Unit 2

                                            Normality: We Set the Rules; We Set the Standards


Edward Phillips, an author during the 1600’s, defined the word “normal” as “done exactly, according to the rule or square”. Today, the definition of normal is defined as “conforming to a standard”. This is where questions arise. Who set the rules of normality? Who set the standards? And why? 

From birth, we’re taught right from wrong. We’re taught how to act, present ourselves, and how to be normal. We’re confined into a small area of ourselves that’s acceptable to show the world, and ignore the rest that we can’t. Not everything about us is “normal”, as much as we try to be, and then some of us are left to feel ashamed. 

As time goes on things start to change. Trends, styles, perspectives, almost everything does. More people enter the world, each bearing something unique and different. Something that wasn’t “normal” before might be the new “normal” now or in the future. Many people grab a hold of this new, budding idea of normalcy and run with it. They expand the idea further and make it known. Ariel Levy, an American writer, created an article called “Either/Or: Sports, Sex, and the Case of Caster Semenya” to go against “normalcy” in hopes to broaden out what’s “normal” and to allow more to become known. To become common. To become normal. Levy’s work is aimed to inform us that we’re all uniquely different. There shouldn’t be a “standard” that we all bend over backwards to conform to.

Levy explores Caster Semenya’s difficulty with competing in the world championships while being an intersex woman in “Either/Or: Sports, Sex, and the Case of Caster Semenya”. Levy’s discussion about “intersexuality (being) more common than Down Syndrome or albinism” (10) and the consequences of doctors performing irreversable surgery to inforce a sex on newborns (10) furthers more questions. If there are more than 6,000 babies each year born with Down Syndrome in the United States, and intersexuality is more common than Down Syndrome, why is something so common so...uncommon? Do you think it’s because most people choose not to believe in it, as it’s something that they haven’t seen themselves? Intersexuality isn’t easy to point out, as it’s personal. It’s possible. But what about the doctors forcing a “standard” sex on a newborn child? If they’re forced a sex as a newborn, the rate of intersexuality wouldn’t increase, possibly furthering the reason for it to be “uncommon”. Levy’s piece also explores the tolls that normalcy can take on people who are not allowing themselves to be forcibly conformed to the standard. Some feel as though they’ll never be accepted as normal. Constant questioning can become very stressful, emotional, and dehumanizing when one knows that there’s nothing wrong with themselves; because “even if...there’s nothing wrong with [them], people will always look at [them] twice” (18). 

Levy leaves us with many questions, but essentially the answer is “us”. We set the rules; we set the standards. We hold the power to change them.

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