gender/sex

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Oct 10 2000 - 22:08:31 MDT


At 11:11 PM 10/10/00 -0700, Gene wrote:
>ankara writes:
>
> > "When we no longer ask 'boy or girl?' in order to start gendering an
infant,
>
>Funny, I thought infants were gendered at conception. You can't change
>an intact person's gender by upbringing nor surgery.

`Gender' is a social ascription, a metaphor only roughly based on sexual
dimorphism (as in the gendering of words in a language). Infants are
*sexed* at conception (or a bit after it, depending on developmental
oddities that might intervene).

Damien



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