Last week, we talked about intersex people and society's reaction to them. That reminded me of a novel I read years ago called Middlesex. It was about a man with 5-alpha-reductase-deficiency, which basically means that he was born looking like a girl and raised as a girl until going through male puberty. The novel explored themes of nature vs. nurture, specifically, gender identity. I found the novel as a result of my curiosity in intersex conditions, and further sparked my interest in finding out more about gender identity. It can be safely assumed, based on our knowledge of gender and society, that gender and sex identity is not completely biological, nor completely socially constructed. The problem of people not fitting into society is not a problem in the the people that make up society that needs to be fixed, but a problem within the structure of the society itself. But how could we change society? Society is formed into what it is today through millennia of shaping and evolving from its crudest beginnings. It is the way it is as a result of tradition. In order to change the way society views gender, we would have to change the way people view gender individually. This sounds ridiculous, but it should be possible.
Take the example of race. Racism may have a slightly shorter and almost less complex history than sexism, but it is still something people took for granted initially. Racism may still exist, but it is now no longer socially acceptable in America to discriminate based on skin color. Discrimination based on sex may not be legally acceptable in America, theoretically, but there are still constantly ridiculous laws being made that passive-aggressively patronize the female sex. I feel that in order to really drive home the point of sexual equality, we must first take some drastic actions to steer society in the right direction. If we keep stalling, nothing will change.
No comments:
Post a Comment