Performing Gender Attributions

    In this first few chapters of Shannon Dea's book Beyond the Binary: Thinking about Sex and Gender, the author discusses varying ideas on both sex and gender through the ideas of many famous philosophers. The question I chose to discuss was the one which asked “Is it possible to meet or interact with someone without performing a gender attribution? Have you ever done so?” I chose this question because it really made me think about how we view gender in society. 

    I cannot speak for others, but whenever I meet someone I automatically assume their gender. As the reading states, we often take biological features into account when we classify people according to their sex. This includes “genetics, hormones, gonadal tissue, primary anatomical sex traits (like penises and vaginas), secondary anatomical sex traits (like square jaws and wide hips), reproductive functions, and more.” Even so, one important thing that was stated in the book is that for human beings, there is no biology without society. My understanding of this was that we create the different genders which we believe in. 

    I feel as though assigning gender has been integrated into our society, so much so it is now a common and accepted practice. For example, before a child even grows up to know which gender they belong to, they are cast into varying categories that depict their gender. For example, gender reveal parties have become very popular in which pink represents the child as the female gender while blue depicts that the child was born into the male gender. Since society allows these events that assume gender to take place, I believe that most people perform gender attributions. Humans that are born into the female body are surrounded by the color pink since they are born. These children are often given dolls, dresses, and makeup to play with. On the other side, we have the children that are born into male anatomy. These children are surrounded by blue, given cars, guns, and balls to play with. This provides an environment in which the choices are strictly a girl or boy. These types of “gender reveal” celebrations support Aristotle’s influential view that everything that exists has a single defining feature that makes it the kind of thing that it is, defining this feature as an “essence”. I feel as though our society needs to shift away from this because it is not clear that things really have such singular defining features. While a person may be born with a penis, they may grow up to be transgender, defining themselves as a woman. Few philosophers today agree with Aristotle’s view about essences, many philosophers find it useful to conceptualize categories in terms of natural kinds. Even so, those philosophers who agree that there exist natural kinds, disagree about whether biological categories such as species or sex constitute natural kinds. A large debate raises the question “What specific features entitle an individual to membership in a particular category?” The reading argues that while flexible categories are the best option in coping with the broad range of variations that occur within biological populations, too much flexibility means that categories will not be beneficial.

    I do believe that naturally, whenever I meet a person I subconsciously try to assign a gender to them. A couple of months ago, when I was meeting my roommate's friends, I accidentally assumed a person's gender. After referring to this person as “she”, that person corrected me stating their gender pronouns were “he, his.” I felt terribly embarrassed even though he said it was a common occurrence and it did not bother him. Even so, I feel as though society has set us up for failure when discussing gender. I have noticed in recent years that people’s gender pronouns are shared when introducing themselves during class. I feel as though this is an important thing that we should normalize when first introducing ourselves to new people. This will allow us to not perform gender attributes but instead educate us on the gender that each person defines themselves to be.