fKatie has 13 post(s)

In order to understand how physicians, parents, and patients manage the medical condition called intersexuality, Kessler conducted several interviews with medical experts who deal directly with pediatric intersexuality. All of these physicians agreed that the way in which they manage cases of intersexed children generally comes from theories on gender from John Money and Anke Ehrhardt which state that “gender and children are malleable; psychology and medicine are the tools used to transform them” (8). Doctors believe that the decision on whether a newborn’s gender is male or female must be made as soon as possible. They base their decisions off of chromosomal makeup (or biology), whether or not the genitals will be able to grow to perform adequately and whether or not hormones can help match their gender identities. However, Kessler notes that these physicians fail to imagine a culture that could possibly have more than two genders, and that their decisions are influenced by both medicine and societal factors.

Parents have a certain amount of expectations on sex and gender when their baby is born which translates to pressure on physicians. However, with intersexed cases, physicians have to be very careful as to what they say to parents. Educating the parents on the intricacies of intersexuality and making sure they understand the reasons why their child was born with incomplete genitalia is crucial. Doctors stress that they are not choosing the child’s gender, but are merely completing their sexuality by “reconstructing” their sex organs and genitalia. Interestingly, doctors also inform the parents that “social factors are more important in gender development than biological ones” (16). In other words, as soon as parents are told what sex their child is, it is up to them to raise their intersexed child as male or female according to societal norms.

While Kessler does not speak much about the patient’s point of view (presumably because she focuses on infants), she does give examples of how an intersexed patient may feel based on discourse with the experts. They seem to think that having “normal-looking” genitals is important when dealing with gender identity. It made me think of the phrase “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck”. Doctors would argue that if a once-intersexed male teenager has a “normal” sized, functioning penis after puberty, it is likely he will “feel” like his gender, even if he has had to take testosterone his whole life in order to make this possible.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were many social debates happening throughout Europe. People were trying to figure out where women fit in the world – both socially and politically – as the issues of women’s rights became a prevalent topic of conversation. In her article “Skeletons in the Closet”, Londa Schienbinger argues that the medical community stepped in to try and solve the question of where women fit into society. Scientists at the time believed they could answer these debates with anatomical and biological findings. By exploring the physical anatomy of the female body, and then comparing it to that of men, anatomists hoped to explain how physical differences in the two sexes could potentially explain mental and social differences. Furthermore, these “natural inequalities” could help justify a woman’s place in social hierarchy.

 
Schienbinger gives us many examples of how these anatomical differences between men and women helped shape their social identities. For instance, the finding that women had larger pelvic bones and wider hip structures meant that they were naturally fit for giving birth. The idea of motherhood became a role for women that was “destined” based upon their anatomy. Similarly, in the 1820s, findings that “woman’s skulls were larger in relation to their body size than men’s – but then, so were children’s” (64) provided a basis for scientists to compare skull size to intelligence. A larger skull in women and children meant that they were similar in intellectual maturity, therefore less mature than men. Schienbinger would argue that this comparison of women to children was a common social identity in the late eighteenth century. She states, “middle-class wives were on average ten years younger than their husbands; it is not surprising that middle-class women should have appeared ‘childish’ in comparison to their husbands” (66).

 
Schienbinger also explains that in order for anyone to participate in the debate over rights and social order, they needed to be able to back up their reasoning with scientific proof. This was particularly difficult for women because they were not allowed in the scientific realm in the first place. During this time men found women to be “incapable of scientific endeavor” (71) and therefore they could not argue their position on suffrage in an intelligent manner. Men were able to justify gendered roles based on scientific evidence and women were left out of this debate completely.

Angela Davis shares many insights about the early Women’s Rights Campaign in this chapter. She begins with the 1848 Convention at Seneca Falls because it was the first organized women’s rights convention to take place. Davis hones in on the convention’s importance and focus – the idea that marriage disables a woman’s independence (economically and mentally), and also notes the significance of the first controversial mention of women’s suffrage. However, Angela Davis goes on to talk about the problems with the Convention at Seneca Falls as well. The Convention brought up sentiments relating to only a small group of women. Not only did the Convention leave out working white women, it also left out black women — both enslaved and free.

Davis describes the work of other women within the movement to prove that the advocacy for women’s rights began much sooner than 1848 and included women from every class and race. She points out that single white women who worked in the textile mills suffered from sexism and oppression in their own ways. These women worked tireless hours in some of the most horrible working conditions and were not treated fairly. They fought for their rights with rallies and strikes years prior to the Seneca Falls Convention and yet were hardly mentioned.

Similar to working white women, black women began fighting for equal rights (especially education rights) long before the organized convention. Still, there was absolutely no mention of black women at the Convention at Seneca Falls, nor were any black women present. While Davis cannot understand this, since the very birth of the women’s rights movement came from abolitionism and anti-slavery sentiments, she admits this is not the first time black women were left out of the conversation. In fact, Davis sheds light on perhaps one of the biggest problems with the early women’s rights campaign – that the movement had “failed to promote a broad anti-racist consciousness”. Two years after the 1848 convention, Sojourner Truth prompted new ideas about equality, namely racism and sexism. She pleaded that black women deserved freedom from oppression just as much as white middle-class women.

Davis ends this chapter with the idea that the fight for equality was a triangular issue that should include women, blacks and labor in its agenda. Could there be equal women’s rights before complete abolitionism?