ABSTRACT
Section 1 Biology and Sexuality in Gender Development
The nature/nurture debate on gender development is framed according to biological and sociocultural explanations of gendered behavior. Grounded in sexual dimorphism and the gender binary, justifications against gender equality center on biological approaches favoring evolution, genetics, animal behavior and sociobiological explanation for human behavior. Cultural explanations center on the gendering of sexuality (sexual scripts setting up the sexual double standard), the ambiguities of sex and gender (transgender, gender affirmation surgery, gender dysphoria) and global patterns (people identified as “third gender”). Freud’s sexism in his “anatomy is destiny discourse” is disavowed. Psychoanalytic feminism, however, reframes his theory to explain women’s subordination due to human relationships rather than human nature, offering productive therapeutic approaches for female clients. The David Reimer case study shows that essentialism, whether cultural or biological, is unproductive to explain sexual incongruities. Sociologists favor the nurture side of the debate, but both nature and nurture must be accounted for in explanations of gendered behavior. Nature and nurture are mutually collaborative in gender development and can be used to advance social justice.
Section 2 Gender and Health
Male and female mortality and morbidity rates are explained sociologically, including trends in body image, eating disorders, substance abuse, HIV, and heart disease. To date, men appear to be more at risk of mortality from coronavirus (COVID-19) than women, but women’s roles and overall gender inequities increase risks in contacting it. All these patterns show both genetic and cultural influences, the latter strongly associated with intersectional perils of race and SES. The women’s health movement challenges androcentric medicine and the lack of female subjects in medical research. The movement empowers women as patients and as health practitioners.
