“…she stopped paying close attention to his words and when at red lights, examined the rain drops spattering on the windshield so intently that she almost stared right through them. Each drop seemed stuck on the glass, until another drop landed on it and they rolled down the window together, ending in a climactic splash.”
Sara: College class of 2012 (English major, Gender and Sexuality Studies minor), looking for work/applying to grad school, writer, clarinetist.
I post and reblog: things I think are pretty, things that intrigue me, things I'm a fan of, and things I care about.
Common themes include: books, writing, movies, more books, cozy beds, breakfasts, Doctor Who, Sherlock, feminist issues, and occasional pieces of my life.
My abroad blog can be found here.)
Wallpaper adapted from here.
Judith Butler is amazing.
That is all.
i-sauntered-vaguely-downwards:
when referring 2 sciency bullshit can we all just start using genitals to categorize things instead of “”“”sex”“”“”“”“”
please, thank
but… I think that’s sort of what sex is, when compared to gender? unless you mean in terms of literal different genitalia/medical discrepancies?
Actually the problem with “sex” is that it conflates a bunch of different bodily features that can occur in multiple combinations. So for example, people with penises can also have uteruses. This is rare, but it does occur. “Sex” conflates
- external genital formation
- Internal reproductive formation
- reproductive viability/capacity
- hormones
- chromosomes
- secondary sex characteristics
The idea that there are only two naturally occurring combinations of these things is inaccurate and actually impedes the ability of doctors to give good medical care. Gender activists have argued that instead of using the broad, crude categories “male”/”female” medical practitioners should ask more specific questions such as “do you menstruate”, “do you have a penis”, etc.
Sex, as you have been discussing it, is not so much a truth about bodies as it is a fictive, heteronormative body-ideal. The way bodies actually manifest sex is more complex than just M or F, and arguably medicine would be practiced better were it not tied down to these categories.
I also want to mention a couple of other things.
That list of body features, which is a good list, everything on that list with the exception of chromosomes can be altered or changed, accidentally, intentionally or as a result of getting older or something else. Those features are variable throughout an individuals life. They are variable among people as well (people’s hormones levels…. all can be radically different from each other and yet they could still wind up in the same sex classification).
So at which point are these features a valid indicator of ‘sex’? Because there is certainly this feeling that one is always just one ‘sex’ for their entire life, though their gender or gender labels may change (note I say label because there are def. trans* individuals who feel as if they were always their gender the label was just wrong). So if most of those features are able to be altered, are able to be changed, when are those features a valid indication of ‘sex’? Birth? Puberty? What about trans* folks who start their transitions before puberty? Or is sex maybe something that can be just as fluid as gender?
And now, as something that I feel is far, far, FAR more important when discussing actual people and their lives and their identities (the above is all relevant and interesting and good shit to talk about but just not as important as real damn people) is the note that the words we currently use to describe ‘sex’ are the same words we use to describe gender. Male/female…. those are gendered words. And it is invalidating, gross, cissexist and generally fucked up to apply those terms to people and their bodies without their consent. There is no reason at all to attach gendered words to body parts, to hormone types or hormone levels, to chromosomes, to bits our bodies have or things they can do, as broad categories, as a whole (which doesn’t mean people can’t do that individually to their own bits and functions and shit, go hog fucking wild, seriously whatever makes you comfortable or whatever, it’s your body, you can do that) except to maintain a broken as shit, oppressive, unhelpful status quo of body categorization.
My body is not female. It’s not male. My boobs, not female. My elbows, not male. The fact that I menstruate, not a ‘female thing’. And this is all personal, so individual results may vary. Other people’s boobs may totally be female parts. And that’s fine, it’s just that mine aren’t. My genitals, not male genitals, not female genitals. They’re just mine. Sometimes I’ll call them genderfucked parts because hey I can, but my feelings change on this too, I’m allowed.
So ultimately, after a long ramble, the basic point is,listen to the OP, talk about what you fucking mean. If you’re talking about x body part, say that. Don’t use male as a short hand for penis. Not every penis is on a male body or belongs to a male person. Or is found on a body with other ‘male’ things. You’ll be more accurate and you won’t be contributing to cissexism, win for everyone.
- Leon
Here is my serious response presented in a slightly unserious way because of how many times I’ve used this.
Check out how I’m about to quote myself quoting myself quoting myself quoting Judith Butler:
Here’s something relevant that I wrote as part of a final exam paper last semester [Spring 2012], and is a reading of Judith Butler:
“Judith Butler challenges the assumption that there is anything inherent or obvious about biological sex (‘Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire’ 279). She argues that scientific discourse produces sex, and that it ‘was always already gender’, such that gender produces natural sex by making it the prediscursive ‘neutral surface on which culture acts’ (Butler ‘Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire’ 279-280, original emphasis).”
(Although this article/chapter appears elsewhere, we read it from “Feminism and Politics”, which is edited by Anne Phillips.)
(Source: boypart, via killthefez)
this human, tumblr. fucking brilliant.
Seconded.
My blogged evidence of how amazing she is.
A subset of that: when I got to see her live.
(Source: gewehrfabrik)
Penis is a male organ. Learn biology. Male and female are biological realities.
You can call yourself a “woman” but you cannot call yourself “female” if you have normally functioning XY chromosomes.
Penis is not a female organ.
Male and female relate to gametes only. Male and female are defined on gametes if a species has two kinds, and one is smaller. The smaller one is male. Thus ends the biological definition of male and female.
Chromosomes and stuff are how evolution builds a body to hold male or female gametes in the context of human sexual dimorphism. Different species do chromosomes differently, or use something else like how warm the egg is. Gametes are fundamental, X/Y chromosomes are just mechanism. Different species don’t necessarily have only one kind of male-plan body or female-plan body.
Evolution doesn’t exactly build a body as “male” or “female” either. There’s a lot of slippage in the process that constructs male-plan and female-plan bodies, and that’s clearly “deliberate” (evolution could tighten up the error checking, but has chosen not to). Complicated genders and complicated bodies seem to be an evolutionary advantage, in small numbers, such that there are enough cis straight people left over to breed.
Now you have learned some biology. Time to learn some sociology.
Privileging the biology as an explanatory excuse is something our society does to create castes called “sexes”, that relate only in the crudest way to biological reality. Defining two-and-only-two sexes is something our society does because they are castes, not because they relate in any reliable way to having large or small gametes, or the ability to carry or fertilize a pregnancy.
Penis is defined as a “male” organ because facing the biological reality that not everyone constructed with a penis has a male-plan brain would break the caste system.
When you define it as a “male” organ, you re reinforcing these patriarchal castes.
Now you have learned some sociology.
bless
Blogger Of The Month
Like seriously
Articulate and accurate biology/sociology combo bomb dropped on conservadouche ass.
Check out how I’m about to quote myself quoting myself quoting Judith Butler:
Here’s something relevant that I wrote as part of a final exam paper last semester, and is a reading of Judith Butler:
“Judith Butler challenges the assumption that there is anything inherent or obvious about biological sex (‘Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire’ 279). She argues that scientific discourse produces sex, and that it ‘was always already gender’, such that gender produces natural sex by making it the prediscursive ‘neutral surface on which culture acts’ (Butler ‘Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire’ 279-280, original emphasis).”
(Although this article/chapter appears elsewhere, we read it from “Feminism and Politics”, which is edited by Anne Phillips.)
(via pancakefox-archive)
Sex is no more an immutable binary than is gender. There are intersex people who are born with non-binary genitalia, as I have already mentioned. There are people with hormonal anomalies. In fact, hormone levels vary wildly within the categories of cis male and cis female. Chromosomes, too, vary. If you thought “XX” and “XY” were the only two possible combinations, you have some serious googling to do. In addition to variations like XXY, XXYY, or X, sometimes cis people find out that they are genetically the “opposite” of what they though they were– that is, a ‘typical’ cis man can be XX, a ‘normal’ cis woman can be XY.
The fact is that the concept of binary sex is based on the fallacious idea that multiple sex characteristics are immutable and must always go together, when in fact many of them can be changed, many erased, and many appear independently in different combinations. “Female” in sex binary terms means having breasts, having a vagina, having a womb, not having a lot of body hair, having a high-pitched voice, having lots of estrogen, having a period, having XX chromosomes. “Male” means having a penis, not having breasts, producing sperm, having body hair, having a deep voice, having lots of testosterone, having XY chromosomes. Yet it is possible to isolate, alter, and remove many of these traits. Many of these traits do not always appear together, and before puberty and after menopause, many of them do not apply.
" —Asher Bauer (via inherhipstheresrevolutions)
Here’s something relevant that I wrote as part of a final exam paper last semester, and is a reading of Judith Butler:
“Judith Butler challenges the assumption that there is anything inherent or obvious about biological sex (‘Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire’ 279). She argues that scientific discourse produces sex, and that it ‘was always already gender’, such that gender produces natural sex by making it the prediscursive ‘neutral sruface on which culture acts’ (Butler ‘Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire’ 279-280, original emphasis).”
(Although this article/chapter appears elsewhere, we read it from “Feminism and Politics”, which is edited by Anne Phillips.)
(Source: lipsredasroses, via pancakefox-archive)
…and that’s a wrap!
Thanks for putting up with my flood of Judith Butler posts. I’m kind of a fan. :)
These notes are not verbatim, but rather, are the best, sometimes paraphrased, notes that I could take and still keep up with the lecture.
Below the cut.
