性別: Sex
I’m an avid Ted Ed watcher. I can honestly say I
sometimes spend hours at a time on YouTube, watching one Ted Ed video after
another. It’s really a terrible addition. While I was reading Deborah Tannen’s “About
Men”, her reference to Ralph Fasold’s biological gender studies reminded me of
a Ted Ed video I had recently watched, called “Sex Determination: More
Complicated Than You Thought”. I took it upon myself to watch it again (not
reluctantly), noting the “markedness” of different species.
The sex of humans, as Tannen (and our freshman biology
classes) tells us, is determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome,
making the male sex – the one with the Y chromosome – the “marked” sex. Birds,
however, pass on Z and W chromosomes, with the presence of the W chromosome creating
a female bird and the absence, a male. In this case, female birds are “modified”
(Tannen 555) males.
The Ted Ed video also touches on whiptail lizards and
their complete femininity, which Tannen also mentions. It’s true that “[t]here
are no species… that produce only males” (Tannen 555). There are species,
however, that produce offspring that are male unless otherwise indicated. For
example, clownfish are all born male, with a lucky few becoming female later in
life. So clownfish “default” (Tannen 555) to male.
In some species, males and females are both marked.
The sex of painted turtles, for example, is determined only by temperature. If
it reaches above a certain temperature, the eggs will all produce females. If
it doesn’t reach that temperatures, the eggs will all produce males. Painted
turtles, as the Ted Ed video tells us, are all “hot chicks or cool dudes.”
To prove their arguments, Deborah Tannen and Ralph Fasold
focused on those species in which the male is the marked species – one of which
is the human species, so it’s a strong argument. But there are so many other
species in which neither (or both, however you want to see it) sex is marked,
or in which the female sex is marked.
Hi Jenny,
ReplyDeleteI like how you connected Tannen's piece to a broader perspective. Your point that the sex that is marked varies from species to species was interesting.
Nice read!
Jeff
OMG JENNY!
ReplyDeleteWe watched that clip in AP BIO WOOHOOO!
You made an amazing connection between the video and Tannen's piece on how different species are ;"marked" differently! Loved reading it and it gave me new ideas as to how to conduct my blog for next week! Thank you and good job!