THE SECOND SEX: Facts and Myths DESTINY: The Data of Biology ries rest upon this play of doubtful analogies. It is a question to wha losophy of nature these dubious ideas pertain; not to the laws of hese parts, from which later on, the definitive male or female struc- eredity, certainly, for, according to these laws, men and women alike tures arise. All this helps to explain the existence of conditions inter develop from an egg and a sperm. I can only suppose that in such mediate between hermaphroditism and gonochorism(sexes separate) misty minds there still float shreds of the old philosophy of the Mid Very often one sex possesses certain organs characteristic of the other; dle Ages which taught that the cosmos is an exact reflection of a ase in point is the toad, in which there is in the male a rudimental ovary called Bidder's organ, capable of producing eggs under exper microcosm-the egg is imagined to be a little female, the woman a mental conditions. Among the mammals there are indications of this giant egg. These musings, generally abandoned since the days of al- chemy, make a bizarre contrast with the scientific precision of the sexual bipotentiality, such as the uterus masculinus and the rudimen- data upon which they are now based, for modern biology conforms tary mammary glands in the male, and in the female Gartner,'s canal with difficulty to medieval symbolism. But our theorizers do not look and the clitoris. Even in those species exhibiting a high degree of too closely into the matter. In all honesty it must be admitted that sexual differentiation individuals combining both male and female characteristics may occur. Many cases of intersexuality are known in in any case it is a long way from the egg to woman. In the unfertilized egg not even the concept of femaleness is as yet established. As Hegel both animals and man; and among insects a justly remarks, the sexual relation cannot be referred back to theAre sionally finds examples of gynandromorphism, in which male and fe- lation of the gametes. It is our duty, then, to study the female organ- male areas of the body are mingled in a kind of mosaic. ism as a whole The fact is that the individual, though its genotypic sex is fixed at jt has already been pointed out that in many plants and in some fertilization, can be profoundly affected by the environment in which it develops In the ants, bees, and termites the larval nutrition deter animals(such as snails) the presence of two kinds of gametes does mines whether the genotypic female individual will become a fully not require two kinds of individuals, since every individual produces both eggs and sperms. Even when the sexes are separate, they are not developed female("queen")or a sexually retarded worker. In thes distinguished in any such fashion as are different species. Males and cases the whole organism is affected; but the gonads do not play a females appear rather to be variations on a common gro part in establishing the sexual differences of the be d, or somd. In the much as the two gametes are differentiated from similar original tis- vertebrates, however, the hormones secreted by the gonads are the sue. In certain animals( for example, the marine worm Bonellia)the essential regulators. Numerous experiments show that by varying larva is asexual, the adult becoming male or female according to the the hormonal(endocrine) situation, sex can be profoundly affected. circumstances under which it has developed. But as noted above rafting and castration experiments on adult animals and man have (page 11), sex is determined in most species by the genotypic con contributed to the modern theory of sexuality, according to which the stitution of the fertilized egg. In bees the unfertilized eggs laid by the soma is in a way identical in male and female vertebrates. It may be queen produce males exclusively; in aphids parthenogenetic eggs usu- regarded as a kind of neutral element upon which the infuence of ally produce females. But in most animals all eggs that develop have gonad imposes the sexual characteristics. Some of the horm been fertilized, and it is notable that the sexes are produced in ap- secreted by the gonad act as stimulators, others as inhibitors. Even the proximately equal numbers through the mechanism of chromosomal nital tract itself is somatic, and embryological investigations show sex-determination, already explained that it develops in the male or female direction from an indifferent In the embryonic development of both sexes the tissue from which and in some respects hermaphroditic condition under the hormonal the gonads will be formed is at first indifferent; at a certain stage fuence Intersexuality may result when the hormones are abnormal either testes or ovaries become estal blished; and similarly in the de when mnt of the other sex organs there is an early indifferent period female(Xx). This is why the young in the sex of the embryo cannot be told from an examination of