Baby Gender Trouble

[Shana A]

Baby Gender Trouble
Salamishah Tillet on May 24, 2012 - 1:17 PM ET

http://www.thenation.com/blog/168055/baby-gender-trouble?rel=emailNation

"Do you know what the gender is?" is the question people most frequently ask expecting parents, including me. Usually, I give the conventional response: "No, we are waiting to be surprised." But occasionally I offer up one of my two real answers, "We don't know the sex or the gender" or "I don't really believe in gender anyway."

Eyebrows are raised. And then a series of explanations follow.

Sometimes I go into a long monologue, à la feminist philosopher Judith Butler, about gender being a fiction, consisting of two opposite categories and a series of staged acts that we tacitly agree to "perform, produce, and sustain." On the most basic level, why is blue is the agreed upon costume color for boys, while pink is the color for girls?