One-sex model

A way of understanding sex. A model of human anatomy that basically regards men and women as two variations of one sex. The female body appears as an inferior or not fully developed form of the male body, in which the sexual organs have been pushed outward by heat (cp. humours).

The term "one-sex model" was coined by the cultural historian Thomas Laqueur, who argues that the perception of biological similarities between men and women, e.g. with regard to the reproductive organs, governed the work of famous physicians of Classical antiquity, e.g. Galen, and was also prevalent in Renaissance times. By contrast, the two-sex model - the notion of significant differences between men and women - was invented as late as the 18th century. Now, the biological distinctiveness was seen in conjunction with alleged differences in cognition, intellect, emotions, morality and social roles.

According to Laqueur, the two theories of sexual difference influence the relationship between sex and gender identity. In the logic of the one-sex model, spontaneous sex changes (from female to male) werew perfectly possible, if rare. Since the biological boundaries between men and women were blurry, it was all the more important to police gender identities; for example, women were not allowed to wear trousers. By contrast, the two-sex model presumes stable male and female bodies (despite the recent possibility of sex change operations, there is still the matter of DNA, i.e. female XX and male XY chromosomes). It expects and prescribes a female gender identity for female bodies and a male identity for male bodies. It has therefore problems to incorporate the phenomena of intersexuality ("hermaphroditism") and homosexuality: the latter concept did not exist before 1900, and the notion of same-sex intercourse had different implications under the one-sex model.