"We may have thought that sex is exactly what psychoanalysis sets our to 'grasp', but to the extent that understanding sex would mean understanding maleness and femaleness, psychology, unlike anatomy, Freud writes, cannot define those terms with any precision. 'For psychology the contrast between the sexes fades away into one between activity and passivity, in which we far to readily identify activity with maleness and passivity with femaleness, a view which is by no means universally confirmed by the animal kingdom.'"
While reading Leo Bersani's essay, this passage really stuck out to me as something relevant to many of the ideas we have discussed in this class. First of all, Freud is basically defining the difference between the term 'sex' and the term 'gender.' Although in many cases they are interchangeable, for the sake of this explination, sex refers to the anatomical side, whereas gender is how people feel inside, more of the psychological side. For something that has seemed so black and white to us for centuries, the idea of gender is much more complicated than the anatomical body parts a person has, and even Freud notes this in his observations. This unclear line between the two also creates more fuzziness in sexuality.
Freud continues to comment on gender roles, explaining that women are seen of as less active and more passive than men, however, this is a generalization that really cannot be proven true. Freud is basically explaining that there are varying degrees of masculinity and femininity in everyone, and that theses gender specific ideas cannot be true because who can really define gender in the first place? Bersani goes on to relate this to bisexuality and its relevance with the Oedipus complex, and how Freud merely explained this as 'heterosexuality doubled.' This idea, in relation to the undefined lines between male and female, normalizes the idea of bisexuality. I had never thought about this idea in the Freudian way before, and it seems as if his explanation of this and really all differing sexualities, is well justified, as well as made simple in order to relax people and have them feel as if this type of behavior is normal.
I also noticed the definitions of sex and gender and found them really interesting. But by saying that sex refers to the anatomical aspect, whereas gender is how people feel inside, more of the psychological side, it seems as if any gray area is being ignored. Although many people would believe that sex (anatomical structures) are black and white, they aren't; and niether is gender. So keeping that in mind, how are we supposed to define the things for ourselves? Are we even suppossed to define them at all?
ReplyDelete