Researching masculinities, narrating sexual difference

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to engage with a foundational gendered imaginary in Western medical and popular discourse regarding fetal sexual development. It is an imaginary that consists of dual narratives that bolster an oppositional complementary model of sex-gender. By these accounts male sexual development results from complex and multi-faceted processes generated by the Y chromosome while female sexual development is straightforward, articulated through a discourse of “default sex” (Jost, 1953). Such apparent truths fit seamlessly with the timeworn notion of maleness and masculinity as always already active, and femaleness and femininity always and inevitably passive. In other words, he does and she is. Design/methodology/approach – Despite embryogenetic findings thoroughly debunking these ideas, contemporary medical and biological textbooks remain haunted by outdated androcentric models of sex development. This paper attends to biomedical and everyday understandings of sex and gender to demonstrate how fresh lines of inquiry produce conditions that enable new ways of understanding bodies and embodied experiences. Findings – This paper demonstrates how new ways of thinking can lead to a new understanding with regards to sex, gender, bodies, and experiences. Originality/value – This paper attends to biomedical and everyday understandings of sex and gender to demonstrate how fresh lines of inquiry produce conditions that enable new ways of understanding bodies and embodied experiences.