SEXING THE BODY. The title immediately grabbed my attention, and I
just had to read this book. However, it wasn't long before I
discovered that the extra fine, small print used in this book along
with all the technical language kept putting my brain to sleep.
Despite the fact that every time I opened up this book I wound up
snoozing, there were a few points of interest that caught my
attention along the way.

Fausto-Sterling's chapter on "Should there be only two sexes" is
fascinating. She describes people who are intersexual, a part of
both sexes, and argues for the addition of this category to the two
that we have currently in our society. Because the infants born
with visible combinations of both sexes are generally altered
before they ever leave the hospital, a few of them have problems
with their sexual assignment. The author suggests holding off on
the surgery until they are older and can make the decisions
themselves.

Another area that is particularly amazing is how, in the field of
science, a single man can have so much influence on women's health.
In one instance, Fausto-Sterling quotes Dr. Robert A. Wilson: "The
stigmata of Nature's defeminization included a general stiffness of
muscles, a dowager's hump, and a vapid cow-like negative state.''
Postmenopausaul women, he wrote in the Journal of the American
Geriatric Society, existed but did not live. On the streets,
"they pass unnoticed and, in turn, notice little." It makes me
wonder just how many women he interviewed to arrive at that
conclusion. Also interesting is Fausto-Sterling's explanation of
"more children from the fit, less from the unfit --- that is the
chief issue of birth control, Sanger wrote in 1919." Here all along
I was led to believe that birth control was being used to control
the ever expanding world population.

Throughout her book, Fausto-Sterling uses many charts, pictures,
drawings, and cartoons to clarify and add information to her
writing. One of the most fascinating things I found in this book is
the author's description of how people see themselves in their
mind's eye. The author uses the Möbius Strip, a flat ribbon
twisted once and then attached end to end, which shows a band and
ants crawling along a topological puzzle --- the ant can
continually travel on this strip without ever getting
anywhere.

Although this book has a total of 473 pages, the actual reading
part is only 255 pages, with the rest devoted to the author's
meticulous notes, in which her scholarship and research are
evident. Once you wade through the scientific and technical jargon,
you will find that this is an interesting and important research
book on the sexing of the body in our society. How do we study
gender and sexuality as part of a development system, and what
specifically do we mean by environment? Despite how much we know
about sex, there is still a lot we don't know about our own
sexuality and how it develops in an individual, rather than on a
universal level.