Seminar Paper for One of Us - Essay Example

What does Dreger suggest about the relationship between anatomy and identity in our society? In One of Us: ConjoinedTwins and the Future f Normal, Dreger asserts that anatomy plays a huge role in determining one’s identity in the sense that our senses, as well as other internal human processes, that is, our anatomy is what influences our identity and personality. This implies that the way one appears determines how others will treat or view him. For instance, many people have a tendency to view conjoined twins as “incapable of a meaningful, individual life” (Dreger 3).

This also extends to people’s skin color, which can be used to determine one’s social class. Thus, anatomy as a whole can dictate who can do something and who cannot. Dreger notes that sometimes anatomy helps in maintaining order by protecting the vulnerable and restricting privilege. Almost on a daily basis, people change their bodies ever so slightly in order to fit the identity that they wish to present socially. How does Dreger show that anatomy “matters” (2) in sometimes unexpected ways?

Dreger provides myriad instances that reveal just how much anatomy matters in somewhat unexpected ways (Dreger 2). She points out that even in the Holy Bible, priests were required to have perfect bodies similarly women were not allowed to join priesthood. This can also be illustrated in the case of the conjoined twins who visit a bar only for the bartender to demand for identification from one of the twins who seemed physically younger than her twin. However, Dreger reveals that “hearing the bartender’s request, the other twin turns around so that she’s the one facing the bartender.

Because the second twin appears older, the bartender reconsiders and decides to serve the drink without seeing the proof of time” (Dreger 1). Additionally, anatomy has also interfered with other legal formalities like in the case of the dwarfs whereby their dwarfism prevented the bartender from asking for their identification to verify in the quest of trying to avoid embarrassing or devaluing them.Dreger later suggests that the important problem of the twenty-first century will be along the “anatomy-identity line” (9)—what examples do you imagine she’s talking about here?

Among the examples that Dreger implies when talking about the problems that will be along anatomy identity lines in the 21st century include the issue of racism that has been vibrant in the past years and is expected to continue. Dreger (9) expresses that based on anatomy, one is either black in which the “whites are seen as inherently superior to all other races”. Subsequently, Dreger also seems to address the issue of scientific innovations and research activities that are on the raise in this 21st century.

These innovations such as Botox, a medically antiwrinkle treatment, imply that the world still continues to value anatomy to establish a sense of identity. She comments that people “brush the plaque of their teeth, in part to keep them healthy but also so that they won’t disgust other with a smell or appearance that would signal we are unclean” (Dreger 9)Works citedDreger, Alice Domurat. One Of Us: Conjoined Twins and the future of Normal. Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press, 2004. Print.