Book review: Sexed Up, part 1

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I recently got a galley print of Sexed Up. I’ve followed author Julia Serano on Twitter for a while now and was excited to read it.

Rather than read the whole thing and write one long review I’m going to offer my thoughts on the first two chapters and maybe write more about the rest of the book later. Because I have a lot to say already.

One of the most fascinating aspects of any gender transition story, and one of my favorite parts of Deirdre McCloskey’s Crossing: A Transgender Memoir, is reading about how society treats people differently before and after they transition.

I think this perspective is useful because it offers a more complete and useful way to think about what sexism actually is and how it operates in society.

Redefining sexism

In Chapter two, Serano brings up a more accurate, useful way to look at sexism than the way it’s generally talked about. We tend to define sexism, like racism, as a conscious and individual choice to blatantly discriminate on the basis is gender or race.

But racism and sexism usually operate on a much more subconscious and systemic level.

The gender pay gap is a great example of this.

More reactionary types like to point out that very little of the almost $.20 gap between what the average man in the same position makes as the average woman results from sexism as defined as blatant gender-based discrimination. (It’s important to me to note that the gap between the average man and the average non-white woman is much higher.)

They point out that factors like hours worked, years of experience, negotiation tactics, varying levels of skill, training, and education, etc. “explain away” most of the gender pay gap.

But why do these gaps exist? Why does the average man work longer hours than the average woman? Maybe there’s some kind of biological explanation for why having a penis correlates to working longer hours.

But there’s also lots and lots of evidence that society expects different things from men and women.

Gendered expectations

You’d really have to experience life as a man and a woman to have any grasp of how many of your interactions are influenced by your perceived gender. One would really need to experience the “small exchanges and mundane interactions at the grocery store, in restaurants, on public transit, and elsewhere” as Serano describes it, as two genders to begin to grasp the extent to which gender influences the way people treat us and therefore the ways we’re cajoled into performing our gender “correctly.”

Serano gives examples aplenty, like being told she’s a great guitarist much more often after transitioning. Or having everyone from potential employers to family and friends bring up kids and family far more often than when she presented as male.

When we talk about whether gendered traits are learned or inborn, nature vs nurture, I believe most people tend to downplay the role of socialization. That’s in part because we’re often not aware of when gender-based socialization is happening. There’s often no way to know. Am I being told to smile more in conference calls because women are expected to be socially pleasant or because everyone is? The answer is often: Both. The research is pretty clear that women are punished more harshly than men for showing emotions like anger. But it’s certainly conceivable that a man could get the same feedback.

Sexism as punishment

People expect men to work longer hours, take no time off for family needs, negotiate harder, upskill, choose different majors, etc. than women.

Often these expectations are more implicit than explicit. For example, the New York Times reported that between 1980 and 2010, when women were depicted in commercial ads we showed up in workplace settings just 4% of the time. We were much more likely to be shown in the kitchen raving about a household product. Things weren’t much better by 2019, when ads up for awards at Cannes depicted men working almost twice as often as women. In general, men outnumbered women two-to-one and had double the screen and speaking time. Another study of the ads aired in 2016 found only 4% showed women in leadership positions.

And when people defy those expectations, we’re punished for it.

Men who choose shorter hours, take time off for family needs, don’t negotiate hard, don’t upskill, choose “feminine” majors, etc. are vilified for failing to conform to gendered expectations.

Most people don’t recognize they’re doing a sexism when they criticize people for not conforming to gendered expectations.

Even if there were no punishment, the expectation alone is usually enough to cajole people to perform their gender correctly.

Serano says of the people who seemed to have trouble with her gender presentation: “They seemed to view me as a piece of aberrant information that did not fit neatly into their mental gender paradigm, thus causing them consternation.”

This is the vast majority of sexism. It’s not purposeful and intentional decisions to be mean to someone because they’re female. It’s just a system of gender norms and the fact that most people feel consternated when other people violate them.

I think anyone who violates gender norms can relate to this. Even just being a little more sexual, a little less agreeable, or a little more ambitious than people expect a woman to be has, throughout my life, provoked consternation.

Being more expansive

This definition of racism and sexism is certainly wider and more expansive than the commonly understood definitions. I understand the fear that if we broaden the definition of racism or sexism we cheapen or water down the accusation. But I think most of us can hold two ideas in our head at the same time. We can believe that conscious, intentional discrimination on the basis of race or gender is very bad. And we can also believe that unconscious expectations around race and gender can also have pernicious, unintended consequences and thus are are also worth examining.

In fact, because racism and sexism are so pervasive I think it’s really important that we turn down some of the stigma and shame around them. Accidentally doing a racism or a sexism doesn’t mean you’re an irredeemably bad person. It means you grew up in a fundamentally racist and sexist society and have yet to fully free yourself of those unconscious biases.

Okay, so those are my thoughts so far. I look forward to reading the rest of the book.