I see the world. That’s precisely why culture is important for humans — so much of what we need to survive simply does not come pre-programmed. And while your biology may tell you that you are a mother, it certainly doesn’t tell you how to be a good mother. That’s stuff you have to pick up from the culture, or not at all.
I doubt very much that it’s LDS culture that he’s fighting, unless you really live in an alternate universe. I’ve lived around the world and have to say that Utah’s the only place that I’ve even visited where a diaper changing table is common fare in the men’s bathroom. I think that’s something to celebrate.
Comment by Christian — March 22, 2008 @ 10:15 am
Chandelle, if you like I can provide you with sources to demonstrate my simple point that nature provides women with proof that they are mothers, and does not provide men with proof that they are fathers.
But I’m hoping that you’ll tell me that it’s not necessary. It seems to me that pregnancy is a awfully big memo from Mother Nature. But this would not be the first time that you and I disagreed about what was self-evident. 
Comment by Christian — March 22, 2008 @ 10:46 am
In my ward there are three fathers who are the stay home parent while the wife works. No one has batted an eyelash, including my husband who was raised by a very very traditional family. 10 years ago I nannied for a family where the wife supported the family and the husband went to school and stayed home the rest of the time. My BIL is a great daddy and when he is home he takes over the care of the kids while my sister either works or studies for her various degrees. They have lived in Utah and Idaho and never received any flack for it until the moved to Virginia where their ward, and neighborhood, openly mocked him for “not being a man” because he dared to even pick up a baby.
Comment by Liz — March 22, 2008 @ 10:56 am
Christian, I see what you are saying (#134), and I partly agree. I have a feeling this will probably get me in trouble on here, but I’ll go ahead anyways. I think that women do have an innate desire to pair up. The desire to pair up, along with the desire to have children (the article referenced above calls that a “humane desire”, but I agree with Christian that it is more a female innate desire) helps women to form families, and being in a family unit helps women to care for and protect their children. Like you said, I don’t think men have this innate desire to pair up (they do have a strong sex drive, but not necessarily the drive to do it with one person). So, if men don’t have an innate desire to pair up, why do they do it? Well, if they can get away with it, I think that most men don’t. Having sex with multiple women is what entertainment and media push as the “norm” for men. This is why civilization has relied on a traditional family, with traditional values of chastity. Men and women stay chaste until marriage (and faithful to each other afterward). A man who honors his marriage contract knows that if he wants to “get some”, he had better go home to his wife. That keeps him bonded to her. If men can have sex outside of that contract, they are less likely to stay in the pair and keep that family intact.
This is why our society is struggling so much – why 43% of mothers are single mothers – because our society is giving up the values that keep our social contracts (marriage) relevant.
Interestingly, women are biologically different in this sense, too. “Neuroscientists have discovered that specific brain cells and chemicals are involved in attachment. The chemical . . . is called oxytocin. It’s a hormone, a messenger from one organ to another, with specific tasks; in this case, it’s sent from the brain to the uterus and breasts, to induce labor and let down milk. Not a surprise, then, that oxytocin is also involved with maternal attachment: a female rat injected with it will bond and protect another female’s young as if they were her own. More relevant to my patients at this stage in their lives is that oxytocin is released during sexual activity . . . In addition to bonding, oxytocin increases trust . . . You might say we are designed to bond”. (“Unprotected” by Anonymous, M.D. pg 7-8). The context of this quote is that the campus psychiatrist who wrote the book is talking about how “friends with benefits” and “just hooking up” doesn’t work for women like it does men because women have this oxytocin that creates emotional bonds with the men they are hooking up with. Men do not have this.
Go ahead and start throwing your stones and arrows.
I know that men and women are equal, but I really don’t think we are exactly the same. I know my husband loves me, but I am grateful for my marriage contract that keeps him bonded to me (in our case, a temple covenant). I’m not always the hot sex goddess (LOL) I like to think I was when we got married – pregnancy and its aftermath are definitely not flattering to my body, and I’m not always interested in him after a long day of being with his four sons. I’m grateful that bond keeps us together during the “not so hot” times. Let me reiterate that I know my husband loves me and that we have a very happy marriage (10 years so far) – I am not taking a shot at him here, just recognizing that as men and women, we are different in this whole bonding thing.
Comment by Stephanie — March 23, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
“Like you said, I don’t think men have this innate desire to pair up”
Oh, that’s not what I said, Stephanie. I’m unaware of any studies or observable evidence to show that men have less of an innate desire to pair up than women do. It may or may not be true, but it’s not what I said.
I’m simply saying that a woman knows from natural circumstances when she’s pregnant and gives birth, and therefore naturally knows that she’s a mother. A man, on the other hand, does not have any natural circumstances that on their own, tell him that he’s a father. In fact, unless he’s been taught the concept of fatherhood, he’d not even know what a father was. Primitive preagricultural cultures tend to lack any concept of concept of marriage, and without such a concept, don’t develop a concept of fatherhood. There’s always a concept for motherhood, but generally only postagricultural, more developed and specialized civilizations have developed a concept of fatherhood.
If you google the term “four year itch” you’ll see that you’re right that there is an innate human tendency to pair up, but our natural tendency is not for lifelong pairings. The study did not suggest that men were any less naturally inclined towards pairings or towards longer term pairings than women. Without a culture telling us to pair for life, people would on average tend towards serial monogamy of four years duration — long enough to conceive and bear a child and raise it past the toddler stage. Then on to the next mate. Kind of like the emperor penguins, except on a four year cycle rather than a one year cycle.
Of course there is lots of difference between individuals. And the fact that I’m unaware of evidence to corroborate what you said about men and women, it is possible. IIRC, among monogamous bird species, they’ve shown that 20% of mated females have sex with strange males, while the infidelity among mated male birds is very rare. It’s possible that humans go the other way; I’m not sure. Historically, polygynous marriage is more common than polyandrous marriage, and that might support your theory. But I suspect that’s a cultural outgrowth of marriage, since polyandry only recently offers any practical means for the husband to know which children are his and which are the other husband’s. Since the survival-enhancing function of marriage is to provide children with a designated father and mother, polyandry’s only really been viable that way since the advent of genetic testing. My prediction is that in the future that polyandry will gradually become as common as polygyny, because of that technological change, and that religion, mainly Islam, will be the main source of resistance to that balance.
Comment by Christian — March 25, 2008 @ 1:39 am
Sorry, Christian. I misunderstood what you were saying. To be honest, I don’t know what disturbs me more: the idea that men have no desire to pair up, or the idea that neither men nor women want to pair up for more than four years. Neither fits with my sense of sensibilities. Maybe I will just go back to believing that “All human beings - male and female - are created in the image of God” both in body and in spirit because I really can’t see Heavenly Father as only wanting a wife for four years. Or, perhaps this is a characteristic of the “natural man”, and we must overcome this tendency to become like God. That wouldn’t be part of our eternal gender, but a temptation we inherited from the fall. I think that is what makes the most sense to me.
Comment by Stephanie — March 25, 2008 @ 6:49 am
The one problem with the genderless society discussion is that a vast majority of people seem to prefer the traditional 2 gender system and seem to be comfortable perpetuating it.
Comment by TrevorM — March 25, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
i’m not comfortable with it and don’t wish to perpetuate it, but based on the comments above i don’t think that’s a welcome topic.
Comment by chandelle — March 25, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
Christian,
your ideas very much mismatch what I’ve read on the subject. I’d be very interested to see you read Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection and see what you think after. I promise, it is a *fascinating* read and overflowing with research references.
or here, from the main Amazon review:
This highly accomplished author relies on her own extensive research background as well as the works of others in multiple disciplines (anthropology, primatology, sociobiology, psychology, and even literature). Despite the exhaustive documentation given to her conclusions (as witness the 140-plus-page notes and bibliography sections), the book unfolds in an exceptionally lucid, readable, and often humorous manner. It is a truly compelling read, highly recommended.
Comment by cchrissyy — March 26, 2008 @ 10:54 am