Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. - Review - book review

Journal of Sex Research,  Feb, 2001  by William B. Stanley

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Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. By Anne Fausto-Sterling. New York: Basic Books, 2000, 473 pages. Cloth, $35.00.

The prevailing theory of sexual dimorphism in Western culture can be traced to antiquity, in the work of philosophers like Aristotle and in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. These early ideas have had a powerful influence on our views of sex and sexuality. Throughout most of our history, the policing of sex categories and related sexual behavior was largely left to religious and civil authorities. During the nineteenth century, however, the power to discipline sex and sexuality gradually shifted to the scientific and medical communities which took the lead in defining sex categories and what was normal with regard to sex, gender, and sexuality (Dreger, 1998; Herdt, 1996).

Among the most significant scientific influences on the reification of a theory of sexual dimorphism in the nineteenth century was the work of Charles Darwin. His evolutionary theory held that the sexual categories male and female emerged to serve the fundamental purpose of species reproduction required for natural selection and survival. The binary sex categories and the characteristics that distinguished them were defined as natural across time and place, a phylogenetically inherited structure of two basic types of human groups. By the end of the nineteenth century, male and female came to be seen as "innate structures in all forms of life ... [and] heterosexuality as the teleologically necessary and highest form of sexual evolution" (Herdt, 1996, p. 28).

We outline this brief history to provide a context for the importance of Fausto-Sterling's book Sexing the Body. This is a most provocative book containing a radical perspective. Fausto-Sterling considers problematic what she describes as our reliance on false dichotomies like nature/nurture, biology/culture, and essentialism/constructivism, and offers a persuasive argument for abandoning our current theories of sexual dimorphism. The persuasiveness of the book comes from its even-handedness and well-researched content (it took Fausto-Sterling more than 6 years to complete her research and writing).

The 225-page narrative portion of the book is clearly written and guides the reader through some very difficult issues and scholarship. Fausto-Sterling also makes creative use of artwork, illustrations, cartoons, and helpful charts and tables. In addition, the book contains 122 pages of footnotes, 67 pages of bibliography, and a detailed index.

Sexing the Body is divided into nine chapters that move from an analysis of the external markers for sex (e.g., anatomy, genitals), to an examination of the brain, sex glands, hormones, and genes as each has become part of the current discourse on sex. The book concludes with a chapter that describes an interdisciplinary, dynamic systems approach to the study of sex, gender, and sexuality.

Fausto-Sterling provides a fair and even-handed treatment of the issues and has taken the time to study the literature in a way that respects the scholarship of those with whom she has significant disagreements. For example, she is careful to explain the complexities of the psychosexual neutrality theory proposed by Money, Ehrhardt, and the Hampsons. She notes that Money's ideas were never quite as simplistic as some of his critics (e.g., Milton Diamond) have charged.

In addition, Fausto-Sterling, a committed feminist, is not hesitant to criticize the limitations of certain feminist positions that are dualistic or essentialist. She is also open to the criticisms of her own work, crediting social psychologist Kessler for explaining the limitations of her earlier views on sexual categories as represented in the now famous 1993 article on "the five sexes." And she admits that her earlier characterization of Young's work in 1995 was not fully accurate, although she still maintains her basic critique of Young's overemphasis on biological explanations for sexuality.

Fausto-Sterling brings an unusual interdisciplinary perspective to the study of sexuality. As a scientist and biologist, she believes in a material world and understands the importance of experimentation. However, her knowledge of feminist scholarship and the history of science has led her to focus on how the production of scientific knowledge is influenced by and rooted in particular histories, human practices, language, politics, and culture. In her view, scientific "facts" are not universal but always constructed within a particular historical and social context. As our social views have changed, so too have our scientific views of sexuality and the human body.

The influence of Foucault's ideas on disciplines and regimes of truth is also evident in Sexing the Body. Foucault claimed that the structural constraints of the disciplines shape how we are able to look at the world. He also described how our concepts of normalcy emerge to become taken-for-granted knowledge. The influence of normalcy in the study of sexuality has been particularly pernicious. In chapters three and four, Fausto-Sterling presents an historical overview and analysis of how a medical discourse emerged to provide a scientific rationale for sex assignment and the surgical "correction" of an intersexed infant's genitals. Given the impact of our theoretical assumptions regarding sexual dimorphism, it is not surprising that the medical community (simultaneously reflecting and shaping the culture) has tended to view the birth of intersexuals as abnormal mutations and medical emergencies. In fact, most of these "emergencies" are determined by cultural considerations.