ABSTRACT
What is it to call oneself a woman or a man? Today, most of us take both this question and its answer for granted. To call oneself a woman or a man is simply to state the truth of one’s identity, and one’s identity is known to oneself and seen by others as one’s body. To be a man is to have a penis, to be strong and powerful, to grow facial hair, to have a deep voice, and to be master of the household. To be a woman is not to have a penis, to demur and acquiesce, to be delicate and gentle, to have breasts and hips, and to do what one’s husband demands. To call oneself a man or a woman is to identify what one is, what one always has been, what could be no other way. And calling oneself a man or a woman marks one with one of the most powerful and obvious symbols of the human we have-gender/sex.
