8
Modern medicine's treatment of intersexed babies is itself a discourse on what a normal body is. Generally speaking when a child is born and not clearly defined as either male or female, the baby is often altered, if at all possible, to conform to 'standard' male/female perceptions. one of the main checks in this is the size of the penis/clitoris. if it is large enough, the infant may be passed off as a male; if it is deemed too small, the child is passed off as a female, and the genitalia may be further reduced in size.
Using this a number of things can be inferred about what medicine is telling society about a normal body. The first is that one must be either a full male or a full female. It is unacceptable to be intersexed, else there would be no need to alter intersexed infants. Second, that doctors will reduce the size of what is determined to be a clitoris (that is, a phallus too small to be considered a penis) enforces the dualism between men and women. some variety is allowed in the size of penises, but all clitorides must be small and of about the same size. Finally, this same practices tells us that the maleness of an individual is determined in no small part by the size of the phallus. To have a small penis makes one less of a man, and as a corollary, to have an enlarged clitoris makes one less of a woman.