SEX-GENDER DEBATE

The distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ has been made more complex by feminist scholars over
the years. Although the distinction continues to be broadly accepted by all feminists, the initial
understanding that ‘sex’ is related to nature while ‘gender’ is related to culture has been reworked
considerably. Broadly, we can discern four main ways in which the sex/gender distinction has been
further developed in feminist theory.

Alison Jaggar: human biology is constituted by a complex interaction between the human body, the
physical environment and the state of development of technology and society. It implies that biology
and culture are interrelated and women’s bodies have been shaped by social restrictions and by
norms of beauty.

A second kind of rethinking of sex/gender has come from radical feminism, which argues that
feminists must not underplay the biological difference between the sexes and attribute all difference to
‘culture’ alone. To do so is to accept male civilization’s devaluing of the female reproductive role. This
is a criticism of the liberal feminist understanding that in an ideal world, men and women would be
more or less alike. Their position on the sex/gender distinction is that there are certain differences
between men and women that arise from their different biological reproductive roles, and therefore,
women are more sensitive, instinctive and closer to nature, and share in nature’s qualities of
fecundity, nurturing and instinct.

Carol Gilligan’s book, In a Different Voice: Using a psychoanalytical point of view, she argues that
because the primary caregiver in childhood is invariably a woman (the mother) the process by which
men and women come to adulthood is different. Boys move into adulthood learning to differentiate
from the mother, while girls do so by identifying with her. This results, Gilligan argues, in women
having a more subjective, relational way of engaging with the world, while men have a more objective
mode. Women relate to others, while men learn to separate themselves. Unlike men, women are less
influenced by normative notions of what is right and wrong, and more by other factors like empathy,
concern, and sensitivity to another’s predicament. Because western philosophy was more about
rationality, autonomy, and justice, drawn from male experience, female experience is invisible here. To
deny this is to agrees with patriarchal negation of femininity as worthless.

Post-modernist feminists take an opposite view from that of radical feminists, who according to them
over-emphasis the biological body. Judith Butler argues that if gender is symbolic of the cultural
meanings that sexed body takes on, then gender can not be said to follow from sex in any one way.
According to her gender is not the cultural inscription of meaning on a pre-given sex rather gender as
a way of thinking and as a concept, produces a category of biological sex. Butler, thus, suggests a
‘radical discontinuity’ between sexed bodies and culturally constructed genders. Gender is something
that is constructed through relations of power, and through a series of norms and constraints that
regulate what will be recognized as a ‘male’ body and a ‘female’ body. Through such norms, a wide
range of bodies are rendered invisible and/or illegitimate, for instance, infants born with no clear
determining sexual characteristics, or eunuchs, or men and women who choose not to follow the
dress norms prescribed for their gender.

The fourth kind of rethinking of the sex/gender distinction comes from locating gender in a grid of
identities— caste, class, race and religion. It means that biological category of women doesn’t
necessarily have shared interests, life-situations or goals. Uniform code bill, equal rights for women;
but in growing communalism and insecurity felt by religious minorities most feminists shifted to the
opinion that the position of women should be improved by reforms within personal laws, rather than by
forcing communities to obey to the legislation passed by the state, like uniform code bill. what was a
simple feminist demand that all women should have equal rights has been considerably transformed
by the politics of religious identity.
‘ONE IS NOT BORN BUT RATHER BECOMES A WOMAN’ Simone de Beauvoir

In the second sex, de Beauvoir sketches a kind of existential history of a woman’s life: a story of how
a woman’s attitude towards her body and bodily functions changes over the years and how society
influences this attitude. Here de Beauvoir raises the core question of female embodiment, Are the
supposed disadvantages of the female body actual disadvantages which exist objectively in all
societies, or are they merely judged to be disadvantages by our society?She answers this question by
exploring case studies of the various stages of female life. A woman ’s body is the site of this
ambiguity, for she can use it as a vehicle for her freedom and feel oppressed by it. it depends upon
the extent to which a woman sees herself as a free subject rather than as the object of society ’s
gaze. The very concept of ‘woman’, de Beauvoir argues, is a male concept: woman is always ‘other’
because the male is the ‘seer’: he is the subject and she the object – the meaning of what it is to be a
woman is given by men. It is not the biological condition of women that constitutes a handicap. None
of the uniquely female experience, the development of female sex organs, mensuration, pregnancy,
menopause, have a meaning in themselves. But in a hostile or oppressive society they can come to
take on the meaning of being a burden and disadvantage, as women come to accept the meanings a
patriarchal society accords them. The initial psychological differences between young Boys and girls
are relatively trivial. What caused them to become important? If one becomes a woman how does
this becoming happen?

As the Girl’s body matures, society reacts in an increasingly hostile manner. De Beauvoir talks about
the process of becoming flesh whereby one comes to experience oneself as a sexual, bodily being
exposed to another’s gaze. This does not have to be a bad thing but young girls are often forced to
become flesh against their will.

Beauvior talk about both negative and positive example of having a female body. It becomes such a
nuisance, a pain, an embarrassment, a problem to deal with, ugly, awkward and so on. Society
constantly reminds her through criticism of her body and posture, through eve teasing on the street
and when relatives joked about her periods. De Beauvoir also gave positive examples of having a
female body like feeling connected with nature where she feels freedom she doesn’t feel in social
environment. She is no longer sees herself through others’ eyes, and she is free to define her body for
herself.

In a patriarchal society, a woman must undergo a traumatic event— initiation into sexual intercourse.
Intercourse is physically traumatic because it involves almost times, a painful penetration. Culturally it
is traumatic because girls are kept in a greater state of ignorance than boys. Cultural construct of sex
is not ideal for female enjoyment and orgasm. De Beauvoir thinks biological facts need not to
traumatic, the distress is due to a lack of generosity in the man’s sexual behaviour, combined with the
woman’s fear of being objectified before an aggressive sexual gaze.