How fundamental are sex categories? Do humans “naturally” belong to one of two groups, female or male, that are distinct not only in the form of their genitals but also in their brains and behavior? For about 1 percent of humans, answering this question in the affirmative leads to a great deal of physical and emotional pain. These are people born with intersex genitals; for them, being forced to fit into one of two sex categories often means facing ostracism or undergoing medically unnecessary surgeries. But what about all the others? Do humans with female and male genitals belong to two distinct classes?
Researchers in fields from medicine to transportation fail to collect data on women, and this affects aspects of daily life in the home, the workplace and everywhere in between, with results that range from inconvenient to deadly. For example, vehicle safety systems designed and tested based on the default male will not necessarily protect female bodies. Indeed, in a car crash, women are 17 percent more likely to die and 47 percent more likely to experience serious injury than men are.
The conventional language of power, when it comes out of a woman’s mouth, is often described as sounding “bossy,” “shrill” or “bitchy.” These impressions are so ingrained, in the minds of both women and men, because we are socialized into them from a very young age. It’s an integral part of what sociologists call the “gender order.”
Johanna Haarer, a physician whose books were written during the Nazi era and aimed at raising children to serve the Führer, viewed children, especially babies, as nuisances whose wills needed to be broken. “The child is to be fed, bathed, and dried off; apart from that left completely alone,” she counseled. She recommended that children be isolated for 24 hours after the birth; instead of using “insipid-distorted ‘children’s language,’” the mother should speak to her child only in “sensible German”; and if the child cries, let him cry.
Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a grassroots organization called 500 Women Scientists was established to help propel and maintain the momentum of such efforts. Its founders and members pledged to speak up for science and for women. They would do this by boosting scientific literacy through public engagement, strengthening the role of science in society, and changing the face of what a scientist looks like. More than 20,000 people, mostly women but also a couple thousand men, signed the pledge.