2.3 Nature And Identure: Nature Or Nurture Debate
2.3 Nature or Nurture Debate
“One is not born but rather becomes a woman” is a famous quote made by the feminist theorist, writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir from her book The Second Sex (1973). Although Beauvoir was not a sociologist her theory has been reiterated by those who reject the biological explanation of gender and who recognise gender and sex as separate entities. We are born with a biological sex, but acquire a gender through our socialisation.
Essentialism views of gender and sexuality believe that sexuality and gender are immutable characteristics (Rahman & Jackson, 2010), to elaborate, it is the belief that the biological sex is equal to the gender and that sexual attraction is towards the opposite sex. Essentialism privileges heterosexual …show more content…
Butler (1990) argued that society’s perceived need to assign a sex to intersex infants is due to cultural fears, believes about gender binaries, and fear of difference. In the 1950s and 1960s the sexologist John Money carried out research on intersex infants. He tried to prove that gender is learned and therefore if someone is born intersex but a sex is assigned to them at birth and they are raised as either a boy or girl then they will learn the behaviours associated with the gender and therefore he believed sex did not have to be biologically determined. Money received an intersex patient, a young boy named David Reimer, who had severed his penis during a botched medical procedure, he recommended the best action to take would be to carry about male to female sex reassignment surgery (Preves, S., (2002)). However despite the fact his theory proved to be unsuccessful and the child eventually committed suicide due to the effect the gender reassignment surgery had on him. Therefore Money’s experiment had in fact failed to prove the desired
“One is not born but rather becomes a woman” is a famous quote made by the feminist theorist, writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir from her book The Second Sex (1973). Although Beauvoir was not a sociologist her theory has been reiterated by those who reject the biological explanation of gender and who recognise gender and sex as separate entities. We are born with a biological sex, but acquire a gender through our socialisation.
Essentialism views of gender and sexuality believe that sexuality and gender are immutable characteristics (Rahman & Jackson, 2010), to elaborate, it is the belief that the biological sex is equal to the gender and that sexual attraction is towards the opposite sex. Essentialism privileges heterosexual …show more content…
Butler (1990) argued that society’s perceived need to assign a sex to intersex infants is due to cultural fears, believes about gender binaries, and fear of difference. In the 1950s and 1960s the sexologist John Money carried out research on intersex infants. He tried to prove that gender is learned and therefore if someone is born intersex but a sex is assigned to them at birth and they are raised as either a boy or girl then they will learn the behaviours associated with the gender and therefore he believed sex did not have to be biologically determined. Money received an intersex patient, a young boy named David Reimer, who had severed his penis during a botched medical procedure, he recommended the best action to take would be to carry about male to female sex reassignment surgery (Preves, S., (2002)). However despite the fact his theory proved to be unsuccessful and the child eventually committed suicide due to the effect the gender reassignment surgery had on him. Therefore Money’s experiment had in fact failed to prove the desired