>Look at it this way. If a sociologist wants to study the
>importance of religion in a society, he needs to study
>how people worship, how the religious leaders interact
>with secular leaders, how people discuss religion. The
>question "Does their God really exist?" is irrelevant to
>the analysis.
To THEIR analysis, sure. But wouldn't it be of note if their god did exist?
>In fact, it gets in the way of social
>analysis. --And so with gender: the question "Are there
>really two biological genders?" is the wrong question if
>we want to understand gender as an important aspect of
>our social reality and social identities.
Absolutely. Of course, when it comes to the allocation of resources and discussing the propriety of a young woman's sexual involvement with an older man in our guiding utopia (which is how this rollercoaster got rolling), we could allow for biological sex in the interests of equity and freedom.
We'd been talking about menstruation - I guess it's as well to consider biological sex when deciding on whether to produce tampons and pads ('lollies' and 'biscuits' they were cutely called when I was a lad in Tassie), whether to charge a luxury tax for 'em (as they do here), and whether a coupla bloodstains are really all that unsightly anyway. So we can tell a lot about gender with reference to biological sex here, I reckon.
Ben Elton once said something like if men menstruated instead of women, there'd be a paid week off for it, it'd be a loudly celebrated event, and those not capable of this great feat would be left feeling sadly incomplete.
Anyway, my long-winded passages on Gould are best left to wherever they disappeared to for now ...
Cheers, Rob.