Rethinking Sex and Gender

Christine Delphy, in her landmark essay, Rethinking Sex and Gender takes
a stand on the unexamined presupposition that Sex precedes Gender. She
believed that this theory was unjustifiable and was holding back peoples
perception of Gender. The reason stated for this was that people were unable to
comprehend the relationship between sex and hierarchy. Delphy urges the
reader to abandon all uncertainties and open their minds to something which
cannot be readily accepted.
The concept of sex roles was first written about in general by Margaret
Mead (Mead, 1935) where it was stated that most societies divide the universe of
human characteristics into two, and attribute one half to men and the other to women.
(From Sex roles to Gender, Delphy). Mead considered the division arbitrary and
having many advantages for the society. There was no views on the hierarchy or
the difference between the sexes. The idea of sex roles were elaborated upon
from the 1940s to the 1960s. The authors during that period defined two
parameters, role and status where status was the equivalent of the level of prestige
within society (From Sex roles to Gender, Delphy) and role was the active aspect
of this status. This perspective solidified the idea that peoples situations and
activities are dependent on their social structures rather than on their
psychological or physical profiles. On the issue of feminism, These authors all
stressed that as the position of women was socially determined, it was changeable. (From
Sex roles to Gender, Delphy).
The concept of Gender first came into being in the 1970s where Ann
Oakleys work Sex, Gender and Society were one of the first to formally define
and distinguish between the two concepts of Sex and Gender. According to
Oakley, Sex is a word that refers to the biological differences between male and female:
the visible difference in genitalia, the related difference in procreative function. Gender,
however, is a matter of culture: it refers to the social classification into masculine and
feminine. (From Sex roles to Gender, Delphy). Oakley believed that the
psychological differences between the sexes are due to social conditioning,
having no relation to biological factors at all. She also says that while a division of
labour by sex is universal, the content of the tasks considered to be feminine or masculine
varies considerably according to the society. (From Sex roles to Gender, Delphy). Thus
the idea that gender is independent of sex took root and progressed.
Delphy seems to be dissatisfied with the on-going discussions about this
topic during her time. In her opinion, the question, is gender independent of
sex?, was not taken up. It was seen that in all questions related to gender, sex
was considered first, as it was first both chronologically and logically, a notion
that the author believes was not explained. According to Delphy, the concept
that sex causes gender can be derived from two logical arguments. First, that the
biological differences between men and women give rise to a minimal division of
labour. Second, the human mind has a pre-conceived idea of sex and its relation
to gender. Both arguments are then refuted by the author on terms of want of

detailed explanations or want of proof. Delphy also takes a stand on the theories
of Levi-Strauss (1969) and Derrida (1976) both of whom followed Saussures
phonology (1959) which suggests that things can be distinguished only by
opposition with other things. She feels the success of Saussures theory in its
field of Linguistics did not mean that it would be meaningful in the context of Sex
and Gender as well. She points out that in a real-world scenario, there are
multiple differentiations between things and these distinctions may not
necessarily be hierarchical.
Leaving all presumptions behind, Delphy asks the reader to analyze two
radical hypotheses. First, that the statistical coincidence between sex and gender
is just a coincidence. Second, that Gender precedes Sex, ie, sex itself simply
marks a social division (Sex and Gender, Delphy). This is completely against the
idea of the Cognitivists who think that the whole of humanity is born with the
idea that sex is strongly correlated to functional differences, it being a natural
trait that no one can ignore. Delphy points out that the relationship between Sex
and Gender cannot be pointed out if Sex remains a pure natural entity. We have
to extract the social meaning of the word sex from its general traditional
meaning and only then can it be compared to Gender, a purely social term.
In the next section of her essay, Delphy talks on the topic of division and
hierarchy which, in her opinion, have such a distinction that they may be directly
compared to the difference between Sex and Gender. In her opinion, feminists
around the world want to abolish hierarchy among the sexes but not the
difference itself. Feminist theorists believe that the social values built on these
differences should be preserved. Behind this political and intellectual veil
however, the author feels there is also a deep-rooted desire not to change.
The author maintains that our society is hierarchical and our values are
hierarchically arranged. This hypothesis results in the acceptance that
masculinity and feminity are not just a division of traits which may be present in
both the sexes or present in all possible societies. It may be such that the
concepts of masculinity and feminity encompass all human traits in the present
date, but it cannot be presumed that both of these cover the entirety of human
possibilities. Delphy mentions that a static view of culture is fundamental to all
the variants of the notion of positive complementarity between men and
women. Such a point of view instilled in Margaret Mead a fear that every person
would become the same, based on the disappearance of the most fundamental
human difference. The author, however, believes this fear is groundless as it is
based on a static view of men and women.
Delphy envisions a society where values exist as entities before being
organized into a hierarchy. This consists of a variety of ideas including
commonsense and academic theories of sexuality.
On an end note, the author reassures the reader on having a Utopian
vision, stating that analysis of what exists can only be done by imagining what
doesnt exist. This can be done by admitting our ignorance of some answers and

admitting that something which exists need not necessarily exist. perhaps we
shall only really be able to think about gender on the day when we can imagine non-gender.