HFS 388: Human Sexuality. Gender Inequality and the Prejudices Against Sexuality

Gender Inequality and the Prejudices Against Sexuality
Your Name
Subject and Section
Professor’s Name
Date of Submission
Gender Inequality and the Prejudices Against Sexuality
Life changes challenge a person to adapt to his environment. These changes do not only pertain to physical evolvement, but these also involve changes in norms, culture, and bodily perception: these changes an individual’s personality and development, especially one’s sexuality. Sexuality is a variable entity that continues to evolve. A person may have a different perception of his or her sexuality in childhood because of biological characteristics.
Moreover, a person can change his or her perception by changing the gender after learning about society. People have different gender roles throughout history. Moreover, it is up to the individual to choose which role best suits his or her personality and how to handle the prejudices that come with his or her choices.
Sexuality has a broad and indefinite definition. The World Health Organization defines it as the principal feature of humanity that encompasses gender and gender roles, sex, sexual orientation, erotic behaviors, bodily desires, intimacy, and reproduction. It can be qualified by experiences and justified by the interaction among all the other aspects of humanity—biological, psychosocial, social-political, cultural, legal, religious, and historical influences. This differs from sex, which is biologically determined, and gender, which is socially-determined CITATION Wornd1 \l 1033 (World Health Organization, n.d.).
The beginning of sexual development can be explained by biology. Sex denotes the biological features that are not mutually exclusive. Some people have both, while others only possess a single characteristic. These allow the society to differentiate a person on whether he is a man or she is a woman CITATION Wornd1 \l 1033 (World Health Organization, n.d.).
The mechanisms by which science identifies sex genetically are significantly variable. Human sex chromosomes play a vital role in sex determination. There are two sex chromosomes, namely, the X and the Y chromosome. In placental mammals, like humans, the existence of the Y chromosome decides the sex. The female cells consist of two X chromosomes, while the male cells have both the X and the Y chromosomes. However, later research revealed that there are rare people who have reversed chromosomes (Abbott, Nordén, & Hansson, 2017). Some of these people can be classified as sex-reversed XX men who has the characteristics of a male but has the genetic composition of a female. This has only been discovered by the medical physicist, Albert de la Chapelle, in 1964 CITATION Tri06 \l 1033 (Trivedi, 2006).
de la Chapelle’s discovery in 1964 can be considered as a late innovation since the world has known humans since prehistoric times. Nevertheless, humans only judged a person’s sex and sexuality using two categories—male or female. Given this fact, we can consider that there may have been other sexes that are forcefully being removed in the history of human beings because of cultural disparities.
Fausto-Sterling (1993) reveals that there are more than five sexes. However, she was only able to define five of them: 1) Males have characteristically identified male genitalia and male features.; 2) Females have characteristically identified female genitalia and female features.; 3) The Male pseudohermaphrodites, also known as merms, have testes with some features of the female gonads. However, they cannot reproduce since they do not have ovaries.; 4) The female pseudohermaphrodites, also known as ferms, have ovaries and features of the male gonads. However, they lack testes. Thus, they cannot produce sperm for fertilization.; and 5) The hermaphrodites, also known as herms, are those people who have both features of the male and female genitalia—one testis and one ovary. Some of them have combined genitalia, while other people have separate genitalia (Fausto-Sterling, 1993).
Despite having these discoveries, traditional Western culture remained to consider only two sexes like what the rest of the world has known for a long time. This significantly exposes the prejudice and stereotyping in the communities of people of different sexes and genders (Wexelbaum, 2018). These differences imprison the people of different beliefs and hinder them from living a healthy, happy, and successful life.
Several philosophical frameworks explained sexuality and the prejudices against it throughout history. Two of the frameworks that will be discussed are focused on the prejudices between men and women and the prejudices among all genders.
Liberal feminism envisions personal autonomy as freedom. This considers a living person’s own choices and political autonomy as the circumstances at which the person lives. This framework reflects on the patriarchal nature of almost all cultures and holds that women must defy this gender system (Jaquette, 2018). The other framework is Symbolic interactionism. This directs humans to appreciate and comprehend human behaviors by analyzing the vital function of symbols in human interaction (Stryker, 2017).
Liberal feminism supports the four sexes that Fausto-Sterling mentioned, namely, the females, male pseudohermaphrodites, female pseudohermaphrodites, and hermaphrodites. This philosophical view urges these people to present themselves to the world. These people, especially those with hermaphroditic characteristics, were not given a choice on what genitalia they will have. Hence, their sex was a force unto them. However, liberal feminism gives them the autonomy to choose their gender regardless of their genitalia. It lets them decide on their future, and it holds them accountable for their choices.
Additionally, this framework promotes their autonomy asserting the government to be an ally of liberal feminists (Law, 2019). For liberal feminists, the government must support movements that defy the traditional system. When the governments start recognizing such movements, people with rare characteristics will also be able to achieve freedom the way the people who belong to a traditional classification do.
There are also several disputes that liberal feminism addresses. It fights for female gender communities to be free of ...