This article aims to analyse a possible manner of approaching the birth of intersexual children. We start out by summing up what intersexuality is and how it is faced in the dominant clinical practice. We then argue against this paradigm, in favour of a postponement of genital surgery. In the second part of this paper, we take into consideration the general question of whether only two existing sexes are to be recognized, arguing in favour of an expansion of sex categories. (...) In the third part, we illustrate the reasons supporting provisional sex attribution: the child’s best interest and respect for their developing moral autonomy. This position aims to increase the child’s well-being and self-determination, limiting parents’ freedom to take decisions on behalf of others, in particular, those decisions concerning basic aspects of their children’s personal identity. (shrink)

Operations on intersexuals indicate that the sex of a person is based on more than biology. Expectations about proper gender activities furnish the frameworks through which certain features and combinations of features are understood to be fundamental to bodies and to comprise their sex. Yet, we can ask whether this interpretation is either coherent or consistent with our fuller conceptions of ourselves. Is there a point to interpreting a person as a sex?

Is intersexuality a mere difference or disorder? Since the 2006 Chicago consensus statement's disorder of sexual development (DSD) nomenclature, intersex scholars have criticized and repudiated the use of “disorder” by arguing that it is medically inaccurate, yields unwarranted surgical implications, unnecessarily pathologizes intersex individuals, and that, most importantly, intersex individuals do not prefer it. They argue for linguistic alternatives such as “difference” and other similar alternatives, for example, “variation,” “divergence,” and so forth. These criticisms of “disorder” have had significant uptake (...) by scholars writing on intersexuality. While the motivation(s) for using “mere difference” is doubtless rooted in beneficence for intersex persons, medically inaccurate intersex terminology compromises optimal clinical care and should consequently be either abandoned or revised. This focus paper argues (moderately) for the thesis that some cases of intersex are disorders, and some mere differences. The upshot of my proposal is not only that it conceptually disambiguates disorder and mere difference, but by failing to generalize unique intersex individuals their care is prioritized. (shrink)

The present study examined women’s mate competition tactics in response to female and feminine-male rivals in two cultures in which competition against both occurs. In Samoa and the Istmo Zapotec (Southern Mexico), women not only compete with other women (intrasexually) but also compete with rival feminine males (_intersexually_) in order to access/retain the same masculine men as sexual/romantic partners. Using a mixed-method paradigm, women were asked about their experiences of intra- and intersexual mate competition, and these narratives were recorded. The (...) tactics reportedly employed by participants, and those attributed to mate competitors, were categorized according to established taxonomies of mate competition tactics, and their frequencies compared. Within-culture, the likelihood that participant women had ever experienced intra- and intersexual mate competition did not differ. Furthermore, participants reported a similar pattern of behavioral tactics whether their rival was another woman or a feminine male. These included benefit provisioning tactics during mate acquisition and cost-inflicting tactics during mate retention. Similarly, the mate competition tactics attributed to rival women and rival feminine males bore a striking resemblance, focused on enticing target men. Results highlight the mate competition tactics employed by women outside of a Euro-American context, and the way cultural factors impact mating landscapes presumed to be exclusively heterosexual. The presence of feminine males, alongside masculine men’s willingness to engage in sexual activity with them, induces women in such cultures to compete intersexually in comparable ways to intrasexual competition with rival women. (shrink)

The distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is challenged by arguments that ‘sex’ is equally a social construction, initiating a selfreflexive effort to return feminism to its foundational grounding. This article concerns intersexuality and transsexualism as two bodily forms that further suggest ‘sex’ as socially inscribed. I argue that feminist theory needs to ascertain whether the artificial emphasis on sexual difference, contra nature, is better able to effect social change than conjoined efforts to expose ‘sex’ as a construction intended to ground (...) divisions. Recent support for ‘multiple genders’ often remain dependent on a morphological notion of ‘sex’, and, as such, may not constitute a radical challenge to our current ‘sex’/‘gender’ system. (shrink)

In my paper, I attempt a phenomenological analysis of the lived experience of intersexuality, which I view from the perspective of the problem of indeterminacy concerning the horizon of the givenness of homeworld founded on the broader basis of the pre-givenness of lifeworld. These horizons define the structure of the sedimentation of subjective experience, as well as the layers of cultural meanings sedimented in the lifeworld. The sedimented layers of self-experience and of the shared lifeworld function as a sphere of (...) indeterminacy, that is the horizons of constituted phenomena. In this sense all intentional acts have the nature of horizontal indeterminacy, the layers of which are revealed in the genetic question (Rückfrage) directed toward them. Horizontal indeterminacy also accounts for the distinction between homeworld and alienworld, which appears as something unobvious and unexpected against the obviousness of the homeworld, at the same time thematizing the latter. One of the elements of the sedimented conceptual system, functioning as the horizon of indeterminacy of both self-experience and the pre-reflective life-world, is the notion of human corporeality as given in the binary sexuality/gender. A unique opportunity for phenomenological insight into the constitution of the phenomenon of sex/gender is provided by Hida Viloria's lived experience of intersexuality. Her lived body, originally experienced pre-reflectively as a transparent medium and a perfectly handy tool of undisturbed intentionality, unproblematized also in the sexual activities, gradually undergoes alienation under the objectifying gaze determined by the binary pattern of sexuality. Becoming an alienated object, her body loses its transparency. Viloria begins to experience her corporeality and identity in a way determined by the sedimented "ideology" of sex and gender, trying on the "constructs" of masculine and feminine identities, eventually overcoming alienation and, in a process of secondary self-identification, reclaiming her lived body in its intersexuality and her identity in its non-binary gender fluidity. (shrink)

Since Darwin proposed that human musicality evolved through sexual selection, empirical evidence has supported intersexual selection as one of the adaptive functions of artistic propensities. However, intrasexual competition has been overlooked. We tested their relative importance by investigating the relationship between the self-perceived talent/expertise in 16 artistic and 2 sports modalities and proxies of intersexual selection and intrasexual competition in heterosexuals. Participants were 82 Brazilian men, 166 Brazilian women, 146 Czech men, and 458 Czech women. Factor analysis revealed five factors: (...) Literary-arts, Visual-arts, Musical-arts, Circus-arts, and Sports. Multivariate General Linear Model showed more associations of the arts to intersexual selection in women and to intrasexual selection in men, and overall more relationships in women than in men. In women, literary and musical-arts were related to elevated inter- and intrasexual selections proxies, visual and circus-arts were related to elevated intersexual selection proxies, and sports were related to intrasexual selection proxies. In men, literary-arts and sports were related to elevated inter- and intrasexual selection proxies, musical-arts were related to intrasexual proxies, and circus-arts were related to intersexual proxies; visual-arts did not have predictors. Although present in both sexes, each sexual selection component has different relative importance in each sex. Artisticality functions to attract and maintain long/short-term partners, and to compete with mating rivals. (shrink)

Intersexual infants and infants with other genital abnormalities often receive genital surgery for sex assignment or for normalizing purposes. The wisdom and beneficence of these practices have been questioned by intersexual individuals, support groups, some doctors, and the media. Because the practices have been developed without long-term studies to evaluate them, pediatric urologists and parents of such children must face decisions with very little guidance from empirical support. In the face of ignorance about what is really the best medical response (...) to intersexuality or genital abnormalities, some have argued for a moratorium on infant genital surgery until empirical studies are available. The urgent need for retrospective studies is now being recognized in medical journals. Because genital surgery may be appropriate and beneficent in some of these conditions, or in some degrees of these conditions, but not in others, retrospective studies must be devised to examine the degree of success of surgery for each of these conditions, or levels thereof. (shrink)

Vigil summarizes sex-related differences in emotivity, and presents a psychological model based on the restrictive assumption that responses to stimuli are dichotomous. The model uses for support the concept of intrasexual selection, but ignores intersexual selection. An alternative hypothesis might be that emotivity signals age: maturity in men and youth in women. Integration requires considering all evolutionary biology, not just agreeable concepts.

Intersex is an umbrella term for variations in sexual characteristics. Although 1.7% to 4% of the population is born outside the framework of sexual binarity, the bodies of intersex people are pathologized and, according to medical specialists, in need of “repair”. This institutional stigmatization takes the form of sex reassignment surgery or hormone treatments, justified by socio-cultural premises based on heterosexist norms. Medical discourse is based less on the health, physical and psychological dangers of intersex patients than on safeguarding gendered (...) bicategorization. At the same time, individuals with intersex variations are demanding their right to self-determination, in particular through respect for their free and informed consent. Sex-assignment surgery, motivated and oriented by historically constructed gender binarity, lead to two types of epistemic injustice. A conceptual philosophical analysis of testimonial injustice and hermeneutic injustice will help us to understand the process of making intersex invisible through the epistemic relationship between intersex people and physicians. (shrink)

In this paper, I apply Michel Foucault’s analysis of normalization to the 2006 announcement by the US and European Endocrinological Societies that variations on the term “hermaphrodite” and “intersex” would be replaced by the term, “Disorders of Sex Development” or DSD. I argue that the change should be understood as normalizing in a positive sense; rather than fighting for the demedicalization of conditions that have significant consequences for individuals’ health, this change can promote the transformation of the conceptualization of intersex (...) conditions from “disorders like no other” to “disorders like many others.” Understood in these terms, I conclude, medical attention to those with atypical anatomies should be recast from a preoccupation with “normal appearance” to the concern with human flourishing that is the proper object of medical attention. (shrink)

Through a discussion of the way science has been used to address intersexuality, I explore an idea about how to understand science as objective and yet influenced by social, historical, and cultural factors. I propose that the Semantic View of theories provides a means of understanding how science describes reality, and I look at the way science has been used to distinguish the sexes to provide an illustration.

Based on the case of Caster Semenya, I argue in this paper that the practice of Gender Verification Testing (GVT) in professional sports is unethical and pointless. The presumed benefit of GVT—ensuring fair competition for female athletes—is virtually nonexistent compared to its potential harms, in particular the exposure of individual athletes to a largely interphobic public. GVTs constitute a serious incursion on the athlete’s dignity, autonomy, and privacy; an incursion that cannot be justified by the appeal to fairness. My argument (...) will proceed in four steps. In sections 1-5, I provide background information on the definition of intersexuality, the history and methods of Gender Verification Testing, and the performance gap between men and women in professional athletics. In sections 6 and 7, I develop my main argument against GVT. In section 8, I offer a supplementary argument against GVT from the history of “gender engineering” in professional sports in the 1970s and 1980s. In section 9, I briefly consider the suggestion that the presence of intersex athletes in professional sports would force us to abandon gender segregation. (shrink)

It has been argued that competitive elite sport both (i) reduces the humanity of athletes by turning them into beings whose sole value is determined in relation to others, and (ii) is motivated by a celebration of the genetically superior and humiliation of the weak. This paper argues that while (i) is a morally reproachable attitude to competition, it is not what competitive elite sport revolves around, and that (ii) simply is not the essence of competitive elite sport. Competitive elite (...) sport is an exploration of the physical and mental demands of sport. Finally, the paper explores a number of consequences of the different views of sport with respect to the problem of intersexual women. (shrink)

Intersexuality, particularly in the global South, remains an under‐researched field of study. In my in‐progress doctoral research project, I explore the cultural, social, and medical discourses that influence how key stakeholders such as healthcare providers make decisions about the sex and gender assignment of the intersex child in India. In this paper I interrogate some of these ideas around gender assignment of intersex people in India, paying particular attention to the context of son preference. I am interested in exploring how (...) decisions of gender assignment by medical professionals are guided by ideas of son preference. Focusing on four qualitative, semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews across two cities with medical doctors from different specializations, this paper is a preliminary attempt to examine some of the factors that guide medical professionals in making decisions about gender assignment of intersex children and explore the dynamics of the decision‐making process. Specifically, I explore the factors that inform doctors’ decision‐making and locate these decision‐making processes within the broader socio‐cultural context of India. (shrink)

Using an analogy between moths and men, in 1916, Richard Goldschmidt proposed that homosexuality was a case of genetic intersexuality. As he strove to create a unified theory of sex determination that would encompass animals ranging from moths to men, Goldschmidt's doubts grew concerning the association of homosexuality with intersexuality until, in 1931, he dropped homosexuality from his theory of intersexuality. Despite Goldschmidt's explicit rejection of his theory of homosexuality, Theo Lang, a researcher in the Genealogical-Demographic Department of the Institute (...) for Psychiatric Research in Munich, revived it, maintained Goldschmidt's association with it, and argued on its behalf in publications from 1936 to 1960. Lang's appropriation of Goldschmidt's theory did not depend on his resolution of the difficulties Goldschmidt had found with his own theory. Lang and Goldschmidt, I argue, had fundamentally different scientific and social commitments that allowed one to reject this theory of homosexuality and the other to accept it. (shrink)

This article analyzes the sex and gender identity rhetoric of members of the Intersex Society of North America, which is a self-help and advocacy group whose main goals are to stop unnecessary genital surgery in ambiguously sexed infants and make medical histories available to adult intersexuals. By examining the organization's indebtedness to feminist and gay/lesbian/transperson theory and practice, the article shows how these political movements have progressively challenged the equation of sex with gender and how intersexuality exemplifies the theoretical and (...) practical problems of identity politics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth in WritingAmandaAn excerpt from my journal during a dark period in my life reads:I am a survivor of sexual mutilation, of coerced gender roles, and of perpetual lies all in the name of normalization. Sometimes I have a hard time even thinking about the true extent of what all happened. It’s like my mind doesn’t have that type of scope, like when I think about the word (...) “eternity.”I wrote this after combing through old medical records, reading comments like “her introitus has healed nicely and looks normal, but my exam suggests that her vagina is shortened,” and “reduction clitoroplasty... removal of testes.” The records go on to say that my “external genitalia is quite satisfactory,” and “on perineal exam, her neovaginal orifice is quite compliant and easily accepts my second and third digits.”My journal continues:I chose this fake hole when I was a teenager because I didn’t know there was another option. I was told from day one to be a female, to be heteronormative, to act like all the other girls, and the only way I could fully accomplish this is by looking the part. A fake hole would be necessary, I thought, to go along with the rest of the lies. Sometimes I think about how the doctors told me to lie about my surgeries and my scars. Sometimes I wonder what my parents would have told the world if I had died during one of surgeries. Maybe they would have said “we were just trying to make her fuckable.”My strength is growing from the stories and experiences I write and share. My journal started about four years ago, when I was in my early 20s, near the beginning of medical school. My initial purpose in writing the journal was to help sort through my feelings and experiences related to a newly discovered sexuality and a changing gender identity. Medical school was thousands of miles away from my previous life, my family, and my friends. Away from my old social network, I was free to self–discover on my own terms. In the first journal entry, I lay out reasons why I decided to get in contact with a therapist, something I had not done previously. Some of the reasons were fairly standard reasons one seeks out a therapist, such as moving away from home. But the fundamental reasons I sought out a therapist, and why I chose to journal, had to do with exploring feelings after my first sexual encounter with a woman, and then [End Page 98] accepting my intersexuality. My relationship with that therapist did not last, but the journaling did.In the beginning of the journal, I write:I am from a small, religious, white, non–diverse, family oriented suburb of Milwaukee. I was raised to be the picture–perfect daughter in a household that did not talk about feelings, sex, cultural or religious differences, etc. My brother and I also never talked about personal issues (and still don’t), which is quite remarkable since we are twins, and have grown up doing most everything together, from sharing birthday parties, to being locker buddies... [When my mother told me about having Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS)] knowing this little fact about my body kept me wanting to become as perfectly female in all ways possible.Growing up without being able to talk about having AIS was stifling to say the least. Closing communication implied great shame, and with the shame came even greater repression. My skate-boarding, baseball card collecting, and model car building interests disappeared after learning about my AIS, which I believe was when I was 12 years old, but I cannot remember exactly. Granted, it’s tough to say whether my interests just changed as I grew older, but I do remember having a fear of portraying any masculine tendencies that other girls in my town weren’t displaying (for example, playing soccer was okay, but I had to shave my legs). I also had crafted some pretty good covers for my AIS, including stories about when I first had my (fake) period, or how I acted fearful about a... (shrink)

Why do the two sexes have different lifespans and rates of aging? Two hypotheses based on asymmetric inheritance of sex chromosomes (“unguarded X”) or mitochondrial genomes (“mother's curse”) explain sex differences in lifespan as sex‐specific maladaptation leading to increased mortality in the shorter‐lived sex. While asymmetric inheritance hypotheses equate long life with high fitness, considerable empirical evidence suggests that sexes resolve the fundamental tradeoff between reproduction and survival differently resulting in sex‐specific optima for lifespan. However, selection for sex‐specific values in (...) life‐history traits is constrained by intersexual genetic correlations resulting in intra‐locus sexual conflict over optimal lifespan. The available data suggest that the evolution of sexual dimorphism only partially resolves these conflicts. Sexual conflict over optimal trait values, which has been demonstrated in model organisms and in humans, is likely to play a key role in shaping the evolution of lifespan, as well as in maintaining genetic variation for sex‐specific diseases. (shrink)

El presente artículo completa la tesis de Arendt-Agamben sobre los refugiados como límites a los derechos humanos. Si este límite se basa en la relación exterior de la nuda vida del refugiado con un Estado, aquí se propone la relación interior de la nuda vida intersexual con un cuerpo mutilado por la biomedicina. Al igual que la persona refugiada, la intersexual pone en cuestión los derechos y el derecho. Se plantean los conceptos cuerpo viviente, precariedad, precaridad y vulnerabilidad como base (...) de una ética del cuidado que produzca otro derecho. (shrink)

Competition over reproductive opportunities among members of one sex often harms the opposite sex, creating a conflict of interest between individual males and females. Recently, this battle of the sexes has become a paradigm in the study of intersexual coevolution. Here, we review recent theoretical and empirical advances suggesting that – as in any scenario of intraspecific competition – selfishness (competitiveness) can be influenced by the genetic relatedness of competitors. When competitors are positively related (e.g. siblings), an individual may refrain (...) from harming its competitor(s) and their mate(s) because this can improve the focal individual's inclusive fitness. These findings reveal that population genetic structure might be of paramount importance when studying the battle of the sexes. We conclude by identifying some new lines of research at the interface of sexual selection and social evolution. (shrink)

Sexual realism has traditionally held that our categories of sex refer to something real about our biology. Sexual non-realism, on the other hand, either partially or wholly rejects this position. Sexual non-realists typically point to intersexuality as evidence that our categories of sex are not inherent to nature but are culturally constructed. This paper makes use of the work of Carrie Hull in her book The Ontology of Sex to explore the philosophical backgrounds of sexual non-realism and to make a (...) general case for sexual realism from a Thomistic framework. (shrink)

With a few notable exceptions disability studies has not taken account of intersexuality, and it is principally through the lenses of feminist and queer-theory oriented ethical discussions but not through ‘straight’ bioethics that modes valuing intersex difference have been proposed. Meanwhile, the medical presupposition that intersex characteristics are inherently disabling to social viability remains the taken-for-granted truth from which clinical practice proceeds. In this paper I argue against bioethical perspectives that justify extensive and invasive pre- and post-natal medical interference to (...) eradicate intersex. I argue instead that to constitute the necessary conditions for the recognition of the intersexed child as a person, a life valid in its own right, clinicians must refrain from aggressive interference. Clinical specialists presuppose that intersexed children will be socially disabled and unrecognizable as persons; frustrated by the general failure of traditional interventions to assign a sex, clinicians are now pursuing prenatal technologies, including selective termination, to erase intersex. (shrink)

Both male ornamentation and male combat result in increased male mortality. Because population sizes are limited by a carrying capacity, increased age-specific adult male mortality will result in decreased age-specific adult female mortality, as well as decreased juvenile mortality. As intersexual competition is one form of intraspecific competition, through choosing to mate with ornamented and/or combative males, females in polygamous systems reduce intraspecific competition. Because average male fitness must exactly equal average female fitness, male fitness will paradoxically rise with increasing (...) male mortality. This theory also offers new perspectives on peripheral problems to sexual theory, such as mate location, resource guarding, leks, harems, and others. (shrink)

Although "intrasexual selection" has been accepted as the mechanism by which males evolve elaborate secondary sexual traits which are used in aggressive contests, the importance of "intersexual selection" as a mechanism by which males have acquired exaggerated traits to display to females during courtship was less readily accepted. In spite of this scepticism, several genetic models have supported the latter idea, and many empirical studies showed that females were generally more discriminating in mate choice than males, because of differences in (...) relative investment between sexes. Nowadays, this idea is reinforced by various concepts (parental investment, potential reproductive rate, environmental potential for polygamy...) which stress that the strength of sexual selection is related to many interdependent factors, such as mating systems, resource distribution (food, habitat, mate), life history and other ecological characteristics. The case of Salmonids is presented here to show how novel information on sexual selection has contributed to the understanding of the plasticity of breeding patterns in the context of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

Irish Travellers constitute a pre-demographic-shift population living among a post-demographic-shift one. Their socio-medico profile identifies them as largely on fast life-history trajectories. In addition, they are strongly religious, highly sexually behaviorally dimorphic, with strong traditions of male-male competition and quasi-symbolic bride capture. Their male-male competitions thus allow for the comparative testing of a number of interesting theories pertaining to the nature and function of types of violence in society. As a pilot study, we used expert raters to analyze a number (...) of real-life bare-knuckle competitions in terms of the support said spectacles offered to theories of this sort of violence as reinforcing ideas of antisociality, hierarchical promotion, intersexual signaling, or maintenance of within-group equality. We found good evidence to support theories of within-group, prosocial hierarchical functions for these contests. Limitations and implications for future research, such as direct measurement of fitness, are discussed. (shrink)

The text questions the idea of transgenderism, or more specifically, the positioning of the androgynous paradigm that is ecological , as a possible Utopian projection into the future; as a radical NO to the present that still has not, regardless of whether we like it or not, fulfilled the possibility of legal and political status for all forms of life.Naturally enough, apart from an interpretation of the androgyne as the archetype of the unity of oppossing energies , I also take (...) into account Kari Weil’s interpretation of the androgyne,according to whose unmasking the androgyne also figures as the misogynous ideal, a construct of the patriarchal ideosphere. Or, as Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar have proposed – the alternative term gynandrous , since the very structure of the lexeme androgyny reflects the power of the male symbolic vision over the female view of the Universe.Considering the circumstances in Croatia, transgenderism is perceived in the text as an ignored state of affairs, since intersexuals are not categorised in the »Statute on the Structure and Method of Work of the Expert Opinion Component in Implementing Rights from Social Welfare and Other Rights According to Specific Regulations«, which simply means that they have no specific rights under the present social welfare system.By way of the identity of the androgyne as a third gender, which unifies the categories of masculinity and femininity, or, more specifically, by the ecological androgynous paradigm, I consider the attempt to delete the dichotomy of neglected Nature versus culture, as explicated, for example,by the feminist biologist Lynda Birke, and the attempt to achieve a bioethical encounter between the human animal and the ‘nonhuman’ animal, which I define conditionally with the term transspeciesism, which covers the ethical negation of speciesism.Namely, within the framework of eco/feminist theory, the socio-cultural anthropologist Barbara Noske was one of the first to put forward the question of the human relation towards other animals, demanding the establishment of an anthropology of animals, since – even now – only an anthropology of humans exists in relation to animals. (shrink)

Purpose of the articleThe presented study introduces the psychological factors which influence the creative development of young people in their families, especially from psychological position - acquired of birh of order - point of view. The study presents basic theoretical theses of birth orders´concept, as A. Adler and his followers introduced into psychological literature; it also brings information from empirical researches about the groups of five positions´ birth order: first-born, send-born, middle-born, youngest and parents´only children in relation to their psychological (...) characteristics. The second part is dedicated to issue of birth order in relation to creativity, intelligence and personality traits of 153 adolescents - students of the last year of high school who passed the exams for the artistic - technical study at the Faculty of Architecture with the average age 18.32 years. Methodology/methods The creativity was identified by Urban’s Test of Creative Thinking and Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. The intelligence was identified by the nonverbal Test of General Abilities. The Slovak version of NEO FFI Inventory was used for the measuring of five personality dimensions. The anamnestic data were obtained from our Questionnaire of the Family Constellation. The results were statistically processed by means of ANOVA SPSS program. The inter-group differences based on the birth-order were tested by the one-way ANOVA method as well as two-way analysis by ANOVA method and by T-test. Scientific aim The aim of the study was to find out in what kind of families live the gifted students, what are intersexual differences in creativity, intelligence, personality traits and in what birth order live the gifted adolescents, what are their typical personality traits and also the specifics of their creativity and the level of intelligence. Findings The research results on the sample of 153 adolescents showed that higher performances in the fluency and flexibility of thinking in the Torrance Creativity Test showed the women in comparison to men. The results indicate that the birth order differentiates the groups of gifted adolescents in the personality dimension openness to experience and agreeableness. Highly creative adolescents have ascribed themselves more often characteristics connected with creativity.The findings are comented as to the implications for the role of the creativity in both sexes and for the composition research sample and for research methods too. The other findings dealing with the specifics of creativity will be more broadly discussed in the study. (shrink)

Technological advances in the field of medicine and health sciences not only manipulate the normal human body and sex but also provide for surgical and hormonal management of hermaphroditism. Consequently, sex assignment surgery has not only become a standard care for babies born with genital abnormalities in the West but even in some Muslim states. On the positive side, it goes a long way in saving children born with abnormal genitalia from numerous legal interdictions of the pre-sex corrective surgery. Nevertheless, (...) the larger ethical and legal questions that medical management of genital abnormality raises to some extent have not been adequately appreciated by contemporary Muslim responses. This article, therefore, in principle argues against surgical management of intersexuality during early infancy from the Islamic legal perspective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) 319-328 [Access article in PDF] Introduction Mary-Kay Gamel Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazousai (Women at the Thesmophoria Festival) takes its title from an important three-day religious festival celebrated by women in honor of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. In this play, the playwright Euripides learns that the women of Athens plan to use the occasion of this women-only gathering to put him on trial (...) for the negative depictions of women in his plays. Euripides convinces a relative of his to dress in female costume, infiltrate the festival, and find out what the women are up to. The plot is quickly uncovered and the intruder captured. After several rescue schemes based on scenes from Euripides' tragedies fail, the playwright wins his relative's freedom by agreeing never to slander women again.Thesmophoriazousai has strong characters, a lively plot, and themes significant and timely both then and now—the relation between gender and performance, the representation of women in the media, an artist's responsibility. Yet it has received little attention from scholars and realized even fewer productions. The most obvious reason for neglect is the play's lack of explicit political commentary. Dover, for example, thinks it "leaves us with nothing difficult to think about... it has nothing to say about making peace" (1972, 169). The play contains considerable literary and dramatic criticism, in the form of both explicit commentary and parody, but this aspect has been far less studied than the contest between the tragedians in Aristophanes' Frogs. Some critics think the play weak compared to other plays of Aristophanes. Lever, for example, finds the conflict "not so clear-cut" since "the idea at stake... is only the stepping-off point for the fun that follows" (1956, 120). There are exceptions to this neglect. Norwood ranks Thesmophoriazousai far above Lysistrata: "for dazzling wit and irresistibly laughable farce combined this play is perhaps the world's finest masterpiece... glorious foolery suffused by a thrice-refined intellectual virtuosity that never misses a point, never overstresses it" (1931, 253-54). Rau (1967) gives the tragic parodies their due; in his substantial chapter on Thesmophoriazousai, Moulton declares it "skillfully composed and unified" (1981, 142); Bierl (2001) provides a detailed study of the role of the chorus. Yet the inattention continues: [End Page 319] Harriott (1986), Reckford (1987), and Segal (2001) mention the play only briefly.The years 2000 and 2001 seemed like a promising time to reconsider Thesmophoriazousai. The play's obscenity, which Norwood thought the only cause of its neglect, is no longer an obstacle. Recent scholarship on the religious and ritual context of Athenian drama helps us understand the role of the Thesmophoria and women's ritual in the play. And the rise of feminist criticism offers new perspectives on its portrayal of gender relations. Whitman unambiguously uses gender to denigrate the play: "These women are scarcely the warm wives and mothers of the Lysistrata, but rather a pack of vengeful furies... Femininity, whether real or assumed, is under a somewhat morbid cloud; by contrast, there is something genuinely refreshing about the masculinity of Mnesilochus [as he calls the Kinsman]... Comedy is virile, like Mnesilochus, and essentially truthful; tragedy is at best a hermaphroditic affair" (1964, 223-24). In a ground-breaking article first published in 1981, Zeitlin instead sees the play's connections between gender conflict and genre conflict—"the equivalence between intertextuality and intersexuality"—as the source of its power (1996, 375-416).Some feminists, however, question the function and effect of women's portrayal in Athenian plays written by males for male actors and possibly for an all-male audience. Zeitlin has argued that in Athenian tragedy, women are figures of male self-representation: "the self that is really at stake is to be identified with the male, while the woman is assigned the role of the radical other... functionally women are never an end in themselves, and nothing changes for them once they have lived out their drama on stage... they play the roles of catalysts, agents, instruments, blockers... and sometimes helpers or saviors for the male characters"... (shrink)