Transcript c-faculty.chuo

Nature, Culture, Identity
Cultural Studies
Presentation 3
Nature, culture & identity
Cultural studies is interested in our identities as (for e.g.):
• women and men (gender/sex)
• gay/lesbian (homosexual), straight (heterosexual), bisexual
and trans-sexual (sexuality)
• Japanese, Korean, Chinese, British, Asian, Western
(nationality, ethnicity, race)
• working class, middle class, upper class (social class)
• children, teenagers, adults, middle-aged people, elderly
people (age, generation)
Nature, culture & identity
Cultural Studies is interested in :
• our ideas about these identities (what is natural, normal,
etc)
• the social roles of these identities
• the (power) relations between these identities
Nature, culture & identity
Cultural Studies is interested in:
• the role of nature (biology) and culture (society) in shaping
our identities
• people’s thinking about whether our identities are based in
nature, culture or both
This is sometimes called the “nature-nurture” debate – a
debate about whether our biological inheritance (genes, DNA,
etc), or what we learn as we grow up in families and society,
is more important
Nature, culture & identity
In this presentation, we’ll focus mainly on our identities as
men and women (gender/sex).
Do you think that men’s and women’s identities and their
roles and relationships in society are:
• based in nature (given by biology)?
• developed culturally (learnt in society)?
• a combination of both?
What does this
postcard image say
about the role of
nature and culture
in our identities as
men and women?
Nature, culture & identity
Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex, 1972, famously wrote:
“One is not born but rather becomes a woman”.
What do think this means?
Do you agree?
Views of identity as natural or
biological
The idea that our social roles and relations are shaped by nature
or biology is often called biological determinism
• sociobiology – the way that men and women behave in society
is shaped by their genes and hormones, e.g. testosterone makes
men more aggressive and ‘natural’ leaders
• some kinds of sociology – men’s and women’s social roles are
based in their different natural instincts, e.g. women are more
naturally emotional and expressive so take caring roles
• popular views about what is ‘natural’ for men or women to do
Views of identity as both
natural and cultural
In many popular and social science views, our identities are seen
as natural and cultural, so being a man or woman involves:
• sex - the physical biological differences (in our bodies and
hormones) between males and females (though Cultural Studies sees this as also a
question of culture)
• gender - the ways of being masculine and feminine (social
roles and relationships, ways of thinking, communicating,
dressing, etc) that we learn from our society/culture
• sexuality - who we are attracted to sexually (given at birth or
developing as we grow up)
Our identities: sex and gender
Sex: ‘Natural’ attitude towards sex identity in modern societies:
(Based on Garfinkel, 1967)
• Two – and only two – sexes: male and female
• Every individual is male or female – no exceptions
• A person’s sex is fixed – once a male, always a male
• Sex organs are the key to sex – a male has a penis
• Male/female dichotomy is natural – is independent of cultural
categories of masculine and feminine in different societies
Our identities: sex and gender
Gender: Common view in cultural anthropology/cultural
studies/social sciences that masculinity and femininity vary from
society to society (and over time)
E.g. the jobs that men and women do (compare with Japan)
• Most doctors in the former Soviet Union, most dentists in
Belgium are women
• Most typists and household servants in Pakistan, most
secretaries in the Philippines, lots of nurses in the Netherlands are
men
• A lot of managers in the Philippines and Thailand are women
Our identities: sex and gender
Gender
differences
in wages in
different
OECD
societies
Our identities: sex and gender
Women’s
role in
politics in
different
countries
Our identities: sex and gender
Paternity
leave in
different
countries
Our identities: sex and gender
Although we recognise that gender roles and relationships
vary from culture to culture, it is common to assume that:
• biological sex is fixed/given/unchangeable
• biological sex (being male or female) is the basis of gender
identity (masculinity and femininity) – masculinity and roles
for men vary in every culture, but masculine behavior is
normally expected of males
Being a man = male and masculine
Being a woman = female and feminine
Our identities: sex and gender
Cultural Studies takes a different view. It:
• questions this understanding of our sex (biological)
identities as fixed and of the connection between sex and
gender identity (e.g. male = masculine)
• looks at how aspects of our identity we think of as biological
and fixed may be cultural and developed in society
• challenges the idea that masculinity must be associated
with being male and femininity with being female
Our identities: biological or
social?
“If society puts half it’s children into short skirts and warns them
not to move in ways that reveal their panties, while putting the
other half half into jeans and overalls and encouraging them to
climb trees; if later, during adolescence, the children who have
been wearing trousers are urged to eat like growing boys, while
the children in skirts are warned to watch their weight and not get
fat; if the half in jeans runs around in sneakers or books, while
the half in skirts totters about on spike heels, then these two
different groups of people will be biologically as well as socially
different.”
Ruth Hubbard, 1990, p69
Caster Semenya 1
Caster Semenya 2
South African, Caster Semenya won
the women’s 800m gold medal at the
World Athletics Championships in
Berlin in August 2009.
Questions were raised about Caster’s
sex – is she really a woman?
Daily Mirror, 2009/09/16:
“The saga began four weeks ago at
the World Athletics Championships in
Berlin when the South African’s
masculine looks and superb
performances sparked talk that she
might be male.”
Caster Semenya 3
• The International
Association of Athletics
Federations (IAAF) has
made Semenya take
“gender verification
tests” to test if she is a
man and so has an unfair
advantage over women
athletes
Caster’s family brought her up as a girl and Caster herself feels
she is a woman
The tests (though kept private) reportedly show that Caster is
intersex, having some male and some female characteristics
Caster Semenya 4
• We usually think of the biological differences between
males and females as quite simple and clear.
• But the IAAF says the “gender tests” on Caster are very
complicated, take weeks and require several different
specialist doctors
• There are several aspects of sexual difference to consider
in the tests: chromosomes (XX, XY, ???), hormones (e.g.
testosterone), genitalia (sexual organs)
• The IAAF has noted that it is not clear when an athlete
should not be allowed to compete as a woman
Caster Semenya 5
• We usually assume that somebody is either male of female but
about 1 in 2000/3000 people are born as intersex, with both
male and female biological characteristics
• For intersex people, it is not always clear if they should be
regarded as male or female and a decision has to be made
whether to bring them up as masculine or feminine.
• This gender identity is likely to be very important in whether
they feel themselves to be a man or a woman
• In this sense, sexual identity can also decided culturally and is
not just determined by biology
Caster Semenya 6
• Some people have said the ideas
of femininity and masculinity used
to judge Caster are Western - she
doesn’t meet Western standards of
beauty or femininity
• It has also been said that the
question of her sex has come up
because she is African; the sex of
white female athletes who look
masculine is not questioned
• The femininity of other black sportswomen, such as Serena and
Venus Williams has also been questioned
Caster Semenya 7
You Magazine (South Africa),
2009/09/10,
A makeover for Caster to
show her‘feminine side’:
“We turn SA’s power girl into
a glamour girl – and she loves
it!”
Caster turned into a
conventional, feminine,
woman (by the standards of
Western beauty)
Cross Dressing 1
• Clothes, make-up, hair-styles and cosmetic surgery may all
mean we can’t tell the sex of a person from looking at their
appearance
• Some men dress up as women and other people may think
they are women, and vice versa
• Cross dressing suggests that gender is not the cultural
correlate (or match) for biological sex, but something that we
perform (using clothes, make-up, verbal and body language,
etc) and that the same person can perform in different ways
Cross Dressing 2
• James Barry was a military surgeon in the
British army in the 19th century. He served in
India and South Africa and become Inspector
General in charge of military hospitals.
• When he was born, he was assigned female
sex (though he may have been intersex) and
grew up at first as a girl.
• At the age of 14, he took the gender identity
of man in order to go to medical school in
Edinburgh - at this time, medical schools were
not open to women.
Cross Dressing 3
• It seems likely that Barry’s mother
and some influential friends knew
about his change of gender identity
and supported it so he could have his
medical career
• He lived as a man throughout his
adult life and was accepted as a man
in the army, his female (or intersex)
body being ‘discovered’ only when he
died
Cross Dressing 4
• Once his female biological sex was revealed,
many people who had known him said they
knew about it all along really
• It was even claimed that he had given birth
• The British army kept his records secret for
100 years
What is interesting for you about cross
dressing? What issues does it raise about sex
and gender?
Berdache 1
• Berdaches (or two-spirit people) were common in native
North American societies
• Many tribes in every region of North America had male
and/or female berdaches
• Anatomical men (people with men’s bodies) who preferred
to do basket weaving and other women’s work (rather than
hunting and other men’s work) could take female gender
identity
Berdache 2
• Males berdaches could participate in women’s areas of the
society, dress as women, and even take husbands
• They kept their male genitalia but ceased to be males
• Recently some native American gay, lesbian and bisexual
people have used the term two-spirit people, drawing on the
native American idea that some people were both male and
female
What is interesting for you about Berdaches? What issues do
they raise about sex and gender?
Transsexualism and gender
reassignment 1
• A transsexual is somebody whose gender identity is
different from their biological sex
• “Gender reassignment” is a process for people to match
their biological sex with their gender identity
• It involves: change of name, change of legal status, change
of dress, and change of physical appearance (through use of
hormones and surgical operations)
• The National Gender Identity Clinic in London sees over 700
patients a year seeking gender reassignment
Transsexualism and gender
reassignment 2
BBC News, Friday, 4 July 2008, 13:04 UK
How can a man have a baby?
“The birth of a baby girl to Thomas
Beatie in the US has, not surprisingly,
drawn international attention.
People have wondered how Mr
Beatie, 34, could possibly have a
child.
Transsexualism and gender
reassignment 3
The answer is that although he is now
legally male, Mr Beatie was born a
woman - Tracie Lagondino.
While he has had his breasts removed
and has taken male hormones to give
him facial hair, he has kept his female
reproductive organs and can therefore
carry a baby.
Transsexualism and gender
reassignment 4
His daughter was conceived via donor
insemination after he had stopped
taken his hormone treatment.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/748928
0.stm
What is interesting for you about
transsexualism and the case of
Thomas Beattie? What issues does it
raise about sex and gender?