Gender Projects

A detailed Summary of Gender Projects

Gender biases are prevalent in today's scientific world, although they are not always seen by society. To increase awareness on gender biases, Suzanne Kessler and Emily Martin write two independent articles on how gender stereotypes permeate the scientific community. Suzanne Kessler's article looks at how society sees gender as either male or female. While, Emily Martin looks at how scientific writings include hidden gender stereotypes.

In Suzanne Kessler's, "The Medical Construction of Gender", she claims that gender is culturally constructed. To illustrate this, she brings up case studies of intersexed infants. She defines an intersexed child as a person born with genitals that are neither clearly male nor clearly female. First to ground this issue, Kessler points out that it is very hard to diagnose an intersexed infant. She states that if a doctor sees the male genitalia than he or she assumes that the infant is male, otherwise it is female. Another ground for her claim is how a physician determines if the intersex child should be transformed to a male or a female. The doctors try to choose the sex of the child, such that there is minimal transformation. She suggests that the criteria for choosing the sex is based o

These two readings have multiple similarities between them. Both of the articles function as gender projects. By gender projects I mean that these articles were written to make the public aware of these stereotypes present in our society. Without these writings, society would not have necessarily been aware of the stereotypes or their ramifications they have caused.

Emily Martin's essay is more explicit in describing her essay as a gender project. She would like everyone to realize that we use these stereotypical terms everyday, even in writings, which are objective as in a scientific journal. She explicitly states that if society uses gender stereotypes in the scientific writings that these stereotypes will become naturalized.

In Kessler's essay, she tries to convince us that society is bound to the idea that there is only two genders and that there are stereotypes that go along with each. She says in her article that doctors are very concerned about changing an intersexed child into a male or a female. This is due to society's impression that gender is either male or female. She goes on and states that the parents of an intersexed child cannot release a gender of their baby because society will stereotype that baby and if the baby changes sexes then the intersex person will be a victim of stereotypes.

These articles truly make us think of what terminology and gender prejudices we use in our everyday lives. Are we truly gender bi

Some common words found in the essay are:
Emily Martin, Construction Gender, Emily Martin's, , Suzanne Kessler's, male female, gender projects, gender stereotypes, aware stereotypes, gender baby, society gender, gender male, emily martin, intersexed child, gender male female, gender baby society, aware stereotypes society, culturally constructed, claims gender culturally, gender culturally constructed,

Approximate Word count = 983
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous