It
has often been the goal of feminist organizations to protect and defend women.
Recently, the “stop violence against women” movement gained popular
attention. Such a movement is, taken at face value, hard to oppose.
However, while any attempt to reduce violence is to be applauded, does
this campaign not in some ways reinforce the notion that being female is
somehow a disability? Does it not imply that women are weaker and
therefore in need of special protection? Is stopping violence against men
not an equally worthy cause? Rosemarie Garland-Thompson writes that
“Indeed, equating femaleness with disability is common, sometimes to denigrate
women and sometimes to defend them.” Efforts to classify women as
My thoughts on sex and gender have been shifting throughout this course. When Paul Grobstein came to speak, I entered and left the classroom with the deep-set belief that there are two sexes, and two only. After thinking about it further, I’ve pondered about this idea, toying with the notion that perhaps there can be more than two sexes. Already I agree with the theory that gender is social and not always dependent on sex. Transgendered individuals struggle so much to switch genders that there must be some internal force pushing them to a gender different from their sex. No one would go through the ordeal of transitioning if there was no strong drive to do so, and therefore I must view sex and gender as occasionally independent.