The colour of life

Human social and cultural life rests on the way we categorise elements in the world, both physical objects and people. This process is fundamental, inescapable and probably necessary. The question is, however, whether our categories reflect ‘reality’ or create it. Questions such as this have been brought into high relief as old certainties have been challenged and replaced, and people have started to assert identities and modes of being that were previously ‘not allowable’. This lays down challenges to organisational life which itself is posited on the basis of unchallenged categories and associated assumptions about what is or is not ‘normal’ for human beings. Moreover, with the advent of globalism there has developed a new (and overdue) recognition of diversity as an important aspect of organisational functioning, forcing organisations to re-evaluate what is and is not important in matters of similarity and difference in the workplace. In this paper we examine some aspects of diversity as it relates to identity, gender and sexuality. When asked to record their sex on a form most people will respond to ‘M’ or ‘F’without much thought, on the basis that it is a clear and true reflection of natural distinction. However, the division of the human race into male and female turns out to be one of the ‘great assumptions’ that, upon closer examination is anything but straightforward. For many people not only does this simple dichotomy not reflect their felt and experienced reality, in many ways it effectively disbars them from full recognition socially, psychologically andlegally as members of the human family, acting as a simplistic Procrustean Bed that restricts human diversity and potential, often simply for the sake of bureaucratic convenience. As such it can represent a tyranny of normality that ultimately affects, and indeed effects, everyone. In this paper we examine some of the implications of the differentiation of the sexes into male and female. We argue that the little boxes represent a potent statement about the world not as it is, but as we think it ought to be, representing little more than a coercive bureaucratic dictum about what is ‘normal’. It is apparent, however, that there are real human experiences and identities that more readily find their expression located in the so-called ‘third space’ between the male-female categories, but which, on account of the assumed discreteness of the gender polarisation, are thus rendered invisible, accidental, mistaken, exotic, perverse, unnatural or simply morally ‘wrong’. We argue that the crude division of humanity into male and female is rooted in an inappropriate digital model that too rigidly constrains people into apparently impermeable categories. In contrast we argue that for matters of gender, and indeed sex and sexuality, a better conceptualisation can be achieved by what Wilden (1980) calls an analogue model thatidentifies dynamic spectra of difference and similarity that do not easily lend themselves to simple static categories of analysis, existence or experience.

The colour of life Paper prepared for ESRC Seminar Series Identities and Change. Seminar 2: Gender in Change: Gendering Change. Durham Business School University of Durham 9th September 2003 Draft date: 3 March 2004 27 August 2003 Dr. Lesley Prince The Gethenian Foundation University of Birmingham Tanya Arroba Associates 149 Gillott Road Edgbaston Birmingham B16 0ET lesleyprince@blueyonder.co.uk Peter Pritchett Tanya Arroba Associates 22 Rectory Road Sutton Coldfield West Midlands B75 7AL peter.pritchett1@virgin.net This paper is based on a much longer piece in preparation by Dr. Lesley Prince called ‘Sex, gender and the colour of life’, which is a more detailed examination of the issues surrounding diversity, gender identity and sexuality. Much of this has grown out of long discussions between Dr. Prince and Mr. Pritchett around their lived experiences of diversity. Both are actively involved collaboratively in diversity training and consultancy around these issues, drawing not only from their experiences of lived diversity, but also their professional knowledge built up through teaching, research and clinical practice as counsellors. CONTENTS Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Ticking little boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 On language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 It’s all about making babies, isn’t it? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Masculinity and Femininity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Not everyone with a penis is male . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Gender and identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Colour: A metaphor for sexual being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Conclusions: What are the implications for practice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The colour of life Abstract Human social and cultural life rests on the way we categorise elements in the world, both physical objects and people. This process is fundamental, inescapable and probably necessary. The question is, however, whether our categories reflect ‘reality’ or create it. Questions such as this have been brought into high relief as old certainties have been challenged and replaced, and people have started to assert identities and modes of being that were previously ‘not allowable’. This lays down challenges to organisational life which itself is posited on the basis of unchallenged categories and associated assumptions about what is or is not ‘normal’ for human beings. Moreover, with the advent of globalism there has developed a new (and overdue) recognition of diversity as an important aspect of organisational functioning, forcing organisations to re-evaluate what is and is not important in matters of similarity and difference in the workplace. In this paper we examine some aspects of diversity as it relates to identity, gender and sexuality. When asked to record their sex on a form most people will respond to ‘M’ or ‘F’ without much thought, on the basis that it is a clear and true reflection of natural distinction. However, the division of the human race into male and female turns out to be one of the ‘great assumptions’ that, upon closer examination is anything but straightforward. For many people not only does this simple dichotomy not reflect their felt and experienced reality, in many ways it effectively disbars them from full recognition socially, psychologically and legally as members of the human family, acting as a simplistic Procrustean Bed that restricts human diversity and potential, often simply for the sake of bureaucratic convenience. As such it can represent a tyranny of normality that ultimately affects, and indeed effects, everyone. In this paper we examine some of the implications of the differentiation of the sexes into male and female. We argue that the little boxes represent a potent statement about the world not as it is, but as we think it ought to be, representing little more than a coercive bureaucratic dictum about what is ‘normal’. It is apparent, however, that there are real human experiences and identities that more readily find their expression located in the so-called ‘third space’ between the male-female categories, but which, on account of the assumed discreteness of the gender polarisation, are thus rendered invisible, accidental, mistaken, exotic, perverse, unnatural or simply morally ‘wrong’. We argue that the crude division of humanity into male and female is rooted in an inappropriate digital model that too rigidly constrains people into apparently impermeable categories. In contrast we argue that for matters of gender, and indeed sex and sexuality, a better conceptualisation can be achieved by what Wilden (1980) calls an analogue model that identifies dynamic spectra of difference and similarity that do not easily lend themselves to simple static categories of analysis, existence or experience. The Colour of Life Page 1 of 28 The colour of life The division of the universe into parts and wholes is convenient and may be necessary; but no necessity determines how it shall be done. (Bateson, 1979: 47) Introduction Human social and cultural life rests in the way we categorise elements in the world, both physical objects and people. This process is fundamental, inescapable and probably necessary. The question is, however, whether our categories reflect ‘reality’ or create it. Questions such as this have been brought into high relief as old certainties have been challenged and replaced, and people have started to assert identities and modes of being that were previously ‘not allowable’. This lays down challenges to organisational life which itself is posited on the basis of unchallenged categories and associated assumptions about what is or is not ‘normal’ for human beings. Moreover, with the advent of globalism there has developed a new (and overdue) recognition of diversity as an important aspect of organisational functioning, forcing organisations to re-evaluate what is and is not important in matters of similarity and difference in the workplace. In this paper we examine some aspects of diversity as it relates to identity, gender and sexuality. Borrowing Wilden’s (1980) distinction, we wish to argue that the crude division of humanity into male and female is rooted in an inappropriate digital model that too rigidly constrains phenomena, for which we should substitute the better term ‘people’, into apparently impermeable categories. In contrast we will argue that for matters of gender, sexuality, and indeed sex, a better conceptualisation can be achieved by what Wilden calls an analogue model that identifies spectra of differences and similarities that do not easily lend themselves to simple categories of analysis, existence or experience. Ticking little boxes Imagine that you are filling in a form. Perhaps you are applying for life insurance, or booking a holiday, or simply registering for something as trivial as an academic conference. Eventually you will encounter two little boxes, one marked ‘M’ and the other ‘F’. How do you respond? Most people will tick one of the boxes without a moment’s thought. It is a simple task, easily accomplished, and, in the natural order of things, it means little. After all, the boxes are likely to be relatively tiny in comparison with all the other boxes on the form, and, although one might cavil at the presumed necessity for recording a person’s sex, sex is a fact of life and one of the more obvious and certain ways of categorising humanity. One might argue that for many aspects of human endeavour one’s sex is irrelevant, but most would nevertheless accept that it is a clear and true reflection of natural distinction. The Colour of Life Page 2 of 28 Except that it isn’t. The division of the human race into male and female turns out to be one of the ‘great assumptions’; one of those taken-for-granted, common sense divisions of the world that, upon closer examination is anything but straightforward. For many people, and nobody’s quite sure how many, not only does the simple dichotomy not reflect their felt and experienced reality, in many ways it effectively disbars them from full recognition socially, psychologically and legally as members of the human family. Indeed, the simplicity of the binary distinction between male and female turns out to be a simplistic Procrustean Bed that restricts human diversity and potential, often simply for the sake of bureaucratic convenience. As such it can represent a tyranny of ‘normality’ that ultimately affects, and indeed effects, everyone. In this paper we want to examine some of the implications of the differentiation of the sexes into male and female. We will argue that obvious though it seems, and innocuous though the little boxes mentioned earlier appear, these represent a series of potent statements about the world not as it is, but as we think it ought to be. Further, we wish to argue that they are extraordinarily powerful in the way they not only construct but constrain the world as we experience it, as we live it, and often represent little more than a coercive bureaucratic dictum about what is ‘normal’. The male-female dichotomy sets up a binary pair of presumed ‘opposites’, and regardless of theorising about androgyny (e.g. Bem, 1974, 1985, 1993; Colgrave, 1979; Cook, 1979; Singer, 1977) and ‘differences of degree’ (e.g. Gilbert & Sher, 1999), it still represents a widely held view in which the poles of an opposition are thought of as mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive in their division of the human sexual world. As Garber (1992) remarks, this dichotomy presents a hard distinction erasing other possibilities of being, which she refers to as the ‘third term’, those points or spaces between, above or outside the categories. This is the same space that Magnus Hirschfeld and his colleagues identified as ‘Zwischenstufen’ - stages in between (Wolff, 1986). It is apparent, however, that there are real human experiences and identities that more readily find their expression located in this third space, but which, on account of the assumed discreteness of the gender polarisation, are thus rendered invisible, accidental, mistaken, exotic, perverse, unnatural or simply morally ‘wrong’. A fundamental question here is how do we decide who is male and who is female? (Benjamin, 1966; Money & Tucker, 1977; Strong, et al., 1996). A related question, although not quite the same one, is how do we decide who is a woman, and who is a man? (FaustoSterling, 1993). These questions may appear at first glance to be either trivial or too hopelessly exotic to have any bearing on the world. But they are neither trivial nor exotic, as we hope to show. As we all know, society treats the two sexes very differently, and the results of the decision have implications for life experiences, social expectations, opportunities and ultimately well being (Kelly, 1991; Oakley, 1972). Moreover, as we examine the questions more closely what appears to be a simple problem gradually recedes into that web of complexity and nuance that is so familiar in the study of social realities. As Benjamin (1966) remarks: Ordinarily, the purpose of scientific investigation is to bring more clarity, more light into fields of obscurity. Modern researches, however, delving into The Colour of Life Page 3 of 28 ‘the riddle of sex’, have actually produced - so far - more obscurity, more complexity. (Benjamin, 1966: 5). Later we will argue that the ‘third term’ mentioned by Garber, and others such a Herdt (1994), can itself be too restrictive for some purposes, that it, too, relies on fairly rigid points on a dimension. In contrast we will argue for an approach rooted in multiple spectra of differentiation that, we think, more readily captures the reality of gender as it is lived and performed. Our primary metaphor here is colour, hence the title we have chosen for the paper. Colours shade imperceptibly into one another in multiple and complex patterns. This metaphor we believe more appropriately captures the complexities and subtleties of sex, sexuality and gender than the crudity of the simple and fixed dichotomy of the sexes that we are more familiar with. But we should also emphasise that we are not arguing that we should therefore abandon the convenience of the simple binary ‘male and female’ for much of dayto-day life. We presume that most people are generally happy to be one or the other, and that therefore there is little necessity for altering our forms to read ‘M’, ‘F’, ‘Other’. Indeed, we would argue that there are occasions when even the relative crudity of the simple binary distinction is itself too sophisticated for some purposes, and that an even cruder category ‘human’ - may be more appropriate. But there is nevertheless a pressing need in some areas of human activity where a greater subtlety of approach is necessary, an approach which makes room for the ‘other’, and recognises that ‘diversity’ is the norm rather than the exception in human life, as applicable to sex and gender as to any other area of human experience. On language In the introduction we used the terms sex and gender quite loosely, almost as synonyms. This reflects much of current practice, and confusion. Some authors are quite explicit that the two terms are interchangeable in their work. Cook, for example, notes very early in her book that: ‘Sex (gender) is a duality central to our social reality’ (Cook, 1985: 1). Some of this usage seems to represent a simple conceptual blindness rooted in the ‘obviousness’ of the biological distinction between male and female. In other cases, however, the conflation of the terms seems to have its origin in a curious squeamishness about the word ‘sex’. Several authors have noted this development in which ‘gender’ has become a more ‘polite’ alternative for ‘sex’: Gender has come to be used as a euphemistic synonym for all the meanings of sex except sexual intercourse. As I assess the situation, this usage has come about out of some sense that the word gender is somehow more polite ... than the word sex. Thus, on questionnaires, I frequently see respondents asked to indicate their gender, that is whether they are biologically male or female. This sloppy usage has become quite prevalent. (Gentile, 1998: 15 - 16. See also, Gentile, 1993; Unger & Crawford, 1998). In more politically informed work, authors also frequently use sex and gender as synonyms, but for different reasons. In order to move away from, and critique, notions of biological essentialism, in which the alleged differences between the sexes are implicitly and explicitly The Colour of Life Page 4 of 28 held to be the inevitable results of biology, authors such as Oakley (1972), Unger (1979) and Hare-Mustin & Marecek (1990), for example, aimed to draw attention to the social and political construction of differences between the sexes. It is also used in contexts in which the authors wish to challenge the traditionally heavy (and often exclusive) emphasis on male experience as a basis for generalisations about the human race as a whole. Whatever the reasons for treating sex and gender as synonyms, in practice, it creates conceptual knots that become progressively more difficult to unravel as one moves away from crude biological understandings to embrace more social and political notions of what it is to be male or female (Alsop et al., 2002; Benjamin, 1966; Brannon, 2002; Stoller, 1985; Weeks, 1986, 1989). Indeed, when talking about sex and gender language frequently serves as an impediment to, rather than facilitator of, understanding, with the spectre of inappropriate stereotyping never very far away. As a consequence some authors, such as Gentile, have tried to ‘clean up’ or even regulate usage in order to avoid these tangles and this has resulted in a lively, if inconclusive, series of debates (Deaux, 1998; Gentile, 1993, 1998; Unger & Crawford, 1998). There are several interesting features to these discussions. First, there seems to be an emphasis on differences between the sexes rather than similarities. Whether this is intentional or otherwise, it has the result of creating at the outset an approach or mindset that is predisposed to the identification of separation rather than inclusion, thus not only reinforcing the fundamentally polarised dichotomy, but also emphasising its oppositional aspects. Second, there also appears to be a concern with the causes of difference. It is by no means clear, however, that either, especially the latter, is essential to developing an understanding of gender dynamics. In general most researchers on sex and gender issues, whatever their background discipline, take a sceptical view on whether any particular human trait or behaviour can reliably or clearly be ascribed to nature or nurture, let alone whether the varying extents to which nature or nurture might contribute can be estimated. Most take the view, or at least consider it pragmatically most useful, to consider human behaviour as the product of interactions between nature and nurture. But by itself this is insufficient to account for all the questions that might be asked about gender and sex. Its focus is too much on the sovereign individual divorced from cultural and social context. The nature/nurture debate ... revolves around the causes of gender - biological or social - whereas the dichotomy between essentialism and social constructionism is about the location of gender - within the individual (essentialism) or within social arrangements (social constructionism). (Anselmi & Law, 1998: 8). Here Anselmi and Law draw attention to important questions of cultural practices and expectations, as well those of identity and performativity (Spargo, 1999). If a person identifies as a man or woman, as female or male, are they expressing something about their core identity - something within - or something better understood in terms of the social and political environments in which they move and work? (Gherardi, 1995). Furthermore, when The Colour of Life Page 5 of 28 others identify or categorise a person as male, female, woman, man, is this an expression of something essential about that person or something about the way that person locates, is located and acts within their social and political environments? In a sense we can ask which of their many realities are they talking about? Importantly this raises questions about other areas of human sexual being - sexuality, sexual preference and sexual orientation - and their relations to sex and gender. Normative expectations of appropriate conduct for women and men, males and females, clearly specify the acceptability or otherwise of different foci of desire. And even here the questions of terminology are neither straightforward nor settled (Hearn, et al., 1989; Keller, 1987; Weeks, 1986, 1989). Whichever way we turn in these areas we find stereotypes lurking to bite our ankles whenever we try to express any points or articulate any insight. Stereotypes around sexuality are not hard to find: the effeminate gay man; the butch lesbian. What are we to make of these in relation to sex and gender? Is an effeminate gay man female or simply feminine. Is a butch lesbian male, or simply masculine? And what of those lesbians and gay men who do not fit the stereotypes - the ‘muscle maries’ and the ‘lipstick lesbians’? Here, perhaps, we should add that some of our observations are based on our experience in clinical practice. Most of the gay men we know are adamant that they are male, and pleased to be so. Most of the lesbians amongst our friends are adamant they are female, and pleased to be so. But there are variations. One friend looks and, for the most part, behaves in an unambiguously male manner. He is happy and proud to be a man, but describes his soul as female. Similarly another friend sees herself happily as a woman, and unambiguously female, yet describes herself as a ‘gentleman’. The important point here is that these people are not being flippant but are trying to express something about themselves and how they relate to the world. But they raise important questions about the relationships between sex, gender and sexuality and how they impinge on identity and conduct (Hearn, et al., 1989). They also raise questions about what we mean by related terms such as feminine and masculine which were purposely left undefined above but which we address separately below. So, where does this leave relations between the terms sex, gender and sexuality? Clearly they are not straightforward, and the issue threatens to become extremely tortuous - if we let it. The question of language becomes fraught if we attempt to derive any definitive statements or legislate for how terms should be used. But these remain important questions, even though difficult to answer. As with so much that is truly interesting about people there is a sense of fluidity between the boundaries of what the terms refer to. Here we do not propose even to attempt any answers; for present purposes it is simply enough to acknowledge that such questions are worth asking. But even to explore the issues requires at least some minimum clarity in the use of words. Part of the problem lies in the way the terms are conceptualised by different authors, and also by their research orientation. Deaux remarks that: My own preference, first stated in 1985, is to use sex when one is referring to The Colour of Life Page 6 of 28 ... the demographic categories of male and female. ... I advocate the use of gender when one is making judgements or inferences about the nature of femaleness and maleness, of masculinity and femininity. Thus, I argue for terms such as gender identity, gender stereotypes, and gender roles. (Deaux, 1998: 21). Although useful this still begs the question about the ‘demographic categories of male and female’. Furthermore, by identifying sex as a demographic variable, although implicitly acknowledging biological factors, it nevertheless simultaneously downplays them. This is a mistake because biology cannot seriously be ignored in discussions about people. Whatever else we are, we remain part of the biological world as well as part of the social and political world (de Waal, 1999). While we are not here particularly concerned with identifying the causes of sex or gender differences, it is important to recognise that both biology and society play important roles. It is sufficient for present purposes to recognise that there is a sense in which differences clearly exist, and that we recognise differences, even if we aren’t sure what they are or where they come from. We are, however, interested in the experiences of sex and gender, and how they impinge on life as it is lived. For the rest of this paper, therefore, we will adopt a crude and arguable approach to the biological and cultural distinction. Controversial though it undoubtedly is, we will use sex to refer to the biological nuts and bolts, and gender for everything else, especially those aspects that are primarily psychological, social or cultural. We do not apologise for the inevitably ensuing woolliness, nor for the damage that we may do to cherished and established distinctions. We are firmly of the view that the vagueness is an unavoidable characteristic of the territory. Let us, then, begin with sex. It’s all about making babies, isn’t it? The binary distinction between male and female has a functional utility at the crudest biological level, and it would be naive and perverse to deny it. Whatever else we are, we remain biological organisms - animals - subject to some of the same basic impulses and drives as other animals, especially the impulse to procreate. Roughly this can be captured in the simple formula: M+F=B where M means ‘Male’, F means ‘Female’ and B means ‘Baby’. To some this is not only self evident, but is taken as the defining quality of the two sexes, and as the absolute bedrock of normality. But it raises more questions than it answers. If the process of copulation, plus a resultant offspring, are the defining factors in the identification of men and women, then it follows, straightforwardly and without complication, that those people who do not copulate are not ‘proper’ men or women. At least they are not complete men or women. More seriously, those who do not produce offspring cannot be ‘proper’ men or women either. This is not a trivial thought. It can and does cause genuine human pain. To see that for some people at least this has serious consequences, one has only to consider accounts, frequently The Colour of Life Page 7 of 28 touted in the media, of childless couples who in their despair may describe themselves as incomplete, or not normal, members of their sex. Imagine a society which in various ways fosters a desire (uniformly amongst those of both sexes) to raise children, and there is a widely held principle that fertile couples should have children. Those who do not do so are regarded as selfish, perhaps as failing in their religious duty, and in various ways are subject to informal criticism and sanctions. From an early age children are raised with the expectation that they too will become parents, and are taught that there is something wrong with childlessness (Mason, 2000: 243) People who choose a life of celibacy are also deeply suspect, a charge often levelled at priests and nuns for example. This view is expressed starkly by H. L. Mencken: A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man. (Mencken, 1956: 221, quoted in Cohen & Cohen, 1971: 154). Perhaps this is just to set up a straw person because clearly most people most of the time do not apply such a hard, not to say harsh, criterion. Instead there is a ‘softer’, often implicit, appeal to the potential for creating life, which amounts to a criterion of fertility. ‘Normal’ men and women, by this criterion, are at least potentially capable of creating new life, and demonstrate this by engaging (exclusively) in acts of heterosexual coitus. But what, then, of those women and men who are barren? While they might engage in the act - one part of the equation - they are clearly ‘deficient’ in respect to the other. Again this is not a trivial point. One common complaint of middle-aged post-menopausal women is that they often feel somehow invisible, no longer taken seriously as women. And there is a sense in which old people in general, especially in our current aggressive 24-7 culture, are regarded as somehow not quite fully human. Fertility, of course, is the main criterial distinction between the immature human - girl or boy - and the mature or adult human - woman or man. A number of points emerge from this. It must be noted, for example, that this is one of the objections that has been raised against homosexual activities, namely that they do not have the potential for creating life and therefore deny or repudiate fertility. It is part of the same Biblical injunction against Onanism, the useless spilling of seed more commonly called masturbation or, according to my dictionary, the act of coitus interruptus (Garmonsway & Simpson, 1969; Schwarz et al., 1988). It is instructive in this regard to consider what the eponymous Onan’s real ‘sin’ was: (7) And Er, Judah’s first-born, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. (8) And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. (9) And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, that he refused to go into his brother’s wife, lest that he should give seed to his brother. (10) And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also. (Genesis, 38). What are we to make of so much extrapolation from such a short passage? Seed, here as The Colour of Life Page 8 of 28 elsewhere in the Bible, clearly refers to progeny rather than semen. So it seems that Onan’s real crimes were disobedience, a willful commitment to his own conscience, an unspecified, but displeasing, act, and, perhaps most significantly, refusal to father a child. The spectre of duty looms large here, linked to the ‘normality’ of the procreative function. And it is at this point that we move subtly but definitely away from consideration of the ‘natural’ into the murkier areas of ethics, theology and ideology. It is at this point that confusion begins between what we observe, what is, with what we, or at least somebody, thinks ought to be. Barthes (1973) refers to this confusion of nature and history as the hidden ideological abuse underlying the ‘falsely obvious’. Spinoza, over 350 years ago, voiced similar concerns around notions of nature, form, function and purpose and their relation to attitudes and ideas about normality. Hampshire (1962) in his examination of Spinoza’s philosophy, draws attention to the ways in which we might judge the ‘perfection’ of an object designed by people with a definite purpose, such as a house, and the difficulties that arise when we attempt to judge ‘natural’ objects - those that occur in nature without our intervention - in the same way: To say of a house that it is imperfect in some respect is to make a statement, to which a definite meaning can he attached by an objective test; ... a comparison of the actual house with what was projected in the design of it. To say of a man that he is imperfect in some respect looks as if it were to make a statement which is testable by the same procedure, and which looks as if it had a similarly definite sense; but this is wholly misleading, since we must not suppose that human beings, or any other natural objects have been designed for any purpose; consequently it makes no sense to think of them as fulfilling , or failing to fulfill, a purpose or design. (Hampshire, 1962: 144-145. Emphasis added). For Spinoza, at least according to Hampshire: In thinking of particular men as in some respect perfect or imperfect, or ... as good or bad specimens of their kind, we can only be comparing them with some abstract general notion, which has formed itself in our, minds, of what a man should be; and this general notion has no objective significance, ... it can be no more than an arbitrary projection of our own tastes, interests, and experience. Whenever we hear natural objects discussed as though they were artifacts, we have the most sure evidence of theological superstition. ... if something appears to us imperfect or bad in the sense of ‘not what it should be’ this is only a reflexion of our ignorance ... If we understood the necessary principles on which the individual nature of particular things depends, we would thereby understand the part that various things play in the whole system. Philosophically speaking, all finite things within Nature are imperfect, simply in the sense that they are finite things in Nature ... and could not possibly be other than they are. (Hampshire, 1962: 147 - 148. Emphasis added). The Colour of Life Page 9 of 28 While one might argue with Spinoza’s pure rationalism, and his faith that logic alone can help us identify the ‘necessary principles on which the individual nature of particular things depends’, there are nevertheless some important insights here. The confusion of our own ideological and theological stance vis-a-vis natural phenomena makes us blind to things as they are, being filtered through the lens of what we would like them to be, or, more importantly, things as we have been taught or told they should be (Grigg, 1994; Shibayama, 1974; Watts, 1975, 1998, 2000). Such judgementalism generates an attitude in which even natural processes - Nature itself - can be evaluated against arbitrary criteria of perfection - and found wanting. This will be addressed later. Spinoza’s comment about theological superstition is also worth noting. Masculinity and Femininity? What is the ‘falsely obvious’ here? What is the natural order? Procreation itself as the completion of function and duty? If this were so, then it would render human beings as little better than mayflies (ephemeroptera). Adult mayflies live for between 2 and 72 hours, have no mouths or other alimentary functions, and exist, so it seems, simply to make more mayflies. Perhaps this is a harsh judgement on mayflies, but people seem to be more than this, unless we view everything in terms of a cosmic timescale in which case we, too, are mere ephemeroptera. But that blessing and curse of humanity, large brains capable of imagining things that don’t exist and then creating them, takes human life far beyond the mere act of creating more people. If we actually stop to consider just how much time any of us spend in copulation and procreation, and compare this with how much time we spend doing other things, then the crude biological functionality of what it is to be human recedes. Admittedly most of us mess it up by trying to hold down dull and worthless jobs, watching too much television and eating junk food, but nevertheless we each have a potential to create meaning in life beyond the crudely mundane. As creatures with highly symbolic minds we can imagine lives with meaning. But our propensity for symbolic extrapolation can also lead us astray. The procreative function is such a compelling vision that we persist in viewing men and women as each simply one half of that function. And in this vision lie the seeds of what is taken to be ‘normal’ masculinity and femininity (Gilbert & Sher, 1999; Fausto-Sterling, 1992). The image is clear. A ‘normal’ man follows his penis outwards; a ‘normal’ woman accepts the penis within herself. The man is active and dominant, the woman passive. The man, outgoing and energetic, delivers a product, is concerned with performance and productivity, then moves swiftly on to other matters (sleeping, perhaps); the woman, passively receiving what the man has delivered to her uterus, nurtures within herself the products of their joint endeavours. In this the man delegates responsibility for the development of the product, and then turns to other more pressing matters. The man’s actions are thrusting, active, and short term; the woman’s part, which is not active, is gentle, receptive and long term. However, as an antidote to this image it is worth considering that giving birth, as women who have had that experience will no doubt attest, is anything but gentle, passive and receptive. The Colour of Life Page 10 of 28 Identifying the difference is one thing, but the problem is that people seldom make distinctions without simultaneously making ethical judgements of worth. Thus, while it is perfectly possible to view the differences described above as complementary to one another, in practice greater value is given to the supposedly more dynamic and creative male part of the function (Colgrave, 1979; Eisler, 1987; Gherardi, 1995). And it requires little argument or imagination to see how these ideas pervade and structure everyday life, how we structure our values, our organisations, especially in terms of current managerialist ideologies, and how priorities are set. What Eisler (1987) calls the ‘dominator model’ of social organisation is clearly a metaphorical (over) extrapolation from the brute biological act of copulation (see also, Hearn, 1987). The extrapolation into what is expected from ‘normal’ women and men is not hard to trace. The assumption was that the sexes must be as dichotomous psychologically as they appear to be physically. This ... presumes that genetic differences, physiological differences , and ultimately psychological differences somehow form a logical progression. (Cook, 1985: 6, quoting Kaplan & Bean, 1976). This same symbolic extrapolation can be found the world over, and it seems most cultures make the distinction in roughly the same way, most importantly the distinction is arranged in a hierarchy of worth, such that the female is subordinate to and less valuable than the male. This is illustrated by a famous poem, written by the third century CE poet Fu Xuan (Fu Hsuan), and quoted by Colgrave (1979: 76): How sad it is to be a woman, Nothing on earth is held so cheap. Boys stand leaning at the door Like Gods fallen out of heaven. Their hearts brave the Four Oceans. The wind and dust of a thousand miles. No one is glad when a girl is born: By her the family sets no store. Not everyone with a penis is male So far the identification of a person as male and female has been left implicit, and really kept only within the compass of body morphology - the presence or absence of externally apparent gonads. But this is a remarkably crude way to identify the sexes. Benjamin (1966), in discussing what he calls the ‘symphony of the sexes’, remarks that there may be ‘up to ten or more separate concepts and manifestations of sex and each could be of vital importance to the individual (p5). Of these different criteria for distinguishing male and female, he identifies nine ‘kinds of sex’: chromosomal; genetic; anatomical; legal; gonadal; germinal; endocrinal (hormonal); psychological and social. Clearly there is a lot of overlap here; the difference between chromosomal and genetic factors for example, is perhaps too a nice a distinction to be useful to non-biologists, although it is worth noting the claim that only one gene, out of The Colour of Life Page 11 of 28 100,000 or so needed to make up each individual person, distinguishes men from women (Nicholson, 1984). More recently, Hodgkinson (1991) talks about the four primary criteria for sex determination: chromosomal; gonadal; hormonal and psychological. But the important point is that these differences, which actually denote methods for deciding a person’s sex, may not be fully in consonance for any given individual. In other words, the different methods and their attendant criteria, may, and often do, give different answers. It is also important to note that, as Benjamin remarks, the socio-legal aspects of gender and sex may not accord with the biological. That is to say, bureaucratic strictures take precedence over nature. In relation to this Anne-Fausto-Sterling makes the following important point: ... if the state and the legal system have an interest in maintaining a two-party sexual system, they are in defiance of nature. For biologically speaking, there are many gradations running from female to male; and depending on how one calls the shots, one can argue that along that spectrum lie at least five sexes and perhaps even more. (Fausto-Sterling, 1998: 24. See also Blackless et al., 2000; Fausto-Sterling, 1992; 1993; 1999). Here Fausto-Sterling is drawing attention to the spectrum of conditions that are often grouped under the single term ‘hermaphrodite’, or more generally those labelled ‘intersex’. We don’t propose to go into great detail on these issues, particularly not the biological technicalities. But it is instructive to consider in broad terms what some of the implications are, for individual people, and for the ways in which we conduct our world, particularly in relation to the two little boxes, M & F, mentioned at the beginning of this paper. Here we want to consider some of the alternative biological arrangements implied by Benjamin’s observation. We will consider some of the more social and cultural aspects in the next section. As we all know, human beings possess 46 chromosomes grouped into 23 pairs. ‘Normal’ females have a configuration labelled XX, and ‘normal’ males an XY configuration. But things do not always work out so neatly. The Sunday Times Magazine for 28th October 2001, for example, reports the case of a 29 year old ‘man’ who, after his wife failed to conceive, was found to be 100% genetically female. Blood tests revealed that ‘his’ chromosomes were XX. He was, we are told, ‘devastated’. We are not surprised! Writing in Bullough & Bullough (1994), Anthony Walsh presents the rather startling claim that humans ‘were all once hermaphrodites of sorts’, and points out that hermaphroditism is really quite widespread among animals and plants, noting, inter alia, that ‘guppies can switch their sex back and forth in seconds’ (p 266). Biologically speaking, the so-called true hermaphrodites (hermaphroditus verus) have a combination of both female and male reproductive tissue. According to Fausto-Sterling (1998; 1999) they have one testis (sperm producing gonad) and one ovary (egg producing gonad). But in fact there can be other variations. They may have one gonad of each type; gonads composed of both kinds of tissue (ovotestis); or any combination of them. According to Walsh (1994), around 70% of true hermaphrodites have XX or XY chromosomes patterns, which, in a world obsessed by the ‘normality’ of the sexual dichotomy, would therefore imply that their ‘true’ sex was female or male respectively. The Colour of Life Page 12 of 28 However, other configurations are also known. For example, one form of true hermaphroditism displays the configuration XX/XY, technically called chimerism. Other configurations exist, too, including mosaics such as XX/XXY/XX/XXYY/XX/XYY (Walsh, 1994: 268). It doesn’t really make sense to ask about such an individual’s true sex, either in this or similar cases, despite the law’s insistence in the US and UK that newborn babies be unambiguously assigned to one or other pole of the sexual dichotomy - nature forced into the Procrustean bed of legal-bureaucratic dictum. In the examples cited above medical opinion would probably assign such individuals to the male pole simply in virtue of the presence of a Y chromosome which is considered to be definitive. Walsh goes on to add that approximately 80% of true hermaphrodites have internal female organs capable of sexual function and reproduction. However, as of 1990, he says, only seven pregnancies have been reported in XX hermaphrodites, and only one in an XX/XY. Walsh claims that no cases have been reported of XY hermaphrodite fertility, although Fausto-Sterling (1998) mentions the perhaps apocryphal story of a Scottish hermaphrodite, living as a woman, who was buried alive after impregnating her/his master’s daughter. In the medical literatures these are referred to as ‘intersex conditions’, and described thus: Intersex disorders include a variety of syndromes that result in persons with gross anatomical or physiological features of the opposite sex. Chromosomal abnormalities or prenatal hormonal disturbances are usually implicated in the etiology of these disorders. (Millon, et al., 1999: 433). The ‘standard’, that is dominant legal-medical, response to these variations is implicit in Millon’s comments, and that is to pathologise them, label them abnormal, treat them as medical conditions, and then ‘normalise’ them, that is, bring them back into line with the polar gender dichotomy. It is important to note that we do not wish to imply, by quoting this passage, any conspiracy or lack of humanity on the part of medical practitioners working in this area. It is undoubtedly the case that intersex individuals often suffer considerable hardship, including deep depression, as a result of their situation, living, as they do, in a world that takes it for granted that the only normal options are male and female. But we want to draw attention to the way that the language presupposes that nature can and does ‘get it wrong’, and needs to be corrected. This is made explicit in Bullough & Bullough (1994): With all [the] ... genetic and hormonal events occurring at the embryonic and fetal stages of life, it is inevitable that nature makes occasional mistakes. (p 267). In this respect it is important to note that current estimates of the numbers of people who are effectively intersex give a figure of 1 in 100 (Backless et al., 2000; Dreger, 2002); in the UK, with a population of roughly sixty million that represents 600,000 people. Furthermore, this figure is likely to increase if the practice of polluting the planet with artificial oestrogen analogues continues. As Cadbury (1997) argues in detail, the chemicals that are used in agriculture and industry, especially in the manufacture of plastics, mimic oestrogens, and other sex hormones, at potencies many orders of magnitude greater than natural hormones. This has already resulted in a marked increase in intersex births amongst animals worldwide, The Colour of Life Page 13 of 28 and the concern is that it is having significant effects not only on human fertility, but also on the potential for an increase in intersex humans. To underline the seriousness of the situation, Cadbury reports that these chemicals are now being found in Antarctica, and if they have travelled that far, it means that we have now altered our environment irreversibly at the molecular level. In the circumstances we prefer to take the view that it is our understanding of how nature works that needs to be corrected, not nature. Gender and identity If the biological variations in sexual configuration introduce some complexity into the sexual landscape, when psycho-social factors are taken into account the situation becomes chaotic, or perhaps positively kaleidoscopic. Money & Tucker (1977) use the term gender schema to refer to an individual’s sense of what it means to be a woman or a man, linking it with the further concepts gender identity and gender role. In their construction: Gender identity ... is your sense of yourself as male or female. Gender role is everything that expresses this sense of yourself as male or female. Gender role includes everything you feel and think, everything you do and say, that indicates - to yourself as well as to others - that you are male or female. ... Your gender identity is the inward expression of your gender role; your gender role is the expression of your gender identity. (Money & Tucker, 1977). While there are obvious problems with this formulation, especially with regard to the characterisation of gender role, it does nevertheless have the advantage of drawing attention to the close relation between role and identity. What is missing, of course, is the social, specifically social and cultural expectations surrounding the notion of gender role, which feminist theorists have been at pains to identify and critique (Anselmi & Law, 1998; Brannon, 2002). Nevertheless, they draw important attention to the idea of identity for understanding sex-gender dynamics. Here the emphasis shifts decidedly in the direction of gender and sexual identity as psycho-social phenomena. In general psychologists consider sexual identity to be made up of three separate components, which Phillips and Cohen (2001) refer to as sex compasses. These are our sexual orientation, gay, straight or bisexual; our style of behaviour, crudely whether we are more ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’; and our ‘core gender identity’ as male or female. In most people these three are roughly aligned, pointing in the same direction. But, as with the biological variations discussed earlier, they may not be fully consistent with one another, at least in terms of the normative gender dichotomy. Someone who appears to be male or female in the biological sense, may have a core gender identity that contradicts the biological configurations. As with the biological variations, there is a variety of ways in which the divergence of gender and sex can manifest. These range from a ‘mild’ gender bending, in which individuals consciously use attributes, whether clothes or behaviour, of the ‘opposite’ sex, sometimes for dramatic or political effect, to full blown transsexualism in which individuals seek to change The Colour of Life Page 14 of 28 their body morphology to bring it into line with what they feel themselves to be - what is popularly but inaccurately described as sex change. The terminology used to describe these situations is diverse and complex. It includes: gender bending; transvestism; transvestic fetishism; gender dysphoria; body dysmorphia; gender identity disorder; cross dressing; transsexualism and transgenderism (Benjamin, 1966; Ekins, 1997; Garber, 1992; Gosselin, 1987; Millon, et al., 1999; Morris, 2002; Stoller, 1985; Weeks, 1989). In general there is a rough distinction in which the individual crosses the gender divide only temporarily, as in gender bending, transvestism and cross dressing, to attempts to cross the divide permanently, as in trangenderism and transsexualism (Benjamin, 1966). But beyond this crude distinction, there lies a range of behaviours, experiences, inclinations and expectations of considerable complexity and nuance, taking in the full range of psychological, behavioural, social, political and ideological variation that is possible in human society. This is the realm of the transgressive act (Ekins, 1997; Ekins & King, 1997; Garber, 1992). A singular point that needs to be made here is that whereas biological variations are seen as medical conditions, involving no volition, the blending of genders, either through behaviour or dress, involves actions of one sort or another which may be more or less volitional. In other words, in the former ‘blame’ is not an issue, because they are seen as ‘victims’ it is not really their fault; in the latter Blame, shame and accusations of perversity are never far away even, sadly, amongst medical practitioners who are supposedly offering their ‘help’ (e.g. Playdon, 2002). Even amongst the medics there is a suspicion that it is either all merely about ‘lifestyle choice’, or is a matter purely of psychopathology (APA, 2000; Bullough & Bullough, 1994; Millon et al., 1999). However, if recent (controversial) biological research is correct, gender identity, and sexuality, is no more a question of unrestrained choice than is the length of one’s nose (see, e.g., Chung, et al., 2002; Kruijver, et al., 2000; LeVay, 1996; Zhou et al., 1995). With respect to the medicalisation of cross-gender identifications, Ekins and King (1997) observe in their opening paragraph that there are limitations for social scientists in: the medical categories of transvestism, transsexualism and gender dysphoria. These categories presume pathology, limit our gaze to a narrow range of cross-dressing/sex-changing phenomena and hide from view the behaviour of all except those who are seen as problematic, for example transvestites and transsexuals themselves. What Ekins and King aim to do in their studies is move away from the pathologising instincts of the medical, and specifically the psychiatric, literatures, and examine gender transgressive acts more in the light of sociological constructions and understandings of gender. Ekins in particular moves away from a concept of gender as something someone has more towards a view of it as something that one does, especially as it relates to culturally endorsed codes for gender ‘appropriate’ (and by implication gender ‘inappropriate’) behaviours (Ekins, 1997). This is part of a general move within the social science of gender towards what queer theory calls gender performativity (Spargo, 1999). As a result, Ekins and King introduce and use a different set of terms such as gender reversal, gender mobility and gender migration (King, 2003). The Colour of Life Page 15 of 28 This has a number of important implications. By moving the whole question of gender transgressions away from the purely medical arena, it enables gender blending, to use a vague general term, to be viewed not only in terms of individual preferences but also in terms of cultural critique and, perhaps more important, cultural development. In particular, it allows that crossings of the culturally sanctioned boundaries may be deliberately, as well as incidentally, challenging to and therefore subversive of certain social arrangements, forming an implicit and explicit critique of socially restrictive practices and codes. Here we do not propose to examine all the questions raised by these points. It is sufficient to note that there are individuals who, for one reason or another and to a greater or lesser extent, adopt the dress, mannerisms and cultural codes of the ‘opposite’ sex either temporarily or permanently. But it is not how, or why this happens that is important, it is that it happens at all that matters. More to the point, these transgressions of the gender boundary involve some kind of identification across that boundary, implying a sense of permeability. In principle this offers a further challenge to the basic dichotomy of the sexes. These are not a new phenomena. They have been observed, recorded and written about in histories and myths from the earliest days of civilisation (Green, 1966; Hodgkinson, 1991). In a very useful brief overview, Green (1966) makes the point that the transsexual phenomenon has a very widespread pervasiveness. In this sense he is using the term transsexual to refer to cross-gender identity, and perhaps we would substitute the term transgender phenomena, but the point that such phenomena have been known through time and space is important. Cross gender behaviour is not simply a product of the swinging sixties. In western cultures that are committed to the policing of gender boundaries, any transgressions of these boundaries are generally viewed with hostility and suspicion, particularly if they involve male to female transgressive acts (Garber, 1992). Regrettably such attitudes can also be found within the medical and psychiatric professions (Benjamin, 1966). This is undoubtedly linked to the privileging of the male prerogative. In this regard it is interesting to note observations made by Maccoby (1998) while studying what she called the ‘two cultures of gender’: The most puzzling thing about the two cultures of gender, ... is their asymmetry. Boys’ groups, ... are “more cohesive than girls’ groups: more sexist, more exclusionary, more vigilant about gender boundary violations by their members, and more separate from adult culture”. Throughout childhood, as throughout life, there are fewer penalties for girls who encroach on boys’ turf and who like to do boy things than for boys who venture onto girls’ territory. (Tavris, 1998: 126). But not all cultures react the same way to transgressions of the gender binary (Herdt, 1994). In some cultures, for example, an anatomical male who identifies as a woman might be regarded as a man-woman, or ‘two spirit’. Such individuals are recognised as a third sex in numerous cultures throughout the world, including many of the Native American cultures, Filipino, Lapp and East Indian cultures (Callender et al., 1983; Callender & Kochems, 1985; Forgey, 1975; Herdt, 1994; Roscoe, 1991; Strong et al., 1996). The Colour of Life Page 16 of 28 Of significant note is that these individuals are often regarded as having magical powers, and that their state is the result and sign of congress with the spirit world. Interestingly, these same suspicions are also widely harboured about priests and nuns within the Christian world (see, for example, Opie & Tatem, 1992; Radford & Radford, 1961; Wilson, 1975), and so it is not surprising to discover a widespread association between gender transience and religiosity, alchemy and magic (see, for example, Coudert, 1980; Jung, 1967; Roob, 1997). Colour: A metaphor for sexual being So, what are we to make of this melange, this symphony of the sexes as Benjamin calls it? Here we wish to return to the metaphor which forms the basis of the title of this paper colour. When white light is passed through a prism we realise that it is actually made up of several colours. On closer examination we also begin to realise that the visible parts of the spectrum are only part of the story, and that the spectrum shades into non-visible wavelengths beyond violet and red. Furthermore, although we perceive what appear to be boundaries between the colours of the spectrum, they actually shade imperceptibly into one another. This is partly how we see sex, gender and sexuality. Taking male and female as the end points of a dimension along which there are shades of maleness and femaleness in various proportions. Thus Garber’s ‘third space’ between the sexes (Garber, 1992) takes on the quality of shading between the end points, rather than being a fixed point between the little boxes M & F. This encompasses Fausto-Sterling’s notion of the five sexes: male and female at the termini, hermaphrodites in the centre, whom Fausto-Sterling calls ‘herms’, and on either side the socalled male and female pseudo-hermaphrodites, whom she calls ‘ferms’ and ‘merms’ respectively (Fausto-Sterling, 1992; 1993; 1998; 1999). To leave it at this, however, is to restrict the model simply to morphological differentiation, taking account only of the gross body formations that denote difference. This is alone insufficient to account for the breadth and depth of actual human experience. Although a simple unitary dimension has a number of tempting qualities, it cannot easily encompass the extra variations created by the four criteria for sex determination reported by Hodgkinson (1991), - chromosomal, gonadal, hormonal and psychological - still less the nine identified by Benjamin (1966) - chromosomal, genetic, anatomical, legal, gonadal, germinal, endocrinal, psychological and social. Nor could it account for the recent, although highly controversial, evidence that gender identity and sexuality may have neurological bases, what some people are now calling ‘brain sex’ (Chung, et al., 2002; Kruijver, et al., 2000; LeVay, 1996; Zhou et al., 1995). In addition a mono-dimensional model of this kind cannot accommodate the variability introduced by sexuality, sexual orientation and sexual preference. In short, the ‘third space’ between the M & F polar termini cannot easily be constrained into a simple, single, path, even if shading and nuance is allowed. Rather the third space explodes into a kaleidoscopic riot of shades and colours more reminiscent of a fireworks display than a balance sheet. Thus, we wish to extend and expand our basic metaphor. Printers, designers, decorators and artists are familiar with the ways of colour. One of the tools they all use resembles a large matrix of colour. In the corners there are ‘pure’ colours, say red, green, blue and yellow, and in between, shading along the rows, columns and The Colour of Life Page 17 of 28 diagonals of the matrix, are intermediate colours, each approximating a different mix of the pure colours. The result is a large pattern of colours shading one into another, each reflecting not only a different mix, but a different mood. The professionals that use these tools recognise that the lines between the cells of the matrix are as arbitrary as the lines we perceive in the simple spectrum. In reality there are infinitely many shades between each colour. This, we believe, begins to capture the true complexity of sex, gender and sexuality. But not quite. Imagine the matrix of colour just described as a simple 2-dimensional slice through a much larger 3-dimensional structure. Above this matrix is an infinity of other slices each gradually fading until all the colours become white. Below is an infinity of slices each gradually becoming darker, until all the colours become black. Finally, add a fourth dynamic dimension of movement and time, or movement through time, and the result is a complex dynamic series of systems that shift and flow in a mind boggling array of possibility. It is this kind of model that we believe better captures the ebb and flow of human sexual being and becoming than the restrictive, and by comparison pallid, little boxes called M & F, even if we allow that the boundaries of the boxes are permeable and that there is a graduated path between them. In effect we wish to replace what F. H. Bradley calls a ‘ballet dance of bloodless categories’ (in Cohen & Cohen, 1960: 64) with Benjamin’s full scale multi-layered symphony. There is, however, a caveat. To illustrate this we would like to use another metaphor based on location and time. Up and down are useful categories, but they depend crucially on the position of a person’s eye line. Sometimes we need to acknowledge the position of the eye line, too, when we want to use ‘straight ahead’, ‘behind’, ‘left’ and ‘right’, which are further useful categories opening up a mono-dimensional space into three dimensions, but which are arbitrarily defined by the position of the narrator. If we add time, ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’, we get the thrill of fourdimensions. If we go further, and introduce ‘yesterday’, ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’; ‘last year’, ‘this year’, ‘next year’; ‘before’, ‘in the moment’, ‘later’, etc., we can enjoy the deep thrill of ndimensional space time to play with. But it is not always necessary to use the full co-ordinate system to convey meaning; sometimes up and down alone are still useful on their own. Thus, although we believe we have demonstrated the problematic nature of the male-female dichotomy, and the extraordinary variation that can be identified in terms of sex, gender and sexuality, nevertheless we would not want to advocate its complete abandonment in the practicalities of everyday life. As a cautionary tale, after introducing these issues to a group of undergraduate students, one student, wanting to develop a questionnaire, seriously proposed the inclusion of 128 different categories under the question ‘what sex are you?’ We don’t think that would be a useful development. Conclusions: What are the implications for practice? It seems clear that whatever our cultural, legal or bureaucratic preferences, nature refuses to accept the strictures we lay down. But how can this be incorporated into our social, cultural and legal systems, and what does it mean for organisational practice? We have no real answers here. In the last third of the twentieth century many of the boundaries we thought sacrosanct have shifted, are shifting, and will continue to shift. Perhaps they have not moved The Colour of Life Page 18 of 28 as far as they might, but there is at least a more general recognition, and perhaps in some quarters also acceptance of the diversity of human being. Perhaps in time the boundaries will shift further as people come to accept, in more than simply legalistic terms, the reality of diversity. Although we are aware that history shows how brutal people can be to those who are different (e.g. Tajfel, 1981), we are also aware of the contrary impulse - that tolerance of ambiguity is possible as people learn to see it for what it is, and thus become less threatened by it. But we need to dismantle some of the rather too constraining effects of bureaucracy first, and recognise that bureaucracy, when it works properly, should serve reality and liberty rather than either attempting to define it or constrain it in its own image. Slowly we are coming to terms with the idea of ‘masculine’ presentations and behaviours amongst women, and, to a lesser but still to a marked extent, with more ‘feminine’ presentations amongst some men. But even beyond that, there seems to be much more tolerance for those of us who, for whatever reason, find ourselves living our lives across the gender divide. A recent television documentary screened by Channel 4 called ‘Make Me a Man’, about female to male transsexuals, was interesting as much for the reactions of friends, family and colleagues as it was for the stories of the transsexuals themselves Channel 4, 2002). Although often guarded, for the most part these people were not only supportive, with a few exceptions, but often admired the courage required to make the transition. Of course one should not read too much into this; a television camera puts quite a hefty pressure on to those interviewed to speak positively. Nevertheless, from anecdotal evidence most people are generally quite tolerant. The prime exceptions seem to be the policy makers - politicians and bureaucrats - and sadly the medical profession (see, for example, Playdon, 2002) whose reluctance seems to be rooted in economic considerations, as well as an unreflective attempt to police the gender boundaries and bolster traditional moralities. On the other hand, regardless of the evident blurring of boundaries between what is regarded as appropriately male or female conduct, there remains a general conviction that the division of the sexes is still unbridgeable at some level, that the categories are a genuine reflection of an unalterable distinction, and that in ‘reality’ all people really are either male or female. In other words that the variations we have been discussing are, ‘actually’, aberrations from the norm, tolerable, perhaps, but aberrations nevertheless. This is reflected as much in academic discourse on gender as it is in other areas of discourse (see, for example, Alsop et al., 2002; Brannon, 2002; Anselmi & Law, 1998; Weeks, 1989). In the workplace the distinction is not only maintained, but vigorously defended. Practically the first thing that one has to declare in a job application is which sex one is, and that has profound implications for subsequent career trajectories, income and experiences at work (e.g. Gherardi, 1995; Kelly, 1991). Above all, ‘gendered space’ is reinforced, not least in what Lacan calls ‘urinary segregation’ - the apparently trivial but absolute separation of toilet arrangements (Garber, 1992). That we do recognise gendered difference is indisputable. What is not clear, however, is quite what the differences are or might be, and whether any of those that we think we have identified are reliably and systematically related to the social designations woman-man, malefemale, and feminine-masculine, in such a way that we can be confident that they are in some way fundamental. As Gilbert and Sher (1999) point out, many of the alleged differences between men and women are based on statistical averages. Leaving aside the assumption here The Colour of Life Page 19 of 28 that the identification of who is a woman and who a man is unproblematic, they also point out that when the data are scrutinised more closely, there is generally a greater variance within the categories than between them. This means, quite simply, that many of the differences that are alleged to be fundamental are more variable within each sex than between them; women differ more from other women, and men differ more from other men, than they do from each other (Gilbert & Sher, 1999: 37. Also Blackless et al., 2000). Experience and observation has taught us that many of the differences we thought were fundamental, were in fact the products of cultural practice rather than the necessary corollary of being born male or female. We do not wish to imply by this that cultural practice somehow renders the differences negligible or trivial, or even ‘wrong’ in some sense. More to the point, when cultural processes, which are malleable, are used as if they reflect a fundamental and necessary aspect of reality - an ontological claim about the world - then at the least confusion is the inevitable result, and at worst it may (and frequently does) lead to practices that are unjust or even tyrannical. We are not, however, arguing that in practice all categories of distinction should be abandoned. Far from it. Categorisation is inescapable and necessary. Without categories we cannot function, because they enable us to ‘tidy up’ the buzzing blooming confusion around us and help us to make sense of it. What we can’t categorise we can’t even begin to understand, and if we can’t understand we have no basis for action either in or on the world. Social categories, despite ultimate arbitrariness and their sometimes unfortunate consequences such as over-generalised stereotypes, are inevitable and necessary (Deschamps, 1984; Tajfel, 1981; Turner, 1984; Robinson, 1996). At their most useful they have a functional utility that enables social life to proceed. An undifferentiated mass of people would not be able to function socially because co-operative effort could not be achieved, coordinated or maintained, and thus society itself would not be viable. However, in practice the categories we use don’t have to be true in some overarching metaphysical sense to be useful for making sense. Problems occur when we assume our cherished categories are true, and expect everybody to conform to them. In matters of sex, gender and sexuality this is precisely what happens. The tyranny of normality dictated by bureaucratic convenience does not leave room for gendered variation, despite the abundant evidence that nature does not pay the slightest attention to what the various legislators of reality and guardians of morality think is natural. In the end this wastes energy and reduces human potential, particularly for those people who do not easily fit within the sanctioned categories. As Goffman (1963) points out, it takes a lot of energy, funnelled into vigilance of the self and others, to maintain what is effectively a disguise and guard against being exposed as someone who bears the stigma of ‘not being normal’. The inevitable result is stress, distraction and possibly worse (Bullough & Bullough, 1994). The only antidote is absolute acceptance of diversity as the norm in human life rather than the exception. When we understand the implications of diversity in the workplace we will be in a position to ask fundamental questions about how we categorise people, and why we choose to use the categories we do, a point that is as pertinent to all areas of social categorisation, such as ethnicity, as it is to sex and gender. This moves organisational practice away from the idiocy of tick boxes and more into the arena of personal preferences, inclinations and skills, thus releasing the creative energy that resides in our human differences, rather than The Colour of Life Page 20 of 28 differences presumed to be rooted in gender. Women’s long struggle for equality in the workplace has, ironically, reinforced the separation between the roles of ‘male’ and ‘female’, because it is that divide that has come to the fore in the narratives of equality. However, if we take questions of diversity seriously, and fully embrace the notion that gender itself is a problematic category, then the focus shifts from a purely male-female dynamic and moves more towards a focus on what individual people can bring to social and cultural activities, especially in the workplace, recognising, for example, that men and women, however identified, can both engage in what are conventionally called male and female behaviours. This is fairly obvious in terms of academic discourse, indeed it is currently regarded as a self evident platitude. So we will emphasise it: recognising, really recognising, that people embody a variety of ‘gendered’ behaviours, perceptions, responses, preferences, inclinations and potentialities. This in turn requires a revision or an abandonment of our conventional expectations of what both women and men are, and moves the spotlight onto questions more about what this or that person can contribute to a setting, wants to contribute, or is able to contribute, regardless of apparent sex, gender or sexuality. In saying this we do not intend to underestimate, trivialise or deflect attention from the considerable work that still needs to be done in workplace equality. Those members of the workforce labelled as ‘women’ still do not enjoy the full privileges, rewards and opportunities of their colleagues labelled as ‘men’ (e.g. Gherardi, 1995; Kelly, 1991). But we do believe that a full recognition of the considerable diversity of humankind can ultimately lead to more just, productive and fulfilling working lives for everyone. 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