Biological Interpretation In Wittig's One Is Not Born A Woman

In her essay, One is Not Born a Woman, Monique Wittig explains, “‘Women’ is not each one of us, but the political and ideological formation which negates ‘women’ (the product of a relation of exploitation). ‘Women’ is there to confuse us, to hide the reality ‘women’ . . . For what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we call servitude.” Monique Wittig attacks the concept of naturalizing biology and the ‘woman’ category. She believes that the form of a woman’s identity is a product of normal and intrinsic human facts. Thus, her main point is that one is not born a woman but becomes a woman based upon the social constructs of gender and

Over the past 200 years sexual liberation and freedom have become topics of discussions prevalent within western culture and society. With the recent exploration of sexuality a new concept of sexual and gender identity has emerged and is being analyzed in various fields of study. The ideology behind what defines gender and how society explains sex beyond biology has changed at a rapid pace. In response various attempts to create specific and catch all definitions of growing gender and sexual minorities has been on going. This has resulted in the concept of gender becoming a multi- layered shifting hypothesis to which society is adapting. Since the 19th-century, philosophers and theorists have continued to scrutinize gender beyond biological and social interpretation. Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid 's Tale captures the limitations and social implications forced upon a set gender based on societal expectations. Gender is a social construct that limits the individual to the restrictions and traditions of a society, or if it’s an individually formed self-identification of sex and sexuality that is formed autonomously. Evidence of gender establishment can be seen within literary works and supported by various schools of gender and sexuality theory.

Although gender is a socially constructed idea, it is often suggested to be a natural phenomenon. Society plays an important role in reinforcing gender roles in a way that disguises itself as natural, and is thus accepted without question. The United States’ gender system emphasizes gender hierarchy and a binary system that forces individuals to conform. In order to progress gender equality, it is important to denaturalize these social constructions of gender.

The discussion of genes and gender and the respective roles they play in determining sex and identity have been widely discussed in recent decades. The idea that biology can solely determine ones sex, wherein no external factors impact that determination requires further discussion. The topic of whether there are strictly two distinct genders represented in society has been recognized largely as a western cultural viewpoint. While not everyone agrees with this viewpoint, one biologist that plays a role in this discussion is Anne Fausto-Sterling. She is an expert in gender development and wrote extensively on the subject of gene and gender. In this paper I will discuss Fausto-Sterling’s view on sex and gender, and how she undermines the idea of strict universal dimorphism. Being that sexual dimorphism is the favored view of most in the scientific community, this discussion comes with some controversy. She states that with the understanding of intersexed individuals in society, we as a society must abandon the idea that there are only 2 sexes.

Around the mid-nineteenth century until today’s times, three beliefs about women and men has become a major aspect for part of biology

This critical textual analysis will examine feminine identity and the essentialistic ideas of the late nineteenth century between men and women as elaborated by Kaplan and Rogers in “Essentialisms, Determinisms. It will include an analysis of theories regarding dichotomies of biological determinism and cranial classification. Essentialism argues that there are categories of objects and genres that have essential characteristics, notwithstanding individual variation, and that these essential characteristics define the objects and genres to an extent that they reveal truth (Kaplan and Rogers 27). Determinism is a theory or in some cases a doctrine. “Nature” has been the historical burden women have faced. It is not the only such burden, but it has been the largest and the heaviest. Psychological and social implications of essentialist beliefs create gender segregation, inequality, and is often used to excuse gender-based biases in society. These types of ideas are often used as a justification for misogynistic and essentialistic systems in society.

In this short story, Butler deconstructs the socially constructed sex and gender roles of men and women by placing female characters as the source of power and domination. As “ the lic government official in charge of the Preserve, and thus the important of her kind to deal directly with Terrans” (Butler 1), the female alien, T’Gatoi, holds a strong and powerful role in the story. Her political position not only puts her beyond her male counterpart but allows her to hold power and privileges that are usually given to men. With T’Gatoi, Butler's several of masculine and feminine role, allows her to display a gender that contradicts the creature's sex. Furthermore, by stepping outside gender binaries, the monstrosity that occurs is the grotesque

One common perception of nature is that it is something raw, untouched by human civilization. This point of view suggests that humans are completely separated by nature and that our cultures and technologies are in some way unnatural. However, I believe that not only are we a part of nature, but our cultures are also deeply entwined with how we view nature. In this paper, I will review Emily Martin’s The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles as well as Michael Pollen’s Why ‘Natural’ Doesn’t Mean Anything Anymore in order to examine how nature, culture, and power relate with each other. Martin asserts that gender stereotypes affect biologists’ description of the natural world, particularly in the human reproduction process. Pollen makes a case that nature in fact lacks any meaning yet is often used as strong rhetoric. I argue that nature is constructed through cultural values and is used for rhetorical purposes, which shows that people manipulate facts in order to gain authority.

Gender is defined in Undoing Gender in an act of improvising within a scene of constraint, where one that is always within a social context, and never outside of the ideology. Butler expresses that Undoing Gender expresses an understanding of how “restrictively normative conceptions of sexual and gendered life” might be undone. She stresses throughout the reading that this process of undoing is not something that is negative or

Butler’s overarching idea throughout her essay is that becoming a gender is not done through linguistics but rather action – specific focus to the body. From the beginning of the essay, Butler makes the distinction between gender and sex very clear. Gender is plainly a social construct and the gender you choose to associate with is developed through repeated actions. Sex rather, is anatomic; your internal bodily organs and reproductive systems define it.

Gender being ‘biologically determined’ means that whether gender is inherited or passed down by genetics. If a person is a man or woman, (which is usually called ‘The Sex’), that is biologically determined because they inherit the chromosomes to be born a man, or to be born as a woman. In the early 1970’s sex was described by “biology as: anatomy, hormones, and physiology” (West and Zimmerman 1987). Apart from gender being a biological factor, there are other things which are not biologically determined; “Gender was an achieved status, which was constructed through psychological, cultural and social means” (West and Zimmerman1987). Hence the

There are many ways that sociology and sociologists have tried to challenge “biology as destiny”, in this paper I will discuss a few of those ways, I will also discuss how biology has been used as a scapegoat for gender inequality and sexism. Historically biology and evolution have both been used to excuse gender inequality, sexism, rape, and other gendered practices. For this paper, I am going to focus on three ways that biology has been used to polarize the sexes. Hormones, reproduction, and stereotypes are the topics I will be discussing. They are all topics that have all been discussed in the reading and discusses by sociologists who are dealing with gender.

Butler puts focus on the myth of heterosexual integrity and breaks with the traditional concept of sexuality within society (Salih 93). According to the myth of heterosexual integrity, people are born with a biological sex which automatically constitutes their gender (Loidolt) . Furthermore, it is natural that the object of desire is the opposite sex. The famous feminist denies this view and argues that we are not born with a certain gender, but it is socially constructed by society and especially through media and cultural practices (Salih 91). Hence, the role of men and women in society is not predetermined but their behavior is made up and intensified by society. Butler defines gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of

Darwin’s theory on sexual selection, conceptualized throughout the course of The Descent of Man, examines how inherent factors shape the structures and mental capabilities of males and females through nature and the influence of humanity’s ancestors. Darwin purports that it is biology that dictates human traits. According to Darwin, whose work was influenced by the Victorian period, the hierarchy of the natural realm, in which mankind is placed at the summit, is further stratified between the two sexes. As an underlying theme of his work, Darwin emphasizes his claim that, under the rationale of sexual selection, “[…] man has ultimately become superior to woman” (Darwin 565). In what respects, in Chapter 19, Darwin produces the following statement:

Butler initially observes that the culturally constructed as well as maintained nature of performance of gender are fairly based on the uncontentious as well as widely expounded idea of feminist theory stating that cultural expressions of gender which constitute the cultural manifestations of biological truth cannot be taken at face value. Butler proposes the concept of differences in sex is a construction of heterosexuality ideologically designed to legitimize as well as normalize its existence. Butler notes that manifestations of split as male and female are creations in a self-legitimizing heterosexuality which is also hegemonic. Butler claims that the coherence of either gender namely man or woman is internal requiring a heterosexuality which is stable as well as oppositional. Heterosexuality which is institutional requires as well as produces univocity I each of the terms gendered constituting limits of gender possibilities inside an oppositional along with binary gender system. The concept of gender presuppose a relationship which is causal among sex, desire as well as gender but also suggests that desire reflects and expresses gender and vice versa. The uity of these three factors are metaphysical ad is truly known as well as expressed in desire differentiating a oppositional gender which is a form of heterosexuality said to be oppositional. Butler’s argument on