Gendermaps: Social Constructionism, Feminism, and Sexosophical History.

By John Money. New York: Continuum, 1995, 165 pages. Cloth, $22.95.

Reviewed by Walter O. Bockting, Drs. Program in Human Sexuality, Department of Family Practice and Community Health, Medical School, University of Minnesota, 1300 South Second Street, Suite 180, Minneapolis, MN 55454-1015.

John Money has written another impressive synthesis of his comprehensive theory of human sexuality, sex, and gender. In Gendermaps, Money applies his theory to "manhood and womanhood in conflict, or more specifically, the power struggles that affect men and women as couples, privately, and as members of organizations, politically" (p. 10). Money discusses how in today's sexosophy, i.e., ideological sexology, gender has become devoid of sex. He argues that in their quest for gender equality, feminists, with the help of social constructionists, "neutered" gender from sex to circumvent the significance of childbearing in women's lives. Fundamental differences between men and women, in particular in the arena of sex and eroticism, were ignored or deconstructed. Male domination was equated with male lust; male eroticism became associated with oppression, rape, and violence. Money argues that gender devoid of sex, as coded in the gendermap, combined with sex as morally dirty and violent, as coded in the lovemap, perpetuate misunderstanding between men and women and is disastrous for our sexual health. Central to his thesis is that gender and sex are two sides of the same coin, and that when it comes to sex and lust, differences between men and women exist and are reciprocal. Unless this is acknowledged, he predicts that the war between the sexes will escalate in the 21st century.

In Chapter 1, Money discusses the origins and definitions of the terms gender role, gender identity, and gender-identity/role. He rightfully claims the credit for having coined these terms, first in 1955. Subsequently, the term gender took on a meaning of its own. In contrast to Money's definition of gender identity/role, biological sex and reproduction were specifically excluded from gender. The term gender became widely used to refer to male and female differences attributable to cultural stereotypes and socialization. This split between biological sex and eroticism, on the one hand, and social and cultural gender, on the other, parallels the essentialism versus social constructionism or nature versus nurture dichotomy. It is ironic that the term gender, introduced by Money's research on hermaphroditism and grounded in his nature/critical period/nurture paradigm, served others so well in reinforcing a false dichotomy that Money himself so strongly defies. In Gendermaps, he reasserts the definitions and usage he intended and criticizes misuse of the term. In addition, he analyzes the forces that have promoted the exclusion of biological sex and eroticism from gender. In his view, the women's movement as well as the gay and lesbian movement initially benefited from this exclusion. It enabled them to bypass reproductive and sexuoerotic differences in their pursuit of equal rights. While acknowledging this political benefit, Money declares the neutering of gender from biological sex and eroticism scientifically indefensible.

In Chapters 2 and 3, Money applies the analogy of native language acquisition to gender differentiation. He distinguishes between those gender differences that are phylogenetically shared by all people and those that are ontologically unique to an individual. He also distinguishes among four categories of gender coding that differ in their relationship with sex: (a) sex irreducible gender coding (confined to procreation), (b) sex derivative gender coding (sex hormone dependent), (c) sex adjunctive gender coding (occupational, educational, and recreational differences that are superimposed on hormone-dependent differences), and (d) sex adventitious gender coding (arbitrary stereotypes of masculinity and femininity). Money emphasizes that today's stereotypical roles for males and females are biased toward insufficient attention to the similarities between the sexes and exaggeration of the differences. However, he explains the gender differences that do exist and underscores their reciprocality.

In Chapters 4 and 5, Money presents his sociopolitical, historical analysis of the feminist movement. He explains that after introduction of the term gender, the movement divided on gender with or without the inclusion of sexuality. Gender-only feminists focused their agenda on educational and vocational equality. The use of the term gender instead of sex enabled feminists to circumvent the significance of childbearing in advocating for equal rights in the workplace and left genital sex, eroticism, and lust out of the public discussion. The result, in Money's analysis, is that feminist gains in the marketplace were not accompanied by corresponding gains at the homefront regarding parenting: A woman carried the responsibilities of two careers, one inside and one outside the home. Those feminists who included sexuality equated male lust with male domination and oppression. Money illustrates this pointedly by quoting Andrea Dworkin (1979, 1989): "Violence is male; ... male is the penis; violence is the penis." Men were casted as perpetrators, and women as their helpless victims. In Money's view, this scenario gave conservatives the opportunity to defend woman's traditional position of the weaker sex, dependent on man's power of protection. It laid the foundation for the pornography debate and for the field of victimology, concerned with sexual abuse.

In Chapter 6, Money finally introduces the concept of gendermaps. He defines it as follows:

"A developmental representation

or template synchronously in the

mind and brain depicting the details

of one's gender-identity/role

(G-I/R). It includes the lovemap

but is larger, insofar as it incorporates

whatever is gender coded

vocationally, educationally, recreationally,

sartorially, and legally, as

well as in matters of etiquette,

grooming, body language, and

vocal intonation" (p. 96).

Money clarifies that the gendermap overlaps with the lovemap and codes the lovemap as masculine, feminine, or bisexual. Both the gendermap and lovemap are, like the native language map, a product of nature/critical period/nurture. Money outlines their development in all its complexity, including the development of sexual pathology. He discusses the impact of the sex and gender split and its consequences, discussed in the previous chapters, on our gendermaps and lovemaps. For example, he points out that although many young women's gendermaps carry powerful ideation and imagery of a nondomestie career, few young men's gendermaps include a domestic career.

In Chapter 7, Money discusses in depth how mismatching of two individuals' gendermaps affects their relationship. He emphasizes the importance of complementation in matching the gender- and lovemaps of two partners and the conflicts that arise when reciprocality is not achieved. He applies this principle of reciprocality to heterosexual as well as homosexual relationships.

In the book's last chapter, Chapter 8, Money elevates the conflicts resulting from mismatched gendermaps in primary relationships to what is happening in American society on a public policy level. He argues that to understand our society politically and sociologically, we must understand its sexosophy, as manifested in the gendermaps and lovemaps it selectively endorses or rejects. Here, Money uses the metaphor of Ken and Barbie to illustrate American society's gendermap: "Although plentifully endowed with sexual characteristics, these are dolls that have nothing sexual between their legs. Their gendermaps, like the gendermaps of American public policy, have been genitoerotically neutered" (p. 137). Money concludes that the consequences of the sex and gender split, as reflected in morally cleansed and neutered gendermaps, on the one hand, and morally dirty and sexuoerotic lovemaps, on the other, form a bad omen for gender equality between men and women, and that gender without genital sex and eroticism is a disaster for our sexual health and society.

As is customary for John Money, Gendermaps is eloquently written. The scope of human experience covered and integrated in a consistent theory is remarkable. Through his review of the history of social constructionism and feminism, sexual revolution and counterreformation, Money provides a useful analysis of the ideological context for the science of sexology. He courageously articulates his position, free from the confines of what happens to be politically correct. There is much to discuss, yet I will limit my remarks to Money's attack on social constructionism and feminism and to a challenge of some of his theoretical assumptions. I will also outline some ideas for further empirical testing of his theory.

Money's attack on social constructionism and feminism is indiscriminantly blaming. Money holds social constructionists and feminists responsible for the separation of sex and lust from gender, whereas Money himself opened the door by coining the term gender. He blames social constructionists and feminists for using the distinction between sex and gender to further their causes, which enabled sex negativity and victimology, and in his ultimate analysis undermines gender equality. Instead of its warriors, feminists become the scapegoats of America's sexual crisis. But Money neglects to credit social constructionists and feminists for their scientific contributions, especially when it comes to sex and gender. For example, to name a few, the works of Kessler and McKenna (1978), Bem (1993, 1995), Fausto-Sterling (1985, 1993), and Herdt (1990, 1994) are ignored in Gendermaps. Not discussing these contributions is discounting some fruits born from the distinction between sex and gender, such as the current paradigm shift in the conceptualization and expression of transgender identities in North America (Bockting, 1995; Bolin, 1994; Stone, 1991). This paradigm shift transcends the gender dichotomy and recognizes a spectrum of gender identities. Bem (1995) discussed the implications of this paradigm shift for the pursuit of gender equality. Like Money, Bem sees an escalation of conflict between genders. Unlike Money, however, Bem is optimistic about the outcome and believes that greater equality will be achieved through accentuating differences and celebrating gender and diversity. It is unfortunate that Money doesn't seem to recognize that such social constructionist and feminist perspectives are potentially complementary to his theory; they simply highlight the role of sociocultural factors in the development of gender identity, gender role, gender bias, and gendermap. Although I agree with Money that some social constructionists and feminists seem to ignore the role of biological factors in gender development, I wish he had integrated rather than denounced these perspectives.

Implicit in Money's work is the assumption that sex, gender identity, gender role, and sexual orientation, four components of sexual identity, are tightly linked. Although I agree that both nature and nurture, and their complex interaction, likely contribute to the development of each of these four components, the interrelationships between these components are not well understood. Money's assumptions that sex and gender are two sides of the same coin, gender role is the public manifestation of gender identity, and gender identity and sexual orientation are inseparable all have been challenged by the phenomenon of transsexuality. Money's explanation for transsexuality (and also for homosexuality), gender transposition theory (e.g., Money, 1980), has been challenged by cases of sex-reassigned female-to-male transsexuals with a homosexual or bisexual identity (e.g., Coleman & Bockting, 1988; Coleman, Bockting, & Gooren, 1993) and by psychohormonal research (see Coleman, Gooren, & Ross, 1989, for a review). Money's reaction to these research findings and their implications remains eagerly awaited; Gendermaps completely omits any mention of this international scientific debate.

Another theoretical assumption, central to Money's theory, is the fundamental reciprocity between men and women. He argues that reciprocality on the basis of gender(maps) is critical for success in both heterosexual and homosexual primary relationships. The gendermaps of two partners need to be complementary (one more masculine, the other more feminine), not just compatible irrespective of gender, for their relationship to work. Simplified, this means that in a "gender complementary" same-sex relationship, one partner is "the man" and the other partner is "the woman." Although this is certainly one model for relationships, it isn't the only one. For example, in a literature review of 35 years of research into gay male relationships, Deenen, Gijs, and Van Naerssen (1995) found little support for gender-role complementarity. Money seems to assume that heterosexual, procreative, genital sex is at the root of sexual and gender identity development, which may be true for many, but not necessarily for all.

Ideas for future research that emerged for me while reading Gendermaps pertain to further empirical testing of Money's theory. More specifically, the hypothesis that the degree of complementation of two partners' gendermaps is correlated with relationship success needs to be tested. Comparisons of gendermap configurations between heterosexual and homosexual couples, and couples with one or two transgender partners, would reveal if and to what extent the principle of gender reciprocality applies across types of relationships. The interrelationships among sex, gender identity, gender role, masculinity/femininity, and sexual orientation are also in need of further study. The use of a descriptive model, such as Shively and DeCecco's components of sexual identity (1977), instead of a developmental model, like gender transposition theory (Money, 1980), would open a realm of new possible explanations and hypotheses.

In conclusion, Money wrote another book that reminds us of the complexity of gender and sexual identity development, which is multidetermined and, by others, all too often oversimplified. In Gendermaps, he discusses his sexological theory in the context of a challenging sociopolitical analysis of social constructionism and feminism. This analysis makes this book a must read for social constructionists and feminists, as well as for professionals concerned with sexual abuse, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, sexual health, and related public policy. Money calls for recognition of sexual differences between genders, without which he predicts conflict between manhood and womanhood will escalate. Let's take this message seriously, or take him up on the challenge.

References

Bem, S. L. (1993). The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Bem, S. L. (1995). Dismantling gender polarization and compulsory heterosexuality: Should we turn the volume down or up? The Journal of Sex Research, 3, 329-334.

Bockting, W. O. (1995). Transgender coming out: Implications for the clinical management of gender dysphoria. Journal of Gender Studies, 17(1), 17-20.

Bolin, A. (1994). Transcending and transgendering: Male-to-female transsexuals, dichotomy and diversity. In G. Herdt (Ed.), Third sex, third gender: Beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history (pp. 447-486). New York: Zone Books.

Coleman, E., & Bockting, W. O. (1988). "Heterosexual" prior to sex-reassignment, "homosexual" afterwards: A case-study of a female-to-male transsexual. Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality, 1(2), 69-82.

Coleman, E., Bockting, W. O., & Gooren, L. J. G. (1993). Homosexual and bisexual identity in sex-reassigned female-to-male transsexuals. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 22(1), 37-50.

Coleman, E., Gooren, L., & Ross, N. (1989). Theories of gender transpositions: A critique and suggestions for further research. The Journal of Sex Research, 26, 525-538.

Deenen, A. A., Gijs, L., & Van Naerssen, A. X. (1995). Thirty-five years of research into gay relationships. Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality, 7(4), 19-39.

Dworkin, A. (1979). Pornography: Men possessing women. New York: Perigee.

Dworkin, A. (1989). Pornography: Men possessing women. New York: Dutton.

Herdt, G. (1990). Mistaken gender: 5-Alpha reductase hermaphroditism and biological reductionism in sexual identity reconsidered. American Anthropologist, 92, 333-346.

Herdt, G. (1994). Mistaken sex: Culture, biology, and the third sex in New Guinea. In G. Herdt (Ed.), Third sex, third gender: Beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history (pp. 419-445). New York: Zone Books.

Kessler, S. J., & McKenna, W. (1978J. Gender: An ethnomethodological approach. New York: Wiley.

Money, J. (1980). Love and love sickness: The science of sex, gender difference, and pairbonding. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Shively, M. G., & DeCecco, J. R (1977). Components of sexual identity. Journal of Homosexuality, 3(1), 41-48.

Stone, S. (1991). The empire strikes back: A posttranssexual manifesto. In J. Epstein & K. Straub (Eds.), Body guards: The cultural politics of gender ambiguity (pp. 280-304). New York: Routledge.