Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex

By Alice Domurat Dreger

Book Overview

This text explores encounters between hermaphrodites - people born with ambigious sexual anatomy - and the medical and scientific professionals who grappled with them. Alice Dreger focuses on events in France and Britain in the late 19th century, a moment of great tension for question of sex roles. While the feminists, homosexuals, and anthropological explorers openly questioned the natures and purposes of the two sexes, anatomical hermaphrodites suggested a deeper question: just how many human sexes are there? Ultimately hermaphrodites led doctors and scientists to another surprisingly difficult question: what is sex, really?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674089278
• ISBN13: 9780674089273
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.0"