Tom wrote:
>
>Gregor, of course I accept that gender - ethnicity - and possibly
>sexuality - is connected to body, genetics etc. But the phrase I
>used was 'people's difficulties'.
>
>By this I mean that there is little or nothing intrinsically difficult about
>being a woman,
and nothing intrinsically difficult about being black or gay.
I'm not sure. If I understand your meaning of 'intrinsically' correctly as
being something that is bodily and embodied, what about menstruation and
pregnancy, which are gender specific (though OK, we can choose at some
point not to go through this 'difficulty'), sickle-cell anaemia which is
race-specific, and particular bodily 'difficulties' that can result from
specific sexual practices, all of which can come together in the same
person? I wonder if where we're heading is that it's *sometimes* difficult
to make a clear separation between the biological and the social, though
it's certainly not always.
Best wishes
Mairian
Mairian Corker
Senior Research Fellow in Deaf and Disability Studies
Department of Education Studies
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
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