Herculine Barbin and Gender - Essay Example

Herculine Barbin and Gender Much as the issue on sexuality remains an unresolved conflict among medical experts, religious and judicial authorities, and hermaphrodites themselves under austere criticism in the 19th century, the search for identity in terms of “true sex” seems far from leaving the mystery which a French rural child of the mid-1900s had originally brought forth. On this ground, there appears no particular border by which we may hold in full recognition the sex of a hermaphrodite in the sense of confident truth especially that Herculine Barbin herself occurred to have not established a definitive claim of what identifies her or where she belongs considering the unity of her biological constitution, nature, and will altogether. While Barbin’s account of personal life was left hanging in non-identity, however, the boy-girl’s manner of presenting her memoirs is rather disposed in its character to lead our study towards an examination of thoughts, feelings, and circumstances which bore significant impact upon her sexuality and psycho-social behavior as a soon-to-be-revealed hermaphrodite. In his composition of “Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Century French Hermaphrodite”, Michel Foucault expressed “for herself, she was still without a definite sex, but she was deprived of the delights she experienced in not having one, or in not entirely having the same sex as the girls among whom she lived and whom she loved and desired so much” (Foucault, 5). Despite her female name ‘Alexina’ and her knowledge of being a girl, as declared and attached to her assumed identity by the family at birth, Barbin felt for the ‘same sex’ just as what the ‘opposite sex’ normally would. Beyond disclosure of her duality in sex, this projects an evidence of her strong natural inclination to possessing one of the chief traits of a male, as having unusual desire for fellow women is contrary to the basic attribute of a female sex. Hence, the gender of Herculine or Alexina may be reasonably defined as ‘male’ on the basis of such findings. Similarly, for me, Herculine is a male – for even if there emerged no direct assertion in her narrative to indicate as such, the way she described her sentiments via “My Memoirs” intensely reflects her approach of sensuality which could have otherwise been dismissed for mere wholesome want of friend or companion were she a case of a typical girl. Barbin confessed in detail “How many times, too, did Madame Eleonore surprise me in the midst of that inexplicable reverie, and how her look had the power to make me forget everything! I would run, radiant, to meet her, and rarely did I not obtain a kiss, which would return in an embrace that was full of an incomparable charm for me.” She openly and passionately conveyed in writing having fallen in love with a friend and royal court counsellor’s daughter and a female co-teacher at Ursuline convent. No doubt this is considerably farther than plain manifestation of desire for the sex of her kind, given that she knew she was female all along yet she did not turn out to perceive the uncommon fondness as erroneous in the process. As closest relations decided to view her as ‘female’ due to the small vagina that was more external and ready for confirmation compared to the hidden penis and testicles, specialists in the fields of medicine and of law regarded Barbin as ‘male’ upon thorough inspection. Apparently, the family trusted the criterion of assessing her gender by way of depending on what could be affirmed right away as an outcome of physical evaluation. On the other hand, since the concerned doctor and legal body at the time had faith in science and reason, respectively, their criteria must have been a function of several factors through which Barbin’s gender could be cross-examined with accuracy based on a couple of aspects in her well-being that proved worthy of investigation. Like them, however, I suspect that Herculine is a male because it is what logic primarily communicates to me, being a collective influence of scientific discipline, church, and philosophical society with an inevitable culture of criticizing delicate human issues. To think, with respect to the biological sex alone, it would be futile to judge Alexina as either a boy or a girl immediately for she is a hermaphrodite though it fairly suffices to resolve any growing degree of partiality herein by looking into perspective that accounts for connection between sex and character. Agreeing to impose that Hermaculine is a male means that one has understood her from a sensible viewpoint where the individual’s psychology and nature becomes highly responsible in determining which of her sexes dominated so that this would designate her real gender preference. Foucault stated that German psychiatrist Oscar Panizza “chose to make her only a shadowy figure, without an identity and without a name, who vanishes at the end of the narrative leaving no trace” (7). It seems that by his own means, the psychiatrist could not figure whether Herculine is a man or a woman in his story for analyzing her reality turned out to be a complex endeavor of linking the hermaphrodite’s biological and social response to her mental and emotional structure. His criteria could have been subject to a series of empirical observations, comparative analyses with an old or existing model, as well as extensive research in quest of other possible solutions with aid from theoretical knowledge. It should be difficult then to conduct studies when such case was rare and its sensitivity to moral and religious constraints might have caused intense unbearable pressure for Barbin that she eventually committed suicide. We know through history that the period in which Herculine lived was conservative and radical when it came to settling moral affairs and the society was often bound to cast away individuals who were quite different in their sexual orientation. Living in convent had shaped the hermaphrodite in a certain way that made her form concept of self and of others according to her general encounter of life within such institution and the community close by. Understandably, it would pay much to confront the world outside of religious confines, especially that he had not been accustomed to deal with critical people and assert herself for defense. One may wonder and how would she specifically respond to the question of sexuality and justify her preference? Hers must be a kind of struggle not only with reference to finding out the exact truth of her gender or sex which was unknown to her, but even with the need for acceptance as a human being and for the right to be protected from harsh and unjust critique. At this point, I am aware of having labelled Herculine as ‘male’ but I acknowledge that this is not a definite answer, neither correct nor incorrect in the light of understanding that if she continued to exist to the fullest of age she could, she would probably explore and develop more spontaneously to the extent unfolding her true sex. Work Cited Foucault, Michel. Herculine Barbin – Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Century French Hermaphrodite. New York: Pantheon Books. Read More