My one class

Well. School is back in. I have one evening class on Tuesdays. Psychology of Women. We will be examining gender roles and societies attitudes towards women in different cultures. Should be interesting. She's mainly lecture and video. Last night, though, was a shock to my apparently sheltered system.

We learned all about various endocrine insufficiencies during gestation that affect gender. We learned about babies born genetically male but with deformed genitals. And since it is evidently easier to make a vagina than it is to make a penis, they opt to turn the baby boy into a baby girl. Even though it is genetically a boy. They keep having problems with the kids when they hit puberty, basically being too much a boy and then opting for surgery to turn them back. I was really having a problem with why they were making an obviously wrong choice simply because the surgery was easier - to perform by the way not necessarily to withstand. So even though children are born every day with some kind of deformity that they must live with, boys born with deformed gemitals would some how be better off turned into girls rather than learning to live with their deformity or possibly waiting to repair the genitals when the child is older. How could they possibly survive the ridicule, was the justification! Hello, children are mean to each other all the time but that doesn't mean we put a bag over the head of the kids with cleft palettes or hide the ones that need leg braces. We address the issues and teach the kids how to cope. And at a young age, before those damn gym classes, it's much easier to hide deformed genitals than it is a limb or a face. I think the Dr.s are doing much more damage to these kids pschologically than if they were simply allowed to develope the way they were born rather than being forced into the wrong mold. I was having a real hard time with this whole thing...and I don't even like kids.

I could go on about this because it really seems to have messed with me, but I won't. Can't wait to see what I learn next week...