Posts Tagged: gender roles

“Can transvestites be cured?” asked Time in an article reporting on Christine Jorgensen (Peiss, 375). If the article were about Cal, perhaps the question asked would be: Can hermaphrodites be cured? Within these questions lies the assumption that these things – these genders – need to be cured. “In some cases of transvestitism, as in […]

Incest, Middlesex, and Intersex Having only read the first two books of Middlesex, I feel this post must be about incest, a topic that Eugenides handles with incredible grace and tenderness. 

One time, a professor told us about a series of ten confirmed genders that lie on a spectrum between “male” and “female.”  This is per the scarce liberal arms of the scientia sexualis establishment.  In the years since I acquired this information, I have hazily wondered why there are only restrooms designated for two genders.  […]

Middlesex has got to be the best book to end our semester. Not only was it actually written fairly recently (to my great surprise; the author’s style made me think the book was written in the ’80s), but the book touches on so many topics we discussed: The pros and cons of scientia sexualis; constructs […]

Sula (No Other Title Necessary) Last year one of my political science professors was talking about the 2004 presidential election. He mentioned that in a debate between the two VPs (Cheney and Edwards), the two were asked a question about the number of black women in America getting infected with AIDS every year. As my […]

Regarding the deployment of sexuality, Foucault discusses four strategies that, beginning in the 18th century, were used to distinguish the working relationship of knowledge and power of sex.  The very first, the “hysterization of women’s bodies”, focuses on the woman and how mentally and physically she became a symbol of the scientia sexualis of the […]