Week 4--From the Mythic to the Medical: A Shift in Discourse

I find the contrast between the readings interesting. The interview with Katie seemed more medical oriented than Middlesex. “Intersex ... is a medical condition.” The pieces with Oprah also had a different feel to them. “she never felt pressure to choose a gender. 'Society pressures you to choose sides just like they pressure mixed race people to decide.' ... 'I have both, and I'm not going to .. hide it.'” The DSD Guidelines book seemed very parent-oriented (obviously), but I think that added a nice perspective. The first people we interact with, usually, are our parents. So it makes sense to study how parents react to intersex children so that we can try to understand how people in general react to intersex people. (I want to note at this point that my word processor dictionary does not recognize the word intersex). I imagined being a parent of an intersex child and my first thought was, what would I tell everyone else? I mean this first question about a baby, in my experience, is is it a boy or a girl? I remember when my parents had their third baby they thought about never telling anybody what gender the child was so that they could experiment with gender roles (I think they were joking at least a little), but within half an hour we tricked the gender out of them (a girl). During that half hour though was really frustrating because we don't have words to talk about a single human being without talking about their sex. We have he, she or it, neither of which appropriately describe a single human being! I think our language handicap indicates (and reinforces) our more social handicap of only being able to think about a person as a sex. Clearly this is not useful when trying to experience the range of possibilities for human sexuality, and at this point I am not finding a use for this binary-like distinction.

 

As for the medical language, I have always found the connotations of the words doctors use to desribe people that don't fit the average disturbing. I wonder if this is the fault of doctors' or if doctor invent a word to describe a condition that most people don't have and then people assign negative connotations to the word.

One of the things that I really wanted to talk about was a suggestion by the doctor in the Oprah article about the parents of intersex children "work[ing] with experienced doctors to come up with a gender assignment" during childhood and then the idea that "parents shoudl raise the child with that assigned gender." After having read Lynell's story, I was concerned about the parents of intersex children assigning gender to children so young and not really allowing the children to have any say in the matter. Perhaps, though, this is an issue in society at large that not only has to do with the assignments of intersex children, but all children in general. I think that sometimes the societal need to say "I am having a boy" or "I am having a girl" makes parents want for their child to be one or the other and doesn't take into consideration the feelings of their children or the feelings that their children may have later in life. Maybe children should be allowed to assign themselves a gender (or no gender) later in life. As the DSD Guidelines discuss, parents "want [their] child to grow up feeling normal." I wonder whether this desire to have your child feel normal has less to do with meeting the needs of the children than it does about fitting into a societal box. As Hilda said in her Oprah interview, "she feels and looks 'more male' or 'more female' in different situations. I think that this is probably a true situation for most people and I think that perhaps we should think about deconstructing the rigid standards of what it means to be male and female. I say all of these, though, aware that my gender was a very big (unspoken) part of how I grew up. At the same time, though, I don't think that I was ever judged by my parents or asked not to do something based on my gender. I think that Lynell's statement that as a male child "she was very effeminate and preferred playing with dolls and jump ropes to 'boy things.'" Honestly, who says that dolls and jump rope are "girl things." Why can't they just be play things? I guess what I am trying to get at is the allowance for flexability of gender as a parent and not attempting to make someone's personality fit their genitals. If we allowed for flexability, even to the extent that we wouldn't assign any gender to intersex (and perhaps all) babies, it might allow for happier kids. Of course, this certainly would a process and I'm not really sure how to go about it.

Questions for Katie: 

Do you think your condition has affected your relationships with other females? 

What advice would you give to parents with an intersex child? 

What advice would you give to an intersex person confronting societal gender binaries? 

Response to readings: 

When I read the chapter giving advice to parents with children with DSD, I thought it offered great insight into the negative side effects of secrecy. I appreciated the validation of the parent’s emotions, but at the same time it emphasized the importance of the child’s future emotions and potential choices. When reading about the consequences of secrecy and dishonesty, I was reminded of Callie’s response to Doctor Luce’s diagnosis and her evaluation of her parent’s response to her condition.  “.The synonym was official, authoritative; it was the verdict that the culture gave on a person like her. Monster. That was what she was. That was what Dr. Luce and his colleagues had been saying…It explained her mother crying in the next room. It explained the false cheer in Milton’s voice…”(431). Callie’s isolation and alienation fueled by Doctor Luce’s indirect explanation of his diagnosis and her parents’ reactions. I agree that there needs to be more conversations about DSD and other situations which break down gender binaries.            

The article also reminded me about the need to “fit-in” at a young age. “your acceptance of your child is what will make your child feel normal” I wish there was not so much social pressure to be “normal”. How can one determine their “normalcy”? Many women look in fashion magazines for their guidelines. I find this ironic when considering Zora’s statements in Middlesex. “Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome created the perfect woman, Zora told me. A number of top models had it. ‘How many chicks are six two, skinny, but with big boobs? Not many. That’s normal for someone like me’”(487). I do not think that all women should try to “fit-in” one mold. Classification can build friendships and unity, but many cultural divisions are based on unrealistic traits (biologically and otherwise) for humanity as a whole. We should embrace our genetic variations and respect ourselves and others as entire identities.            

 When considering the metamorphosis of the definition “feminism”, I feel that this concept must become more fluid. Today’s conflicts do not necessarily require women to divide themselves into a separate group. In order to address current issues feminism must promote unity, regardless of gender, or adapt an all encompassing gender definition for “female”. I hope that feminism can evolve in order to break down gender binaries, but I fear that too much historical context for this term will make it inflexible.

 

I have a topic I wanted to discuss, and it is somewhat tangential, but I wanted to get more opinions on it and start discussions from it.

 

I recently came upon this book called "He's Just Not That Into You" which I thought shed a lot of light on our expectations of the gender binary in a way that was very troubling to me because it seemed truthful while also trapping women in very passive roles. I should preface this by saying the book is written by men as an advice column to women. There's an excerpt on USAToday.com that I found through a google search, of the introduction:


Many women have said to me, "Greg, men run the world." Wow. That makes us sound pretty capable. So tell me, why would you think we could be incapable of something as simple as picking up the phone and asking you out? You seem to think at times that we're "too shy" or we "just got out of something." Let me remind you: Men find it very satisfying to get what they want. (Particularly after a difficult day of running the world.) If we want you, we will find you. If you don't think you gave him enough time to notice you, take the time it took you to notice him and divide it by half.

Now you begin the life-changing experience of reading our book. We have put the stories we have heard and questions we've been asked in a simple question-and-answer format. If you're lucky, you'll read the following questions and know what they are: Excuses that women have made for their unsatisfying situations. If you're not so lucky, we've also included handy titles to clue you in.



So already they have set the condescending tone. And the advice they offer, while disguised in "empowering" advice for women, such as to not wait by the phone waiting for a man to call, is actually very disempowering. They say that if a guy doesn't go out and "get" you he's just not that into you and you should give up. At first, this message resonated with me in a truthful way, because let's face it, who hasn't had their fair share of rejection? But then I really thought about what they are saying to the whole body of women. They are really saying that women shouldn't go for what they want when there are challenges posed, and they are furthermore assuming that women automatically become control freaks or overanalyze the situation passively when they are met with challenges. And by doing this, the authors also assume many things about the man's side of the gender binary. That if he is a man, he will go for what he wants, and there is no weakness to pose as an excuse or other things in his life that matter more to him than a woman he is sexually attracted to. 

What really struck me about this book was my initial empathetic and thankful reaction to it, and then my averse reaction to it when I figured out that assuming the gender binary and then generalizing about that binary is extremely harmful to women's independence and strength.

Anyway, I probably shouldn't be taking it so seriously because it is a cheap romance self-help book, but I guess it resonated too much in reality for me to let it go, with several of my girlfriends constantly waiting by their phones waiting for a man to call. Girls at a supposedly empowering Women's College! Plus, I have been seriously considering the theory that there are more than two sexes because of Critical Feminist Studies, and if there are in fact more than two sexes, this book would have to be completely rewritten. Its fatal mix of chauvinism and assumptions about masculinity and femininity within the contrived gender binary really struck me.

 

What do you guys think about the affects of this book? Do you think I'm taking it too seriously, or do you agree with me? Do you think it's accurate that a guy has no interest if he isn't proactive and a girl just has to sit around and wait for that guy to be proactive, and we're just in denial as women? For lesbians, do you find that in general the butcher lesbians tend to be more proactive in finding their sexual interests than the femmes? I'm wondering if every relationship has to always be in the hands of the "men" at first to "work."

 

I'm also wondering if this book offends anyone else besides me. 

I think one of the most important things I’ve learned from reading this material is that there are SO many different varieties of the intersex experience, and intersex as an embodiment. I wonder how you approach this as an activist, since you are working with “a term than encompasses at least 30 different conditions”. I feel like that must always be a challenge as an activist - to speak out of a personal experience and an individual standpoint, but also try to change the way an entire group in society is treated and discussed.

Cal in Middlesex claims to be apolitical, and the term ‘activist’ suggests that you are more explicitly political, but it does seem like you and Cal are engaged in a similar project – telling your own story to help others understand. 

I had a second question, which someone already sort of asked, but I wondered what you meant specifically when you said that the women in the Oprah audience "got it" - how did they 'get it'? what does it mean to 'get it'? 

 

What/Who influenced your decision to begin taking estrogen? 

 Do you think you would be interested in medicine if you hadn't been born with AIS? 

Do you feel that having such a unique adolescent experience has contributed to your world view?

 How has having AIS affected your romantic relationships?  

While it is hard to say where I stand on the never ending questions surrounding intersex, gender, and sex, I do have a few questions for Katie Baratz:

I would like to know how did she make sense of herself and her body as a child?

How did she feel when she found out that she was intersex?

How has being intersex changed your perspectives on gender, sex, and identity? Are they separate or are they one?

Most importantly, as an aspiring physician, what advice would you give to fellow peers in regards to understanding and attending to someone with your condition?

I would like to ask Katie:

 

Are there any specific similarities that struck you between yourself and Calliope in Middlesex? Was there a moment in the book that really resonated with you as an experience or emotion that you have gone through yourself?

Once you found out about your "condition," what was your initial reaction? Did shame find its way into this reaction? I am in no way implying that it is something to feel shameful about, but I'm wondering about the possible effects of societal pressures to fit into the gender binary.

What is your personal opinion about the gender binary? Do you think it is something we created for ourselves a long time ago and have since learned to call it "nature," or do you think it really is our nature to fit under two sex categories? Do you think there are more than two official genders/sexes?

What is your personal way of separating the terms "sex" and "gender?"

How did you feel the audience reacted to your interview on Oprah?

Does your condition allow you to step outside your body as a woman at all? Do you feel like you have a fresh perspective to add to the term feminism?

How did your discovery of your condition affect your body image, and do you think that a girl finding out she is intersexed necessarily exempts her from the societal pressures telling her what is "beautiful" for a woman's body? 

While my post will not answer the questions specific to this forum, I would like to present some of the ideas I mused over after today's class. I think I have come a long way in my conception of feminism and of intersex since reading Book 1 of Middlesex and I would like to share my mental transformation:

This afternoon, we discussed whether Middlesex was a tragedy or a comedy; a medical memoir or a fictional autobiography; a novel of inalterability or of change? I did not participate in this discussion in class because I could not articulate the way I felt. In other words, I felt pressured to chose between one or the other option. (My personal confliction to chose between one side or the other reminds me of Julia's analysis of our cateogorization activity in class. She says she was scared to mention some of the categories that she felt comfortable identifying herself a part of because she felt it would pressure others in the group to identify themselves in relation to that category). In the same way, I felt pressure, like Cal, to have to chose between deciding whether Middlesex was a tragedy or a comedy, a story of reincarnation or a story of rebirth. The unspoken tension I felt inside resonated with me. From Book 1 to Book 4, I had been frustrated with Cal's indecisiveness and failed to understand the difficulty of chosing between two equally attractive options. The ability to sympathize with Cal was just one of my revelations! To return back to my intitial discussion of how I would "categorize" the novel, I would say that it is impossible; Middlesex could be both a tragedy and a comedy, a story of inalterability or a story of change, a medical memoir and a fictional autobiography. Why is it necessary to chose? I just want to say that Middlesex is a fusion, a melange of all of the above.

I was enlightened to overcome this superficial sense of categorizing...everything. At the beginning of my intellectual journey through Middlesex, I could only percieve two sexes: a male and a female. It was difficult, I must admit, to accept the "grey" area between white and black, the middle sex. I thought about this today, tested my preconcieved mindset. Sometimes--no, most of the time-- I find myself indecisive. Should I wake up at 6:40 or 6:45 tommorow morning? Should I wear sneakers of flip-flops? When I am really stumped, I ask someone-- my mom, my sister, my friend-- to make the decision for me... to put me out of my agony! In the same way, Callie decides to become Cal after reading Dr. Luce's report. At first, I was frustrated that Callie would not make up her own mind, yet having thought about my own experience, I came to terms with how difficult it is for me to decide between simple, everyday things. I cannot imagine how painful, and mentally disturbing, for Cal to decide between two sexes.

Futhermore, my revelation encouraged me to think about the title: "Middlesex." I got that the novel is about a middlesex, an intersex. However, there are several occurences in the Eugenides' novel that substaniates my claim that no one thing in the novel is certain; every dimension of the novel has an in-between, indecisive state. After reading Middlesex, I am left confused about Cal's gender. Gender, Cal says, is not important. I do not think that Cal would categorize herself, despite her transformation, as being male or as being female. Additionally, the mind and the body seem to function both causually and distinctively throughout the book; at times, the mind controls actions as executed by the body, at other times, physical appearance of the body satisfies the mind. Futhermore, the book cannot be labeled as being just a comedy or just a tradegy; Middlesex is both hopeful and remorseful. I hope I am getting my point across that everything in the novel has a middle ground, a "grey area." Eugenides' Middlesex is two-fold, a parallel construction that challenges societies' tendency towards categorization .

Lastly, I would like to introduce how my understanding of "Middlesex" altered my understanding feminism! In my last post in the forum on feminism (about our definitons of feminism, a feminist question, and the ways in which Middlesex points to a feminist question) I said I thought feminism was equated with a woman feeling comfortable with her body. Now, I think feminism is about breaking boundarie, shattering the divide between one or the other. In other words, feminism is a theory that refutes societies general inclination to sterotype, to make a disctinction between "right" and "wrong," "left" or "right," "male" or "female." Essentially, feminism is saying: Look, what is wrong with deciding on both options? In this way, I think feminism appeals to a larger, broader spectrum of people: men, women, intersex, no sex. There is no set interpretation of the term "feminism." Feminism does not have to resonate only with women. (With this, I really think it is necessary to change the term. Hm.What else could "feminism" be called?) So to answer the question again, Middlesex undoubtedly presents us with feminist questions.