FEMINIST GENDER THEORY SUMMARY（女性主义性别理论总结）.pdf

Feminist Gender Theory Summary – Margaret Simmonds – Summer 2012 FEMINIST GENDER THEORY SUMMARY Introduction In the course of background reading on feminist gender theory for my PhD (awarded Sept 2012) it seemed that a lot of the concepts could be useful to XY-women in gaining a broader view of their life situation and in reducing the focus on biological divisions. I then discovered that my colleague Lih-Mei Liao, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at UCLH’s Middlesex Centre (adult intersex clinic) had in fact recommended this. In an article (Liao 2003) she suggested that the psychological formulation of XY women’s difficulties (e.g. distress about the non-disclosure of crucial aspects of their condition or non- discussion of the implications, and about discussing atypical genitalia with sexual partners) should take account of dominant ways of conceptualising sex and sexuality in society. These ‘dominant ways of conceptualising’ are of course the strict division of people into two sexes based on biology (dimorphism - two forms), the sanctioning of only two genders (a binary system) based on sex, and the favouring by society of a sexuality that is ‘appropriate’ to one’s sex and gender, i.e. a heterosexual sexual orientation. She recommended that psychotherapeutic intervention and information delivery within a feminist-discursive framework could be helpful by drawing on alternative and subordinated discourses, allowing exploration of meanings of aspects of the condition, and challenging notions of normality. Lih-Mei was not involved in my study, but her words spurred me into compiling a few pages that I feel may be interesting and helpful to you. The introduction of ‘gender’ The concept of gender, as opposed to sex, wasn’t introduced until the 1970s. Robert Stoller, a psychologist who worked with individuals born with ambiguous genitalia, was the first to point out a distinction between sex and gender. He posit