This book is an attempt to approach the study of gender both as an academic
practice and as a feature of our everyday lives. We encounter issues relating
to gender even before we leave the womb – as parents plan for the birth of a
girl or a boy by preparing clothes in appropriate colours or decorating a
nursery with appropriate cultural motifs. As the protagonist of Ursula Le
Guin’s science fiction novel, The Left Hand of Darkness (1981), explains:
I suppose the most important thing, the heaviest single factor in one’s life, is
whether one’s born male or female. In most societies it determines one’s expect
ations, activities, outlook, ethics, manners – almost everything. Vocabulary. Semi
otic usages. Clothing. Even food.