cliterature

This is the time of year where people start to bring up trivia, such as that the reindeer ostensibly pulling Santa’s sleigh would–if they have antlers–be female (or castrated males).  Bull reindeer, you see, shed their antlers before Christmas.  It is interesting that it matters.  Are Santa’s deer presumed to be male because they do physical labor, or on some weird assumption that only males have horns.  This is true of some species, but in most horned species both the male and female go equipped.  (And that would include common livestock like cows, sheep and goats of their horns were not surgically removed).I spend quite a lot of time on this blog questioning what people assume about gender.   But it is worth considering that although the meaning of gender beyond chromosomal and anatomical domain is disputed, gender itself is a categpory even broader than species.  That is, there are far more individual out there that are female, than that are human.  This is not to say that I have more in common with a female giraffe than a male human (although it may sometimes feel that way) but that the meaning of gender can be considered across species boundaries.

It is said that in technical terms, only humans have “gender” which implies a cultural meaning attached to perceived male-ness or female-ness.  Animals are described, in most scientific publications, as being of the male or male ’sex’ not ‘gender’.  But I have recently noticed a number of exceptions.  This may be simply because ’sex’ is a word that makes people uncomfortable because it is now used vastly more often to refer to copulation than to specify between male and female.

I would argue that referring to an animals “gender” is equally justifiable because animals are also treated differently, by their own species and others including our own, depending on whether they are male or female.  And this is not only for innate and unchanging biological reasons, but also due to what individuals learn during their lifetime–due to within and between species culture.  I would argue that more sentient species of animal have a basic concept of their own gender and that of other animals that goes beyond reflexive reproductive acts.

And animals are a diverse and shocking lot when viewed with an open mindm rather than through the lens of Disney-fied assumptions that plague even scientific endeavors.  Research focused for a long time on male combat, not female choice.  On aggression and not bonding and appeasement.  In the animal king/queen and drone-dom every  norm of femininity from size to nurturing role is reversed as a norm in some species, and by at least some individuals in every species.  Even if you hold animals do not have “gender” not every animal of a certain sex follows the life path typical for the species.  Some either do not want to, or chose not to breed, some are homosexual in their focus, some are poor or abusive parents, some fill the role in their community more typical of the other sex. In short, every ‘deviancy’ painted as unnatural in humans is found in other animals.

So by saying sex is more pervasive than species I am not say it is more rigid and standardised–quite the reverse.  Looking at the mouth brooder, the lilytrotter, the reindeer and the honeybee, it is in fact flexibility and diversity of sex roles that we see.

And p.s. to be perfectly honest, why are Santa’s reindeer shown with antlers?  I suspect it is because later days artists find that embellishment aesthetically pleasing, and no other reason.  After all, Santa doesn’t employ all that many fact checkers to protects his brand and trademarks from such misrepresentation.   (Although, if Santa is sensible the team are non-breeding girls and eunuchs rather than bulls exhausted after the rut or pregnant females.)

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