Media Credit: Amber Mees [Click to enlarge]

On a typical dreary Thursday afternoon, Suzanne Kessler began her speech by talking about nutritionists. She said recently she heard a nutritionist on the radio recommend that men eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day while women should eat seven servings a day.

"When I hear routine uses of the word men and women, I ask myself, 'what do nutritionists mean by women and men?'" Kessler asked. "Do they mean people with clitorises and XX chromosomes should only eat seven or nine servings a day? Or people with Y chromosomes should eat more vegetables a day? Or do they mean people of a certain body weight; do they mean people with a certain metabolism of a certain muffin-fat ratio, a certain level of estrogen and androgen? Do they mean people who more or less like to wear pink nail polish? I don't know. I don't know what they mean by that."

"It's unethical not to specify what you mean by women or men," Kessler said.

Nearly 100 various students and faculty members filled up 182 Lillis to hear Kessler, who is a professor of psychology and Dean of the School of Natural and Social Sciences at Purchase College State University of New York and author of "Lessons from the Intersexed," talk on the ethics surrounding the treatment of those in an intersex condition.

The two hour lecture, which also featured bioethicist Alice Dreger of Northwestern University, was facilitated by associate professor of Women's and Gender Studies Elizabeth Reis and it provided insight into the life of an intersex person struggling to fit in.

Reis said Thursday's lecture was organized as part of a grant from the Oregon Humanities Center to teach a new class called Sex and Medical Ethics, particularly in the 20th century.

"What Suzanne Kessler did so well in 'Lessons from the Intersexed' was to uncover social assumptions that guide clinical decision-making in regard to infants and children born intersex," said Reis. Her book "provided the most comprehensive approach to the study of intersex that had ever been published up to that time. And it's still a must-read for anyone interested in the medical management of these conditions, the importance of the social norms, or even more broadly the study of how we think about gender and how those decisions get made about who is a boy and who's a girl."

Continued...

Page 1 of 3 next >

Article Tools

Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1

Post a Comment

• Name: (required)
• Email: (required)
• NOTE: Email address will not be published
• Website:

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

Email notify will not work because you are not currently logged in.
Click here to quickly login or create a free account.

Type your comment below (html not allowed)

  I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.