The Sex of the Body Politic: Questioning the Legal Constraints on Genderism between Law and Literature

Abstract

Abstract The acknowledgement of the concept of gender identity is a somewhat recent conquest that has come about thanks mainly to the accomplishments of science and modern technology. The Italian system outlines the generally dominant judicial categories and gives only a partial idea of the historical and judicial evolution of the story of gender. History shows that past societies were more tolerant, or simply more accepting of issues of sexuality. Their more relaxed attitude was reflected in culture and literature and in their more open approach towards matters regarding homosexuality, transsexuality, intersexuality and even transvestism. But it was with Shakespeare that the supremacy of heterosexuality and the sexual canons of the dominant culture saw a major shake-up. Shakespeare used devices like the feminization of the male and women playing male parts as narrative pretexts to comment on themes such as the rivalry between the sexes in the contention for power, conflicts that give rise to a symbiosis between genders and disfigurements of the body that overturn the social order that is shaped by gender binary.