Re: Sex Change

Kathryn Aegis (aegis@igc.apc.org)
Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:55:08 +0000


>It seemed to me that, according to you, she is
>saying that all social institutions conspire to hide the construction
>of gender.

To the extent that gender as a social instition underlies all
other social institutions, each of which has developed control and
management mechanisms, yes. Or, in her words: 'Social statuses are
carefully constructed through prescribed processes of teaching,
learning, emulation, and enforcement. Whatever genes, hormones, and
biological evolution contribute to human social institutions is
materially as well as qualitatively transformed by social practices.
...the building blocks of gender are socially constructed statuses."
That's from _Paradoxes of Gender_, 1994.

Kathryn Aegis