Indeed, she explains that gender “is not a social construct, nor is it divorced from anatomy or sexual orientation.” In a footnote, Soh says she understands the idea of a “social construct” to be “the product of one’s social environment or learning.” Soh doesn’t see any aspect of gender as social, writing off hundreds of years of feminist theory. Soh only agrees on the first three.Īccording to Soh, “gender - both with regard to identity and expression - is biological.” This suggests gender consists only of gender identity and gender expression, and that it therefore lacks any social component. So far so good - biological sex is about gametes, gender identity is about feelings, gender expression is about presentation, and gender is about social norms and social ideas, right? Not entirely. In her first chapter, “Myth #1: Biological Sex is Not a Spectrum,” Soh distinguishes four things: biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and gender. Unfortunately, this is not the case for Debra Soh, author of The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society. You might expect an author of a book whose title proclaims “the end of gender” to be clear on what gender is.
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