Much of what we believe about men and women is not naturally occurring difference that emerges from our male and female bodies.

Instead it isan outcome of active efforts to produce and maintain difference:a sea of people working together every day to make men masculine and women feminine.

This discussion board will ask you to read the short story. The Story of Baby X is afictional thought experiment originally published in Ms. Magazine in 1972 as part of consciousness raising efforts during the second wave of feminism.

After you read the story, write an original post that considers what this story might illuminate about the importance of gender in our society. You might consider the following questions:

1. What is your reaction to the story about? How did you feel while and after reading it?
2. After reading the story of Baby X and doing other work for this week, do you think differently about the idea of gender?
3. Why do we work so hard to maintain the gender binary and gender difference?

Make sure to draw from appropriate course material when discussing the story.

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