This is an MRT scanner.
I invite a person – we make an appointment
when they will come to take part in an experiment.
I receive the person, I explain what they have to do
The person comes here with a sex/gender identity,
gender role attitudes, expressions of sex/gender …
And I, I … up to this moment I have not constructed this person’s sex/gender,
But now this person comes to me to participate in an experiment.
And then there’s another moment when the person’s sex/gender matters –
– when they lie down on this table, ready to go into the scanner.
When we take down the details … weight … height … sex/gender, and initials.
So I have to type in all of this information.
If I don’t type it all in, if I leave anything out,
the machine sends an error message “Please enter the height, the weight …”
So that the machine knows the mass of the patient
it’s about the mass, not the sex/gender, how much mass is in here?
so that the energy, these waves … are not too strong.
The machine has to calculate that.
But in this procedure, at the very beginning, we record the person’s sex.
Not because the machine needs to know it – it’s the hospitals’ administration:
they need to register who is taking part in these experiments.
Maybe the reasons don’t even matter; the fact is, it is recorded.
No, of course the reasons do matter.
But this is a moment when sex/gender is inscribed into the process.
Think of all the interactions:
The person comes here and has a sex/gender. I have a sex/gender too.
What if I were a man? If the other person was a woman?
What if I was older? If I found the person attractive?
All these things happen, interpersonal things.
Maybe there’s a heterosexual relationship –
with all that implies for construction of sex/gender –
or maybe it’s two men or two women – that’s also a sexed/gendered relationship –
where sex/gender manifests itself – or is constructed.
All of this is also going on in our experimental situation.
So … the people come in here and do an experiment.
So now we come to the experimental design. What kind of experiment are they doing?
Is it an experiment about language? Or about mental rotation?
Those are just two examples. Or an experiment on sexuality?
All this, the experiment itself, and the design, are sexed/gendered, too.
So a third and a fourth moment, when gender is in play.
If it’s about sexuality, we want to show the person erotic images.
So here too I have to consider: Is this a man? So I present this kind of picture?
Or is it a woman? Does she have this orientation, or the other?
So constantly, gender and sex are cropping up in our experiment
and sex/gender is being produced and performed all the time.
And the moment when I show a difference in the brain –
– if I find it or not – that moment is later.
Now I have just done the measurement.
Then I burn the data on a CD or save them on a server.
I bring the data home and then evaluate them.
And then I lose sight of the people. They have become a code.
They are sex-/genderless, the data are sex-/genderless, unsexed/ungendered.
But then I begin evaluating the data and have to categorize them somehow.
So if it is about sex, I group them into:
men, women and “the rest” – a third gender or trans* –
But again, another moment where I make assignments, categorizations,
And I put this person’s data in this group and that person’s data in that group.
So that I can use a statistical tool
to show if there are differences
between these two or three sexed/gendered groups.
Here in 2009 I said that the thresholds – cut-off values that we use in neuroscience –
could influence whether we find differences between the sexes or not.
Depending on whether I use a strict threshold or a less strict threshold –
– but thresholds that are accepted in neuroscience, nothing extreme –
– but just by going to one end of the range for this one
and the other end of the range for the other one –
Depending on how I decide, either I find a difference or I find none.
So now I have found this.
After this whole process where sex/gender has popped up several times,
and I have these images and I want to publish the work,
so I have to put it down in writing.
Another moment where I am practically performing sex/gender –
sex/gender differences or similarities.
So what will I put in the title?
Do I write “gender differences”?
“Gender differences” or “sex differences”?
It’s in the brain, so I should write “sex differences”,
because this is the biological material.
Or maybe I think it’s a socialization process
so I write “gender”.
Whatever, it’s me who decides how I name, describe, construct sex/gender.
And then do I write “differences” or “no differences”?
If I found a difference that I think is especially important,
then I will put that in the title.
Or should I play it down? Because I don’t think it’s so important?
It’s another moment in which I shape and construct gender.
And then I have finished writing the paper. I have finished my analysis.
I submit the paper, knowing that if I demonstrate a difference, no matter which one
the reviewers will like the paper better than if I found no difference.
Another moment with effects from outside, from the way publication works …
So if we consider this whole experimental procedure as a linear story,
we can see so many different points where we are confronted with sex,
categorization by sex, sex differences, similarities …
… again and again, where I have to decide on a particular way.