Monday, February 22, 2010
2/22
In Fausto-Sterling’s chapter "Of gender and genitals" i found it very interesting to think about the decisions that are forced to be made by the parents of an intersexed child. The uncertainty that comes along with change is a continuous problem that comes with our society. When i read this chapter i think about how ridiculous it is to put such pressure on the reconstruction of a perfectly healthy childs sexual organs. Sex is something that we only want to see when it is perfectly constructed, whether it just strictly between a man and a woman, with perfectly constructed genitals; the woman being viewed as pure and tight and the males masculinity being associated with the largness of his penis. We want to view these ideas of perfectly binary sexual beings as the norm whn really not everyone fits into those distinctive categories, there is a continuum between the sexes and everyone in society fits somewhere along that continuum. unfortunately it would take an extreme change in how we have viewed society for so long in order to be on with such a continuum and as we have seen thoroughout hstory that is not something that easily occurs.Instead we stigmatize those people as being less man of less woman and then go even further, with many different surgical procedures, to make sure that those who more obviouly dont fit into the selected categories can be transformed into one. Being born intersexed is treated as if the child has to be treated for a disease and becomes imparative to immediately weight the options. after spending time reading this chapter and the Middlesex, i think that it is obsurd how much pressure we put on changing a perfectly normal human being into something that they are not however when i think about what i would do if i was a parent it becomes a more complicated issue. I cant look at the parents and the doctors and think negatively upon how much pressure they put on this because it is society that lays the pressure. i absolutely would want my child to have a "normal" life (by societal measures) so if that ment choosing the replace the more "appropriate" genitals for my child then i would do so and would have a hard time telling them why and how i chose to come to that decision besides the fact that society would prefer someone to be a changed, confused, and often not sexually pleased human being in order to not face the truths of reality.
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I definitely agree with Amanda that it is society that puts so much pressure the parents of an intersexed child. What really struck me in this chapter though was how much influence a doctor can have on someone's child. Sterling says in the first paragraph that doctors declare "medical emergency" whenever a baby is born with different genatalia. I know that if my baby were born in such condition I would want more than 24 hours to make a decision. Parents are usually very uninformed about the subject and so they believe anything a doctor will say. There is a huge problem in the way these issues are carried out because the lack of standard procedures. I couldn't beleive that doctors just dive into these treatments based own their own beliefs. I was also appalled at how ignorant doctors are about intersex births. Sterling mentions how some doctors tell parents how rare the condition is thus causing parents to make rash decisions. It makes me wonder how many medical conditions are handled the way this one is. There are thousands of things that can go wrong in childbirth but this one seems to be most influenced by society.
ReplyDeleteSterling certainly has an undertone in her writing which leads me to believe she might support making sex more than just male and female. She definitely has a problem with the notion that we must "fix" these babies born with different genitalia. I am no doctor so I don't know any of the medical aspects of the condition. I also don't know what it is like to be or have an intersexed child. While I do believe there needs to be a change in the way we handle these kinds of cicumstances, I don't know that I would support making sex more than female and male.
I agree with what both Trey and Amanda have pointed out— there is a lot of pressure when faced with an intersex child. What I found most interesting about this, however, is the sort of need to put blame on someone for handling an intersex problem “the wrong way.” I read this chapter from Fausto-Sterling and look at Middlesex and there’s always that sort of taint of, “The doctors should have known. They should have done something/something else.” Or even, “The parents should have done this/shouldn’t have done that.” It’s so easy to sit back and judge, but being in that situation is so completely complicated that I don’t think it’s for anyone who hasn’t been there to comment on. Unless you’re the doctor or the parent who is being asked to decide or not to decide a child’s identity, I don’t think you can understand. And yes, some of these people might make “wrong” decisions when dealing with this, but is there a “right” answer? Is it their fault? We haven’t gotten to the part in Middlesex where we see the Callie’s family’s reaction to her intersex condition, but I can’t imagine that they’d handle such a thing well. How can they? It’s human nature to cringe away from something that is so “abnormal” to us. But I still don’t blame them for that. If the doctors had seen Callie’s condition at birth and made her a girl, I wouldn’t blame them, either, whether that decision was right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteFausto-Sterling’s plea for us to break the barriers of gender and accept people outside of the binary Male-Female sex is ideal, but is it realistic? I’m not sure. I think that there is a majority of people who will always want to “fix” the situation and force an intersex person to pick a gender. I think that many intersex people will also want to pick a gender. It’s societal constraints and pressures and the overpowering need to be “normal.” I don’t know if any of that is wrong or right, it just is. I think that’s important to realize. Blame shouldn’t be placed because solutions aren’t universal. What works for one person may fail another. People can’t be fit into boxes like that.