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The Sex/Gender Binary
Western science gained momentum during the transition from the Middle Ages to
the modern period, which was marked by economic and cultural expansion (Grewal and
Kaplan, 2006). Western science supported new industries and technologies; it helped
establish capitalism through the Industrial revolution and colonization, and thus became
the authoritative method by which Truth about the natural world could be discovered
(Grewal & Kaplan, 2006). As a result of politically charged and unequal Western science
(which is often controlled and influenced by men, motivated by capitalistic interests)
differences between humans now are considered explainable only by biology (Grewal and
Kaplan, 2006). Western science produced theories that divided women along the lines of
race, class, ethnicity and nationality; it made white, well-to-do women the symbol of ideal
motherhood to propagate race and nation, and preserve Western civilization (Grewal &
Kaplan, 2006). The concept of an ideal, white, well-to-do mother became normative in
societies to the detriment of women that did not belong to the middle-class, were not white,
or heterosexual (Grewal & Kaplan). This normative femininity became associated with the
two-sex model of biological differences and aligned itself with a sex/gender binary, which
divides people into two categories, based on random criteria, of male and masculine or
female and feminine.
The sex/gender binary is exclusive to those that possess enough characteristics from
arbitrarily defined criteria to fall into one of two (either male or female) categories. In her
article, The Five Sexes Revisted, Anne Fausto-Sterling argues that the two-sex system
embedded in our society is not adequate enough to encompass the full spectrum of human
sexuality (2000). Fausto-Sterling describes the sex/gender binary as being rooted in the
very ideas of male or female (2000). In the idealized Platonic, biological world, human
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beings are divided into two, dimorphic species: male, with testes, a penis, an X and Y
chromosome each, and females, with ovaries, a womb, the ability to support pregnancy and
fetal growth, two X chromosomes (Fausto-Sterling, 2000). However, it is a lesser-known
fact that absolute dimorphism disintegrates even basic levels of biology; chromosomes,
gonads, hormones, internal sex structures and external genitalia all vary, far more than is
recognized (Fausto-Sterling, 2000). Those born outside this idealized Platonic dimorphic
biological mold are referred to as intersexuals (Fausto-Sterling, 2000). The fact that the
two-sex system does not encompass those that do not fit neatly into either of the two
gendered boxes demonstrates its limitations; it is oppressive to those that do not fit or
identify with either category, it both alienates them from prevalent culture, community, and
society but also berates them for not abiding by a prepackaged, prescribed identity.
Western science has played a significant role in altering cultural conceptions of
gender and biological definitions of the sexes to perpetuate the sex/gender binary. An
example of this is the case of Caster Semenya, who will live the rest of her life under a
cloud of suspicion after track and fields governing body announced that it was going to be
investigating her sex (Dreger, 2009). The International Association of Athletics Federations
process for determining whether Caster Semenya, the world-champion runner from South
Africa, is a woman, involved at least a geneticist, an endocrinologist, a gynecologist and a
psychologist, because the I.A.A.F. had not sorted out the rules for sex typing and was relying
on evolving standards (Dreger, 2009). As made evident by the Platonic dimorphic model
that Anne Fausto-Sterling discussed, Western science sells the criteria by which a
sex/gender binary is created. Malthusianism--which argued that increasing population was
the greatest threat to the welfare of Western civilization--and Eugenics--which lobbied for
the preservation of pure and superior human stock (as though people are objects or
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products), management and control (if not complete elimination) of those deemed by
science to be inferior--not only perpetuated racist, classist and misogynistic ideologies but
also played a role in reaffirming the sex/gender binary by assigning motherhood as a
gender role to women, thereby adding to the scientific definition of a woman (Grewal &
Kaplan, 2006).
Before new Western science, however, there were other forms of science; before
the political plague of colonization, the establishment of capitalism and the destruction (as
well as theft) of non-Western perspectives and cultures, there existed many methods by
which the natural world, and perhaps truth, could be discovered. For example, scholars of
medieval studies have found that the two-gender system that is upheld as natural in our
time has not always been recognized as such: in twelfth-century Byzantium, in the region
that is now Turkey and Greece, castrated males (or eunuchs) belonged to a third gender
and played important roles in society, instead of being marginalized and disenfranchised as
they are today because of the damaging sex/gender binary (Grewal & Kaplan, 2006). Even
some early medical texts challenge the sex system and perception of male and female
bodies upheld in scientific spheres today: medical texts from the ancient Greeks up until the
late eighteenth century described male and female bodies as being fundamentally similar
(Oudshoorn, 1994). Those in power have attempted to lend authority and legitimacy to
new Western science, but have fallen short of being successful; the history of science and
the feminist pursuit for equality and equity has made evident the contradictions in
perpetuating the sex/gender binary through science.



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References
Dreger, A. (2009, August 21). Sex Verification: More Complicated Than X's and Y's.
The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2014, from
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/sports/22runner.html
Fausto-Sterling, Anne (2011/2000). The Five Sexes Revisited. In M. Baca Zinn, P.
Hondagneu Sotelo & M.A. Messner (Eds.) Gender Through the Prism of Difference (pp.
13-18). New York: Oxford University Press. Reprinted from The Sciences,
July/August 2000.
Grewal, I., & Kaplan, C. (2006). An Introduction to Women's Studies: Gender in a
Transnational World. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Oudshorn, Nelly (1994). Sex and the Body. In Grewal, I., & Kaplan, C. (2006). An
Introduction to Women's Studies: Gender in a Transnational World (pp. 6-9). Boston:
McGraw-Hill Higher Education.