Raising a genderless baby: The Case of Storm Stocker Essay

Raising a family of three children is no easy feat to begin with, and the Stocker family of Toronto, Ontario has made unmatchable close regarding their new baby that will hardly make it either easier. Mrs. Stocker gave birth to her third child on new years daylight of 2011, and accompanying the proud new p arnts e-mail to friends and families announcing the babys birth, was a preferably controversial state custodyt Weve decided non to sh atomic number 18 drives sex for now a tribute to freedom and selection in maculation of limitation, a stand up to what the world could pass in beleaguers lifetime (a more progressive place? ). (CTV 1) Mr. & Mrs. Stocker had decided to raise their new baby boy or girl, with let on the soci eithery constructed pre-text of masculine or feminine gender traits, regardless of what the carnal sex of the baby was. It is important to point this baby is neither a hermaphrodite nor born as a transsexual, but is completely anatomically healthy or no rmal so to speak. The parents are simply keeping the sex of the baby secrete as to deprive golf-club, and in the incoming its peers, teachers, coaches etc. of influencing its formation of gender and self.This super controversial finish is however, fulfilling Freuds notion of re go gender from the realm of biology, thus overcoming biological essentialism, and moving it into society, which he believed was the dominant force influencing how gender develops. In the modern era, however, the decision to keep baby pressures sex a secrete was met with significant contestation from American media, ABC news stating While child development experts approve the familys efforts to raise their child free of the constraints of gender stereotypes, they say the parents become embarked on a psychological try out that could be potentially disastrous. (ABC 1) epoch in Canada and internationally, especially in European countries such as Sweden and Finland where this is not unheard of, its been more readily accepted.Finnish people often bring specific diction to speak about themselves and others in a real neutral mood which includes gender neutrality This rhetoric is based on a kind of moral code it is highly valued to be seen and treated without firearmicularities, without bodies, as aperson in your own right, without gender, without class, without ethnicity, without region (Lahelma 8) and in Sweden the government has actually updated the national Encyclopedia to account for the rising slope bowel movement of parents raising their children genderless, adding the genderless pronoun hen to accompany the masculine han and feminine hon. And the trend isnt just limited to linguistics. Recently the World Economic assembly declared Sweden the most gender-neutral country in the world, and gender neutrality is ever-changing Swedish culture in profound ship canal. A childrens division store has dissolved its girls and boys sections (Tietal 36). Freud would, however, brace to agree with ABC news contract that the results could be potentially disastrous as he entranceed gender intringently associate to self-identity as well as sexual predilection. It is safe to assume Dr. Freud would view this decision to shelter the child as a psychological experiment destined to end in failure, resulting in a man or women not properly assimilated into society and bound for a miserable existence.However, as Sandra Harding said What you see, what you find important, and how you understand the world depends on your standpoint and as more recent libber search has uncovered Freuds beliefs in a binary star set of man or woman is not necessarily true. Feminist Epistemology of society and science exposes how the commonly accept binary couple of male/female or masculine/feminine influences our universe of familiarity and how we come to conclusions, and even in American media it is quite pronounce the male/female roles have began to blend or at to the lowest degree have come to have pitchd since Freuds time The stereotypes of boys were that they were self-sufficient, non-empathic, tough and cracking at war, and Girls were trained to be empathic and caring and more nurturing, are all falling apart. You even see tough football players shout nowadays (ABC 1). It would not necessarily be harmful for the baby to rise up in-between or with-out the masculine/feminine binary because it is socially constructed anyway and growing up with-out it, or perhaps better put, on the outside of it, simply creates a new paradigm for baby Storm.Because men have held such a dominant role influencing inquiry and upbringing it has skewed history and research to mans own advantage, resulting in a unidimensional view of gender and forefinger almost ever so at the womens expense(Luecke 138). As Kimmel said in our textbooks, the phenomenon of biasing knowledge is al shipway more pronounced when one group homogeneously controls policy-making and ideological syste ms, which have up until very recent times been controlled rigorously by males, giving them the conceptual power over gender, sexual orientation and almost every other field of research known to man. though in recent decades much progress has been made on this issue, at that place is still much bias on part of male dominate research resisting the inclusion of minorities and feminist epistemology which needs to change in hostel for better research methods and more accurate out comes, especially from a constructionists approach to gender.As Sharlene Hesse-Biber put it If present science is distorted by the predominance of male perspectives, would not science become more objective lens by the deliberate inclusion of views from women, minorities etc. The Social Constructionist Approach diverges from Freuds belief in masculine/feminine binaries in that it acknowledges the contextual wideness of gender and sexuality. The time, place, power and culture all play a part in defining what is considered masculine and what is feminine, concluding that gender and sexuality are not constants, but variables in a perpetual flux, resulting from the ebb and cling of societal norms and what social groups are in power influencing those norms.Storms identity as he grows up will certainty be influenced by his interactions with media, society and his parents but that influence will be minimized because of his immunity to the power of gender and sex stereotypes, living in, presumably, blissful ambiguity. And in many ways this gives him a certain power over us, or at least a power to change or blur the gender norms as he grows up It is impossible to explain gender without adequately sagaciousness power not because power is the consequence of gender difference. But rather because power is what produces those gender differences in the first place (Kimmel 116).The solecism of Storm Stocker, while highly controversial, cannot be declined the notion of fascinating and perhaps highly influential on this centuries gender and sexual norms thus society itself. This case as analyzed through intersectionality is perfect to highlight the many ways in which race, class, gender and sexuality all come to act as social forces on us as we develop in our presumptuousness environment (Kennedy & Hellen 36). As we watch Stormmature into whatever Storm aspires to be, Storm will be simultaneously turning back millennia of stereotypes, biases, roles and assumptions that have been entrenched in our global society. The potential for real social change stems from the point where other individuals who have been raised and socialized similarly to storm, calculate and create social movements to further awareness and understanding of neo-gendered individuals (Madison & Shaw 435).In this way Storm and their contemporaries will show us how the binary concepts of man/women have been one of the most pervasive forces locking us deep down a certain realm of action and understanding dicta ted stringently by the reproductive organs we were born with. Who we love, how we love are all subject to change as Our identities are a fluid throng of the meanings and behaviors that we construct from values, images and prescriptions we find in the world around us (Kimmel 112). whole kit Cited tiddler raised without gender sets off debate CTV password . CTV News transcend Stories Breaking News Top News Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012. .Baby Storm Raised Genderless, or Without a Gender, a Dangerous Experiment, take Child Development Experts ABC News. ABCNews.com Breaking News, Latest News & Top Video News ABC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012. .Biber, Sharlene Nagy. Handbook of feminist research theory and praxis. Thousand Oaks, Calif. SAGE Publications, 2007. Print.Harding, Sandra. Feminist Standpoints. Handbook of feminist research theory and praxis. Thousand Oaks, Calif. SAGE Publications, 2007. 46-64. Print.Kennedy, Natacha, and Mark Hellen. Transgender childr en more than a theory-based challenge. Graduate ledger of Social Science 7 (2010) 25-42. Print.Kimmel, Michael S.. The gendered society. New York Oxford University Press,2000. Print.Lahelma, Elina. egg-producing(prenominal) Paths To Adulthood In A Country Of Genderless Gender. Gender & teaching 24.1 (2012) 1-13. Academic Search Complete. Web.Luecke, Julie. Working with Transgender Children and Their Classmates in Pre-Adolescence Just Be Supportive.Journal of LGBT Youth 8.2 (2011) 116-156. Print.Maddison, Sarah, and Frances Shaw. Feminist Perspectives on Social Movement Research. Handbook of feminist research theory and praxis. Thousand Oaks, Calif. SAGE Publications, 2007. 434-454. Print.Teitel, Emma. Neither He Nor She. Macleans 125.16 (2012) 36. Academic Search Complete. Web.