people who are discordant in some aspect of psyche or behavior do not have any detectable biological intersex condition. Human societies respond to, or accommodate, these behavioral and psychological discordances in many different ways, ranging from suppression and denial of difference to acknowledging various forms of third sex. It is interesting, and perhaps significant, that some societies identify youths with atypical behavioral characteristics and, instead of giving them corrective therapy or punishing them, socialize them in such a way that their individual characteristics let them provide a needed and/or useful function for the society in a recognized and respected role. Some of the roles these individuals may assume include: shaman, medicine man, tong-ki, berdache, hijra, xanith, and transgender. Such complex situations have led some scientists to argue that the two sexes are socio-cultural constructions. Some people have sought to define their sexuality and sexual identity in nonpolar terms in the belief that the simple division of all humans into males and females does not fit their individual conditions. A proponent of this movement away from polar oppositions, Anne Fausto-Sterling, once suggested we recognize five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm and herm. Although quickly rejected as a bizarre flouting of human nature and social reality, and inimical to the interests of those whom she was attempting to champion, it expresses the difficulty and imperfection of the current social responses to these variations.
Biological Differences While a large part of this chapter is dedicated to pointing out the socially determined differences between men and women, it is also important to note that not all differences are social. Men and women differ in their physiological makeup. In addition to different sex organs, the average male is 10 percent taller, 20 percent heavier, and 35 percent stronger in the upper body than the average female (Ehrenreich 1999; that physicological differences may have been influenced by social/cultural decisions in the past is still debated). How such measures are taken and evaluated remains the subject of interrogation and scrutiny. Scientists and clinicians point out that the relative strength of women, measured against their own body size, rather than on an absolute such as how much weight they can carry compared to men, shows that strength differences are minimal (Ebben and Randall, 1998: np). Women, for reasons still somewhat undetermined, tend to outlive men. Women's life expectancy in the U.S. is 79.8 years, men's is 74.4 (U.S. National Center for Health Statistics 2003). The leading hypothesis to explain this phenomenon is the skewing caused by war in earlier years, combined with higher stress in the situations and occupations typical of men. An as yet unexplained phenomenon is that more female infants than male infants survie the neonatal period. There is some discussion that these number may be skewed because sex verification in the neo-natal period tends to be done visually, so not all the biological sexinformation may be correct for this period. Regardless, it does influence such statistical measures as the PYLL (potential years life lost) that help us to calculate the impact of premature death on males and females. Behaviorally, age of sitting, teething, and walking all occur at about the same time in men and 150