Sex, Gender and Sexuality …

1927.

In his essay “The Androgynous Man”, college English professor Noel Perrin chronicles a story about a time where he took a quiz in a magazine. The quiz titled “How Masculine/Feminine Are You?” consisted of a large number of inkblots. The reader was supposed to decide which of four objects each blot most resembled. The choices might be a cloud, a steam engine, a caterpillar, and a sofa. (Perrin 1927)

Upon completing the test he was terrified by the results and for the first time in his life he consciously began to question his own sexuality and the role it played in the world. It was considered masculine if you looked at the blots and you described them as “man-made” objects and it was considered “feminine” if they looked like natural objects. He became fixated on the “masculine answers” and wanted to know how those answers distinguished him, the androgynous man, from more masculine figures in society.
During the same year, Time Magazine printed a chart showing sex-appropriate colors for girls and boys according to U.S. leading stores. “In Boston, Filene’s told parents to dress boys in pink. So did Best & Co. in New York City, Halle’s in Cleveland and Marshall Field in Chicago.” (Magaty 2011)

The arguments and evolution for “gender-neutral” is an oft-traveled broken road with it’s beginnings bricked long before Perrin penned his essay.

For example, a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” Other sources said blue was flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes; or blue was for blue-eyed babies, pink for brown-eyed babies, according to Paoletti. (Magaty 2011) This information is diametrically opposed to todays views of what color society often chooses for children to wear.

As you look at the picture below, can you determine if the child in the studio portrait taken in 1884 is a boy or a girl? Consider what transpired on the day leading up to the photograph. The child’s parents purchased the best threads for the occasion then proudly made their way to the studio with their child in tow; surely they paraded their beautiful well-coifed kiddo about the town. Maybe they even went to lunch inside the department store where they took the picture. The child is wearing what would appear on a Shirley Temple collectors doll complete with a feather adorned sun hat.
Upon visual inspection of the image, every item looks new and without creases. Not one stray hair or facial scar-in a picture snapped in 1884. Perhaps the only sign that something is used appears on the front tip of the child’s left shoe and the top of the “quitter” sock as it starts to unravel and almost roll down towards the ankle. What color do you suppose the child's garbs and hair is? Why do you think that? From which country does the subject hail?

For the sake of keeping the gender question about the image opaque, I have intentionally elected to omit the source as well as the gender of the individual, although it is very easy to find.

In 1954 advertising icon Leo Burnett created the “Marlboro Man”. Burnett’s idea was to depict average everyday cowboys smoking Philip Morris’s cigarette product with the goal of turning a minor cigarette with 'a feminine image into a major brand with a rugged male image'. (Enclopedia Britannica, 2018)

On September 26, 2017 Saudi Arabia announced that it would lift it’s long standing ban which would allow women to drive. (Hubbard 2017) It seems that in the middle east, ones gender not only defines who has children, but it also relegated who was allowed to take the wheel. In my own family, the change in my life was extraordinary and liberating once my son was able to drive himself to and from school, sporting events, friends homes, the mall, the girlfriends house...etc., I can only imagine what is going to happen to the Saudi economy as their women are now "allowed" to drive cars.
The World Health Organization also describes female genital mutilation (FGM) which “is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries the Middle East and Asia, as well as among migrants from these areas.[sic] FGM is therefore a global concern.” (WHO 2018) According to the WHO, the number one reason given for mutilation is that FGM is a social convention (social norm), the social pressure to conform to what others do and have been doing, as well as the need to be accepted socially and the fear of being rejected by the community, are strong motivations to perpetuate the practice. In some communities, FGM is almost universally performed and unquestioned. As communicated by the WHO organization, being born with female parts can be a detriment to a person's sexuality as well as a right of passage.
Although there is evidence supporting the idea that ones gene variants determine ones sexuality, (Coghlan 2017) it seems to me that the determination of someone’s sexuality, although it is specifically unique to each individual, appears to be guided by society, marketing campaigns, and the region from which an individual hails.

2018.

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Citations:
Perrin, Noel. "The Androgynous Man." Reading Matters. A collection of readings for writers”, edited by The Freshman English Program: University of New Orleans, Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing. 1996, pp. 233-235.

Maglaty, J. (2011, April 07). When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink? Retrieved June 26, 2018, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/

Britannica, T. E. (2018, June 03). Leo Burnett. Retrieved June 26, 2018, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-Burnett

Hubbard, B. (2017, September 26). Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive. Retrieved June 26, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-women-drive.html

World Health Organization. (2018, January 31). Female genital mutilation. Retrieved June 26, 2018, from http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation

Coghlan, A. (2017, December 7). What do the new 'gay genes' tell us about sexual orientation? Retrieved June 26, 2018, from https://www.newscientist.com/article/2155810-what-do-the-new-gay-genes-tell-us-about-sexual-orientation/