It is recommended that you save your response as you complete each question.
Question 1
What is sex?
Sex is the biological based components of organisms.
Sex is penile-vaginal penetration.
Sex refers to physical activity with another person for sexual pleasure.
Consider how sex may be defined by different people for different reasons.
Question 2
What is gender?
A person's designation by a medical professional at birth.
A person's internal sense and presentation of self.
A person's identity as attributed by another.
All of the above.
Consider how gender is constructed and attributed.
Question 3
Which of the following is an example of biological essentialism?
The difference between men and women may be explained by chromosomes.
Because of their reproductive capacities, women are naturally nurturing.
Testosterone makes men natural leaders.
All of the above.
Consider the causal relations presented in these examples.
Question 4
Match the following terms and definitions.
A person with persistent discomfort about their natal sex.
An umbrella term used to describe people who locate themselves in a broad spectrum of socially constructed gender.
A term used by people who reject or at least transgresses stereotypical, binary genders.
An individual identified as female at birth but who do not identify with that designation and identify as men.
A general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.
1. Intersex
2. Transgender
3. Genderqueer
4. Transsexual
5. Transman
Question 5
Why does Plante introduce us to intersexuality and transgenderism in this chapter?
To explain why the medical and health professions have found it necessary to treat intersexed and transgendered individuals according to proven biological standards regarding appropriate sexual characteristics.
To force us to rethink sex and gender and the way in which we conceptualize them according to a binary system that assumes only two sexes opposed to one another.
To critically and objectively reformulate more appropriate standards of "normalcy" and "deviancy" for contemporary society.
None of the above.
Consider how Plante uses these examples to formulate questions about our bodies and ourselves.
Question 6
According to Plante, schemas are cognitive structures that we develop through interaction with the world. What do schemas ‘do' for us?
Schemas help us manage new information by providing templates for discerning patterns and themes.
Schemas prevent us from integrating new information that does not fit into the templates.
Both of the above.
Neither of the above.
Consider how you process information regarding sex and gender.
Question 7
Plante recounts medical descriptions of sperm and egg in order to demonstrate scientific objectivity.
True
False
Consider the standards of scientific objectivity.
Question 8
One of the difficulties of proving the validity of the social constructivist position regarding gender is the well-known fact that the binary sex/gender system, which delineates sex/gender in terms of two opposing terms (male and female), is a cross-cultural phenomenon.
True
False
Consider Plante's treatment of other cultures' approaches toward sexual difference.
Question 9
According to Plante, doctors treat intersexed infants by ascertaining and make the body align with the infant's "most appropriate" gender because it is medically necessary.
True
False
Consider what the point of Plante's discussion of intersexuality is.
Question 10
Plante distinguishes between the techniques by which transgendered individuals achieve a gender and the way in which gender expression comes more naturally for others.
True
False
Consider what Plante says about how gender is performed.
Question 11
The natural sciences, as opposed to the social sciences, can achieve objectivity because they do not require interpretation of data and deal only with natural, given objects.
True
False
Think about the scientific process.
Question 12
To say that knowledge is situated or located is to say that knowledge is dependent on knowers and such that there can be no such thing as purely objective knowledge.
True
False
Consider how you come to know a fact.
Question 13
Since there is no such thing as purely objective knowledge, then all knowledge claims are essentially equal.
True
False
Consider whether a claim can be evaluated without the promise of pure objectivity.
Question 14
In our everyday lives, we typically determine a person's sex based on visible biological criteria like genitalia.
True
False
Consider how you know whether a person is a male or female.
Question 15
Persons born with an XX chromosomal makeup are always female, and persons born with an XY chromosomal makeup are always male.
True
False
Consider the role sex chromosomes play in the development of sex.
Question 16
Because of the rigors of the scientific method, scientific narratives about the body and bodily relations are generally immune to the social and cultural biases of everyday life.
True
False
Consider the scientific narrative of conception.