Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex

Rating:
Summary: an important book
Review: I consider myself an "enlightened" feminist and of course I believe that gender is socially constructed, but I still had a lot to learn from this book. It's not just that gender is socially constructed, but sex itself: nothing is "natural." Nothing -- not chromasomes, genitals, nor secondary sex characteristics like breasts, facial hair, body hair, and voice -- has meaning until we ascribe it a meaning. Doctors and the medical profession have participated in the social construction of gender and sex by creating the hermaphrodite as a monstrosity that deviates from binary norms rather than as a part of a continuum of sex and gender.

Dreger's book focuses on the collision of hermaphrodites with the medical profession in 19th century Britain and France, a time period when feminists and homosexuals were beginning to challenge sexual boundries. Dreger sucessfully balences stories of individuals with the larger social context. Also, she never resorts to euphemisms, and the accompanying photographs are something that is missing from the standard human anatomy textbook. We should see and appreciate humanity in all its infinite variety and not force anyone to conform to a constructed "norm."

Dreger's final chapter explores the plight of the intersexed in contemporary America. If we are truely to "celebrate diversity," we are going to have to become educated about the millions of intersexed in this country and become sensitive to their issues... because they are issues that concern us all.

Rating:
Summary: an important book
Review: I consider myself an "enlightened" feminist and of course I believe that gender is socially constructed, but I still had a lot to learn from this book. It's not just that gender is socially constructed, but sex itself: nothing is "natural." Nothing -- not chromasomes, genitals, nor secondary sex characteristics like breasts, facial hair, body hair, and voice -- has meaning until we ascribe it a meaning. Doctors and the medical profession have participated in the social construction of gender and sex by creating the hermaphrodite as a monstrosity that deviates from binary norms rather than as a part of a continuum of sex and gender.

Dreger's book focuses on the collision of hermaphrodites with the medical profession in 19th century Britain and France, a time period when feminists and homosexuals were beginning to challenge sexual boundries. Dreger sucessfully balences stories of individuals with the larger social context. Also, she never resorts to euphemisms, and the accompanying photographs are something that is missing from the standard human anatomy textbook. We should see and appreciate humanity in all its infinite variety and not force anyone to conform to a constructed "norm."

Dreger's final chapter explores the plight of the intersexed in contemporary America. If we are truely to "celebrate diversity," we are going to have to become educated about the millions of intersexed in this country and become sensitive to their issues... because they are issues that concern us all.

Rating:
Summary: Exposes cultural imperative disguised as medical necessity
Review: The history of the clinical management of intersex has previously been relegated to medical texts- texts which illuminate technologies to "treat" intersex while ignoring the experience of the recipients of such protocols. Alice Dreger's book unveils the identities of those who heretofore have appeared in textbook photographs and illustrations with their genitals in sharp focus but with their faces obscured. In the process, Dreger reveals how medicine has often tragically subordinated what is between the patient's ears and in the patient's heart to what is between the patient's legs. While physicians would be well-served to incorporate the information and perspectives Dreger offers, the book should appeal to a far larger audience because it challenges the reader's assumption that sex is like Carvel (two flavors only) when in reality it is Baskins & Robbins.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: This book is wonderful! It gives a tremendous amount of insight to the intersexed. A must for anyone interested in the history of sexuality.