He-Man and She-Rah or She-Man and He-Rah

Technoscience and social construction go hand in hand in diving to the bottom of discovering who we are and how we evolve as an identity. This strong relationship is established as technoscience is socially constructed by the environment in which we live, through cultural standard influences determining what we believe and perceive as male and female. But what is male and what is female? Are we simply suggesting the difference between male and female is as black and white as initially assumed, or is there more to this notion than meets the eye? This is where I debate that it is not as clear cut as black and white as it seems but rather that there is more to the idea of being “male or female” than one realizes. I understand that sex is the most commonly used term in categorizing male or female, but is this different from gender and where does this assigning criteria derive from? Thus I state that technoscience is used to determine and give meaning to gender and sex, but by understanding technoscience, we must understand that it is socially constructed.

It may be rare, but it is surely not a minor issue… Intersexed infants are born and the decisions being made in regards to assigning a sex is quite a debacle. How do we go about this and who holds the rights to determining another human’s sex and gender? Through the medical management of intersexed infants, a sex is assigned through the social construction of technoscience determining sex. This can be thought of as possible as now we have “nature” or biology being socially constructed as “we are told that our technologies are neutral or, even better, that they necessarily improve the situation of women and men. They hold power in and of themselves to shape human life and destiny” (Leonard, 23) through the birth intersexed infants. These ambiguous organs prove to be quite a challenge not only physically but also ethically, socially and psychologically. Often in these cases, decisions are based on cultural rather than biological reasoning proving evidence of technoscience being socially constructed and embodying values about sex when assigning gender and sex for the infant. The majority of intersexed infants are assigned the sex of a female due to social construction of gender identity issues as many intersexed infants who may be born dominantly biologically male, but with a micropenis, are said to be assigned the sex of a female as socially they will not fit in comfortably with the male gender (Kessler, 246). Such decisions as these are based on cultural rather than biological terms that cultural value is dominantly based on the presence of a functioning penis rather than the presence of chromosomes and hormones. This supports the notion that gender and children are “malleable”, and psychology and medicine are the “tools to transform them” once again relating back to my thesis that technoscience and social construction determine a person’s gender and sex identity. Although these medical methods sound relatively smooth, there are many repercussions that can seriously impact the infant’s future physically, socially and psychologically.

“We need to end the idea that it’s monstrous to be different.”

Some topics in this essay:
GI Joe, , Story John/Joan, Eileen Leonard, Academy Pediatrics, social construction, socially constructed, intersexed infants, technoscience social, technoscience social construction, gender sex, John Colapinto, Myth Progress, male female, Rolling Stone, social construction gender, black white, technoscience socially, construction gender, technoscience socially constructed, 2 sex, intersexed infants born, 2 sex dichotomy,