Convergence

Stucco carving detail
Entrance to the mausoleum of the complex (Madrassah, Hospital, and Mausoleum) of Sultan Qalawun.

Aggie, Claire, Caitlin, Silke and I have all in the last few days at different moments been talking about the biological vs. the social construct in relation to sexuality.
Flashback Julia and me standing in our kitchen. Julia mentions how she used the word heteronormative, and how Mt Holyoke has influenced so much of our language and conversations.
Maybe having been away from Mt Holyoke for a year means, that I'm able to have some of the same conversations about gender in different ways with different people. I still feel as though at the end of the conversation I've hit the chicken and egg mentality. Is gender completely socially constructed? Is gender completely biological?
Being at AUC means that I'm in a completely different realm of conversations about gender-
FlashbackI was assigned Contemporary Feminist Theory as my social theory presentation in my Contemporary Sociological Theory class. I outlined my notes, and actually got extremely excited about the presentation. Backstory: There are generally four different camps of feminist theory- gender difference, gender inequality, gender oppression, and structural oppression. I would going to talk about the differences between the camps, and talk about the major movements and theorists within them.
Problem: When I began talking about gender difference, I offhandedly mentioned the debate about the word gender and sex. Blank stares from my class- realizing that perhaps coming from a school and background like Mt Holyoke, I may be a little more than well versed in the intricacies of situations such as sex vs. gender, I decided to explain the difference. The conversation got a little out of hand when another student said:
Hermaphrodites are a biological and social aberration and should be eradicated from society.
Those of you who know me well, know the ways in which I lose my temper. I have never lost my temper in a classroom setting like I did that day, nor did I ever believe it possible that I would have stood in front of a classroom during a presentation screaming the etymological roots of the word hermaphrodite.

Food for thought: A man in Spain gets preggers, transgendered women in Atlanta have to shed their wigs before being able to stay in homeless shelters- progress means regression in so many ways, shapes and forms that sometimes I wonder if we're really going any where at all.