Google, Gender, and Guevedoces
Is gender purely decided by society?
Google software engineer, James Damore, made national headlines last fall in releasing his “Anti-Diversity” memo. Damore’s key argument was that the differences in statistical representations of men and women in the workforce could be attributed to their biological differences and that this discovery should be vocalized in light of freedom of speech.
This is not the first time this argument has been brought up. Since the beginning of women emancipation movements in Western societies, feminism has been split into the “relational” and “individual” camps. Relational feminists argued that women and men should be treated equally but given different roles on account of difference in female biology.
Thus, Damore’s argument isn’t entirely new. But in lieu of modern non gender binaries, how do we even begin to define gender?
A few years ago, journalists publicized the guevedoces in the Dominican Republic. The guevedoces are people who are born female and develop male organs at around age 12 (puberty) due to a lack of an enzyme that is linked to testosterone activation.
Although the guevedoces were born as girls and their mothers sent them to play with “girl things” (think dolls, etc.), they didn’t like it. They preferred playing sports with boys. They didn’t like wearing skirts. They even got into fist fights with other boys before puberty.
Does this mean that there is a clear personality difference between males and females despite being influenced by society to become a girl or boy?
Based off of what I read so far, I believe that biology could be the incipient of differences in males and females and their preferences, society concretes this difference and ultimately contributes to the difference in the workforce. I am looking forward to see how my hypothesis plays out in light of more cases in gender studies in the future.
