Lesson 2: Biology,
Sex and Gender
Introduction to Women’s Studies
Robert Wonser
Nature vs Nurture
The nature vs. nurture debate refers to
the ongoing discussion of the respective
roles of genetics and socialization in
determining individual behaviors and traits.
 Ultimately both sides do play a role in
making us the people that we are.
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Sapolsky’s “Trouble with
Testosterone”
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“Debunks” myth of testosterone causing aggressive
behavior
 Most studies find a correlation between high levels of
testosterone and high levels of aggression, and vice
versa
 But this correlation does NOT prove causation
In fact, aggressive behavior causes an increase in
testosterone secretion
 The hormone simply exaggerates patterns in the
brain and body that already exist, and are already
responding to environmental triggers of aggression
(“permissive effect”)
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Sapolsky

NOT biology, NOT the environment – IS the
interaction between the two
is more complex than 1 hormone –
biology is meaningless outside the social
context in which it occurs
 Violence
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As Nature Made Him

David Reimer was
subjected to
gender
reassignment
surgery at 18
months old. What
does his story tell
us about the
relationship
between biological
sex and gender
identity?
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Sex
Sex refers to an individual’s membership
in one of two biologically distinct
categories—male or female.
 How many sexes are there?

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Chromosomes, Hormones and
Genes
What sex are you and how do you know?
 The case of Maria Patino and the
Olympics.
 A test revealed she had a Y chromosome
and hidden testes.
 IOC’s ruling was based on cultural beliefs
about gender, not scientific facts

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Xs and Ys
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Usually XX =female and XY = male
What about these situations?
XO and XXX or XYYs and XXYs?
Not all variations in biological sex are chromosomal:

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is a condition related
to steroid hormone production that masculinizes XX
individuals.
 There’s also Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) which
was the condition that made Patino feminine despite her Y
chromosome, it causes XY children to develop female
genitalia.
 Hermaphroditism and gonadal dysgenesis—abnormal
gonadal development—refers to various conditions in which
individual anatomies include gonads or secondary sex
characteristics of both sexes.
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Sexed Bodies in Other times and
Places
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Whether or not biology is fixed and immutable,
the way we understand the biology of sex is not.
Biology and sexuality mirror the social order
In premodern times, everyone knew that women
were like men but inferior.
Believing is seeing
A belief in male superiority contributed to a
vision of sexed bodies that reflected and
supported those beliefs
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Intersex
17 ambiguously sexed infants are born for
every 1,000 births each year.
 Where is their place in a two sex world?
 The National Institute of Health divides
intersex into four categories:

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XX Intersex (formerly female
pseudo-hermaphroditism).
Chromosomes and ovaries of a woman,
external genitals that appear male.
 Usually resulting from exposure of female
fetus to excess male hormones before
birth or CAH.
 Has normal uterus and Fallopian tubes,
but the labia fuse and the clitoris is large
and penis-like.

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XY Intersex (formally male pseudohermaphroditism)
 XY
chromosomes, but with ambiguous or clearly
female external genitals.
 Internally, testes may be normal, malformed or
absent.
 One type; 5-alpha-reductase deficiency (as in the
novel Middlesex), infants appear female until puberty,
when bodies are virilized.
 AIS, androgen insensitivity syndrome or testicular
feminization is a condition in which a person has XY
chromosomes, but the receptors to male hormones
do not function and the genitals of thee in individuals
appear female.
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
True Gonadal Intersex
 Has
both ovarian and testicular tissue in one
or both gonads.
 Cause unknown but animal studies link to
exposure to common agricultural pesticides.
 Other suspected cause: in vitro fertilization in
which an XX and XY embryo merge

Complex or undetermined intersex
 Different
chromosome configurations can
result in ambiguous sex development. These
include:

XO (only one X chromosome), XXY, XXX – both
cases have an extra chromosome, either an X or a
Y.
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“Social Emergency”
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How do we ‘deal with’ these people socially and
medically?
American Academy of Pediatrics calls them “social
emergencies”
Sex reassignment surgeries to place the child into one
of the two ‘natural’ sexes.
This is chosen for intersex people, not by them.
Used to be if a baby was born with a “micro-penis”
(less than 1.5 centimeters long and 0.7 centimeters
wide) it was a candidate for sex reassignment surgery.
Is this medically necessary? Or are they “social
surgeries” like face lifts and nose jobs?
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The Phall-o-meter
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When bodies don’t fit into our pre-existing notions of male
and female, we will force them to, even if it involves a
knife.
Clitorises that are longer than .9 cm and penises that are
shorter than 2.5 must be fixed.
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Intersex as Lived Reality
Intersex was constructed as a medical and
social problem by a particular group of
medical experts at a particular historical
moment and in a particular socio-historical
context.
 Visit Intersex Society of North America
(ISNA) at http://www.isna.org

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Gender

Gender refers to the physical, behavioral,
and personality traits that a group
considers normal for its male and female
members.
 Masculinity

and femininity
How many genders are there?
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How many genders are there? The
evidence from other cultures
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Thomas theorem: “If men [and women] believe
things to be real, they are real in their
consequences.” (Thomas 1928, 571-72).
If we believe men and women are different then
we build institutions around this idea.
As socially competent members of our society,
we see bodies through the cultural lenses of sex
and gender, and we shape actual bodies to our
expectations.
Are there practices you engage in to shape your
body to the expectations of our culture?
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Berdaches
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“women-men” of First Nation (Native American) societies.
“two-spirit” peoples
Socially distinct from their fully male and fully female kin.
Took up occupations designated as women’s, dressed as women,
and had sexual relations with men.
Possible fourth category: “men-women”
Biological females who lived as men, hunted, took up men’s work,
fought in wars and married women.
Gender was not equated with biological sex or sexual identity.
The fact that 3rd and 4th sex status existed was due to the political
and economic context within which these genders appeared:
egalitarian relations, no accumulation of wealth, low level of division
of labor.

Similar to pre capitalism Europe and rural colonial American society
before the advent of capitalism.
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Hijras of India
Neither men nor women, nor are they
seen as homosexuals.
 Key defining characteristic is the absence
of the male external genitalia (often a
result of an elective surgery) or “imperfect
genitals”.
 Culturally, “not-men” and view themselves
as “man minus maleness” (Nanda 1990).

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Constructionist Approach
to Gender Identity
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Most sociologists use a constructionist approach and
see gender as a social construction and acknowledge
the possibility that the male–female categories are not
the only way of classifying individuals.
Constructionists believe that gender is constructed, or
created, through our interactions with other members of
society.
In the United States we tend to classify people as being
male or female, but other societies have different
classification systems (hijras and berdaches for
example) and people are treated differently based on
the norms associated with that system.
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Who is this child?
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Sexual Dimorphism in World of
Warcraft
Before player feedback
Lesson 2: Biology, Sex and Gender
After player feedback
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