The Sex/Gender Distinction in Feminist Theory

Nivedita Menon
(Department of Political Science,
Lady Shri Ram College)
One of the key contributions of feminist theory is the making of a distinction
between "sex" and "gender". Sex as referring to the biological differences between men
and women and gender as indicating the vast range of cultural meanings attached to that
basic difference Hiological determinism as a philosophy has characteristically been used
to legitimise various forms of oppression as natural and inescapable racism is a good

example of this, as is the caste system. t has also been one of the most important

legitimising mechanisms of women's oppression over the centuries. The challenge to

biological determinism is therefore, crucial for feminist politics.
Feminist anthropologists, pre-eminent among whom is Margaret Mead, have
thit what is understood masculinity and femininity varies across
demonstrated as

cultures More importantly, feminists have argued that there is no necessary co-relation
between the biology of men and women and the qualities that are thought to be masculine

and feminine. These qualities and the value that society attributes to them are produced

which socialize boys and girls differently, and

by a range of institutions and beliefs

the matèrial and ideological subordination of women. As Simone de Beauvoir put

ensure

made woman."
it, "One is not born, but is a

women arises, not from unchangeable

In other words, the present subordination of
cultural values, ideologies and institutions
biological differences, but from social and
sex-differentiated work and the sexual division of
Thus, feminists view questions of
and reproduction, as issues to be
labour, and more fundamentally, questions of sexuality
and
realm of "biology", which
is understood to be natural
extricated from the
"political", which
to be relocated in
the realm of the
issues are
unchangeable. These
be transformed.
they and must
suggests that
can
between "sex" and
manner of making the distinction
However, this particular
The initial
feminist scholars over the years.
made more complex by
"gender" has been to culture has been
related to nature
while "gender" is related
"sex" is
understanding that which the sex/gender
discern four main ways in
we can
reworked considerably. Broadly,
in feminist theory
distinction has been further developed
 a) Scholars like Alison
Jaggar argue that "sex" and "gender"
and inseparably related, and that the
are
dialectically
conceptual distinction that earlier feminists
established between the two is not sustainable. In this understanding,
biologyis human
constituted by complex interaction between human bodies, the physical environment
a

and the state of

development of technology and society. Thus, as Jaggar puts it, "the hand
is as much the
product of labour as the tool of labour" VWhat is meant by this is that two
processes are involved: human intervention
changes the external environment and
simultaneously, changes in the external environment shape and change the human
body
This is true in two One, in
senses. a long-term sense, over the millenia. That is, human
bodies have evolved ditferently in different parts of the globe, due to differences in diet,
climate, and nature of work performed. Two, in a more short-term sense, in one lifetime
That is, it is now recognised that
neurophysiology and hormonal balances are affected by
social fpctors like anxiety, physical labour, and level and kind of social interaction, just as
much as much as social interaction is affected by people's neurophysiology and hormonal

balances.
When we apply this understanding to sex and gender, the implication is that

women's bodies have been shaped by social restrictions and by norms of beauty. The
rapid changes in women's athletic records over the past two decades is an indication that

social norms had shaped biology. Feminist anthropologists have also pointed out that in
some ethnic groups there is little physical differentiation between men and women. In

society produces differences and

range of interrelated ways in which
sex
short, there is a

sex ditferences structure society in particular ways. "Sex" is not an unchanging base upon

"gender" meanings, but rather, sex itself has been affected by

which society constructs

various factors external to it - there is no line between nature and culture

To conclude with a passage from Dorothy Dinnerstein

We do not yet walk "naturally" on our hind
"Humans are by nature unnatural.

back pain, and hernias testify that the

Such ills as fallen arches, lower
legs, for example.
Yet this unnatural posture,
has not adapted itself completely to the upright posture.
body made
the of tool-using, is precisely what has
project
forced on the unwilling body by
the brain,
aspects of our "nature" - the hand and
possible the development
of important
which were both
language and social arrangements
and the complex system of skills,
 come to interpenetrate so thoroughly that we are what we have made ourselves, and we

must continue to make ourselves as long as we exist at all." (The Mermaid cnd the

Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise).

b) A second kind of rethinking of sex/gender has come frcm radical feminism

which argues that feminists must uot underplay the biological difference between the

is to accept male
sCxes and attribute all difference to "culture" alone. To do so

feminists (Susan Griffin,

civilization's devaluing of the female reproductive role. Radical
the process of
Andrea Dworkin, for example) believe that women's reproductive biology,
affects their relationship to the
gestation and the experience of mothering, fundamentally
closer to nature and share in
external world. Women are therefore, in this understanding,
instinct. These qualities must not be rejected
nature's qualities f fecundity, nurturing and
revalued.
by feminists but rather, accepted and
this
Differen Voice is a significant example of
Carol Gilligan's book, In a

in childhood is
that, given the fact that the primary care-giver
viewpoint. She argues
and women take moral decisions ditferently
invariably a woman (the mother), men

come into adulthood

of their coming to adulthood is different. Boys
because the prÍccss
do so by identifying with the
from the mother, while girls
to differentiate
learning
having a more subjective, relational way ofengaging with
mother. This results in women

the basic categories of

have a more objective mode. That is,
the world, while men
and reflect
are drawn from
autonomy and justice
-

rationality,
western moral philosophy
-

difference is to conform to
the male vision
the world. To deny
the male experience of

view from that of radical

A recent feminist position takes the opposite
c) more
sex

feminists argue that the

sex/gender distinction underplays
feminisis. While radical
feminist thought holds
that it over-emphasizes the
of postmodern
differences, a school that the
that if "gender" is the cultural meanings
for instance, argues
body. Judith Butler, in one way
from "sex" any
cannot be said to tollow
then a gender
sexed body assumes,
on to a pre-given "sex", rather,
not the cultural
inscription of meaning
That is, "gender" is sex Butler
produces the category of biological
a concept,
gender as a way of thinking,
 thus suggests a "radical
genders. discontinuity" between sexed bodies and
culturally constructed
What is
characteristic of this position is that it
does not exist holds that the category of "woman"
prior to the thinking about it.
Gender is something that is
through relations of power, and constructed
what will be
through a series of norms and constraints that
recognised"male" body and a "female"
as a
regulate
wide range of bodies are body. Through such norms, a
rendered invisible and/or illegitinate. For instance, infants
with no clear born
determining sexual characteristics, or eunuchs, or men and women who
choose i1ot to follow the dress
norms prescribed
for their gender. All these are either
marginalised, crinminalised or forced to fit into the existing two-sex model in
some way or
the other. Most modern
languages have no way of speaking of a human who does not fit
into either sex.

A startling study of intersexed infants in the USA

(babies born with both ovarian
and testicular tissue or in whom the sex organs were ambiguous) showed that medical
decisions to assign one sex or the other were made cultural
assumptions rather than
on

any existing biological features. Thus, a baby might be made into a female and then given
hormonal therapy all her life to make her stay "female" (Suzanne J Kessler, "The
medical constryction of gender: Case management of inter-sexed infants.") Alison Jaggar
discusses a similar study of children whose sex had been incorrectly assigned at birth due
to such ambiguity when the "real" sex ofthe child emerged at a later stage, both parents
and medical practitioners generally decided on surgery to confirm the sex attributed at

different
birth Tnis was invariably preterred to simply accepting that the child's sex was

from that attributed at birth. In other words, surgical intervention to change "sex" was

thought to be easier than eradicating years of cultural "gender" conditioning

Feminist scientists such as Ruth Bleier and Evelyn Fox Keller have argued that
distinction restricts biological sex ("sex" defined as anatomical, hormonal
the sex/gender
the bio-medical sciences while gender is to be studied
or chromosomal) to be studied by
understanding takes for granted the body
as an
by the social sciences. Such an

feminist scientists
biological reality that needs no further explanation. These
unchanging
mediated
and interpretations of the body are
arguethat on the contrary, our perceptions
 through language, and the bio-medical sciences function as a major provider ot this
language
Nelly Oudshoorn's work shows that scientists have understood "sex" in different
ways over the centuries from the ancient Greeks until the late 18 century, male and
female bodies were understood by medical texts to be fundamentally similar. This "one-
sex medel of hurranity, with the woman as a lesser version of the male body, dominated
biomedical discourse for thousands of years. In the 1gh century. biomedical discourse
began to emphasize differences between the sexes rather than similarities Every part of
the human body was sexualised, and physiological "facts" (for example, smaller brain
size) were used to prove the lesser intelligence of women, their passive nature and so on
The feminine "essence" was sought to be located in different parts of the body in the
18 century, it was the uterus, in the 19h century, the ovaries. By he 20 century, the
essence of femininity was focated in chemical substances called hormones
The hormonal conception of the body is now one of the dominant modes of
thinking about the root of sex differences. What Oudshoorn points out, is that the

hormonal conception of the body in fact allows for the possibility of breaking out of the
tyranny of the binary sex-difference model. If bodies can have both female and male

hormones, then maleness and femaleness are not restricted to one kind of body alone

Howevr, the bio.aedical sciences have preferred increasingly, to portray the female, but

not the male, as a body completely controlled by hormones. In this process, a clear nexus

has emerged between the medical profession and a huge, multi-billion dollar

pharmaceutical industry.
Such a feminist position rejects the idea that scientific facts about the body simply
st to be discovered. Rather, scientific facts are deeply embedded in society and culture

"Sex" itself is constructed by human practices.

d) A fourth kind of rethinking of the sex/gender distinction comes trom locating

"gender" in a grid of identities caste, class, race, religion. This kind of understanding

which
has arisen from tlie political practice of women's movements all over the world,
has increasingly shown up the fact that "women" do not exist as a pre-existing subject

the women's movement. Women identify themselves

which can simply be mobilized by
 as black, or
of their gender, but
not only, and not even necessarily primarily, in terms
intersects witn
have seen how gender
uslim. (or dalit, or peasant In the case of India, we
mobilised in
that women have been
these other modes of constituting identity, so
the anti-
Hindu communal ends,
in

terms to serve upper-caste and

apparently feminist of the Babri
demolition
preceding the
Mandal Commission protests and in the campaign interests and
w o m e n may
well be representing
other words, politically active
Masjid. In to struggle against
in India has sought
structures of power which feminist politics take into
account
distinction must
the feminist sex/gender
In this understanding, even as feminists, we

on the context,
Depending
other modes of constituting identity. as w e expect
some cases, just
class identity over gender in
caste o r
may have
to privilege caste in some
contexts

over class and

gender
marxists or dalit activists to privilege

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-

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