Our recent readings have really illuminated and revealed the strength and power social constructions hold in dictating not only the opinions, but also the entire mindset of individuals in society. Most striking is the intensely arbitrary nature of these constructions-dictated almost entirely by the popular view at any given time. Often, however, we do not even realize that these bias have permeated our own mind as they often enter our thoughts soon after birth and are therefore, all we know.
Dominant societal institutions, including political, popular society, religious, and even family, work to create opinions so deeply ingrained in our every day life, we do not even realize they are there. As Fausto-Sterling articulates, “we have begun to insist on the male-female dichotomy at increasingly early ages, making the two-sex system more deeply a part of how we imagine human life and giving it the appearance of being both inborn and natural,” (Fausto-Sterling, 31). She argues, (and I agree), that society is structured and designed for two discrete sexes.
In Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides discusses Desdemona’s practice of hanging a spoon over a pregnant woman’s stomach in order to determine the sex of the unborn baby inside. It was simple, a slight swing of the spoon in a north to south direction meant the baby was a boy. Otherwise, the baby was a girl. Even when the spoon seemed to be suspended motionless above the mother’s pregnant stomach, or when the spoon seemed to move in a small circle, as if indecisive, it never crossed anyone’s mind that the baby could be anything but male or female. Obviously not a possibility they were aware of at the time, the child could very likely fall somewhere in between what they thought were the only two sexes.
A more modern example of constructions of sex as “one or the other,” at birth, a girl gets a pink blanket and a boy gets a blue blanket. Only before birth, when the sex of the baby is still a secret, is yellow an acceptable color. This yellow color suggests neutral not because the child falls somewhere in between male and female, but because the sex of the child has yet to be revealed to the parents. Therefore, a neutral assignment is only used when the sex is unknown, but it is assumed that afterwards, a neutral color variation is no longer necessary as all babies will need either a blue or pink blanket upon birth.
I always knew that yellow was the go-to gift color for an unborn baby whose sex had yet to be determined, however I never realized the connotations behind this. This behavioral norm suggests that any child will, once born, fit in to either the blue category or pink category. Not to mention, girls are assumed to like pink and boys assumed to like blue. Is it because pink is feminine and blue more masculine? Why is pink feminine though, while blue is considered masculine? But, why do boys have to be more masculine and girls more feminine, anyway?
Without even thinking about it, I just articulated five assumptions hidden behind the seemingly negligible and unimportant decision of gift or blanket color. Before doing these readings, however, I had never even considered the assumptions hidden behind gift colors as I just assumed there were two sexes and one tended to like pink while the other normally had an affinity for blue. These constructions are so normalized and ordinary that they become institutionalized in our culture as the one and only way and we therfore, do not even consider any other possibilities.
Fausto-Sterling extends her argument on the power of social constructions in describing the changing societal and biological views of a hermaphrodite in different cultures over time. Some cultures found hermaphrodites to truly exist somewhere within one of the two possible sexes. Others considered hermaphrodites as dangerous and destructive. Others saw hermaphrodites fitting along a continuum of sex, with men at one extreme end and women at the other. In other words, perspectives on intersexuality are entirely different in different “countries and different legal and religious systems,” (Fausto-Sterling, 35). Therefore, these different perspectives were not just negligible opinions varying from individual to individual, but rather judgments permeating the entirety of a culture just because dominant institutions said they were a certain way.
Part of the problem as to why intersexuality is not as widely accepted as it should be is an innate hate for change. Generally, we as people, are terrified of change. We are terrified of the unknown and for the threat of something new. We force people in to one of the two categories-male or female-because we are unfamiliar and ignorant of anything but male or female. Fausto-Sterling notes that “legal experts acknowledged that hermaphrodites existed but insisted they position themselves within this gendered system,” (Fausto-Sterling, 36). Although people dominant in society were entirely aware of the existence of alternate or additional sexes, they remained stubborn (and still do), always stuck and intent on a two-sex system.
Even as biology and science gained credibility, knowledge, experience, and therefore, power, the problem continued. Rather than using science and medicine to increase knowledge and awareness of the inaccurate duality, scientists and doctors only perpetuated the problem. Instead of celebrating the birth of intersexual babies, doctors and scientists used their knowledge in order to “correct” the problem as the babies were, “abnormal,” (Fausto-Sterling, 36). In doing so, however, these doctors and scientists made intersexual children increasingly less common and therefore, even more abnormal. Further, in “correcting” their problem, scientists suggested that intersexual children had a sort of weakness or severe fault in need of alteration.
These doctors and scientists, however, likely did not even notice the long range effects of their surgical procedures as they thought they were doing good for the children as they, too, saw intersexuality as a problem or abnormal condition. They, too, had ingrained and subconscious bias of what was normal and what was divergent. Often, without even realizing, we not only allow problems to continue, but also promote and extend their magnitude. How do we become aware of issues we are perpetuating when we have no recognition of the source inside us? How do we go about altering an entire foundation of thought that is so deeply rooted in every day life and culture we do not even realize it exists? Further, how does an opinion, or cultural construction, ever get so deeply ingrained in our brains that we do not even realize it is there?
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