Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality

Why do some people prefer heterosexual love while others fancy the same sex? Is sexual identity biologically determined or a product of convention? In this brilliant and provocative book, the acclaimed author of Myths of Gender argues that even the most fundamental knowledge about sex is shaped by the culture in which scientific knowledge is produced.

Drawing on astonishing real-life cases and a probing analysis of centuries of scientific research, Fausto-Sterling demonstrates how scientists have historically politicized the body. In lively and impassioned prose, she breaks down three key dualisms - sex/gender, nature/nurture, and real/constructed - and asserts that individuals born as mixtures of male and female exist as one of five natural human variants and, as such, should not be forced to compromise their differences to fit a flawed societal definition of normality.

This time she takes on her own scientific field, exposing how blindered, sexist, heterosexist, and flat out stuck and harm-inducing it has become. Given that she presents her arguments in the body of the text in a very reader-friendly language and style, and has nearly a separate text of endnotes of hard-core feminist critical analyses ta boot, we've got in this great work of hers a text reminiscent of Virginia Woolf's "Three Guinneas."

Anne Fausto-Sterling's special interest this go around is science's primary complicity in the (hetero) sexing of psycho-medically dominated and controlled bodies. She provides one of the best feminist analyses of Gender Systematicity as the key politically shaped, shaping, and biased torture device for transsexual and intersex people today.

This is a very important text for sexology, feminist, gender, queer, US, cultural, and transgender studies, history of science, and anthropology of medicine and science. It's a brave read, if not deadly on point. Probably best for graduate scholars, but should be required for any professional in sexology, gender specialist, or medical personnel before they lay one hand or idea of treatment on transsexual or intersex people!


opens up the closed doors behind gender "research"   June 11, 2003
CC (lvthelrd2000@yahoo.com)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

I highly recommend this book.It will liberate you from the
now recent obesession with gender "differences" and you will
see the world around you in a new light.
The book is pleasant and does not talk down to the reader
as many of the "gender difference" books do.It isn't
preachy or arrogant,instead it makes the reader think about
how the world around them has been so manipulated to keep
status quo thinking going.
This is not a gender differences book,it's a book which
let's us know we are all complex and not actually
limited by gender specific behavior,as the "researchers"
call "appropriate" behavior or apptitudes which people have
been labeled.


Understanding Gender Through A New Lens   October 7, 2005
Freudian 07
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Anne Fausto-Sterling's account of all genders and sexes (not just male/female, but everything in between) provides a humanitarian outlook which demonstrates just how far our culture will go to enforce gender dichotomies. About one in 5000 births results in an intersexed (ambiguous genitalia) infant. Most of the time doctors assign a sex to these babies, believing they could never grow into well-adjusted adults with ambigious sex organs. Yet, these surgeries usually include the removal of some or all nerve tissue leading most post operative intersexed people wishing they had never been touched when they grow older. Some of these stories are truly heart breaking and Fausto-Sterling not only explores the history behind these surgeries, but their impact on the day to day lives of thousands of individuals. Giving voice to a group that's not heard from much in mainstream media, Sexing the Body is a must read for anyone interested in the development of gender identity or social injustice.