You must have entirely missed the point made repeatedly in earlier posts by various people.
>And
>there are those who are saying, not explicitly so, that all we can have are
>myths about the past that serve one present political project or another.
It's obvious neither Carrol nor I am making such an argument. The extra-discursive limits the discursive. Objective biological facts exist. You had better go argue with someone else.
>>Ruth Hubbard's point is to ask what makes certain objective differences
>>much more compelling than others. *Which question gets studied at all, or
>>which differences we turn into scientific questions,* is a political
>>question.
>
>Sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes problems *internal* to a science
>require that certain experiments be undertaken. Not everything is
>political, e.g. a Stern-Gerlach magnet.
I've already made this point in one of my earlier posts. It should be obvious to leftists, however, that sex, gender, and sexuality -- the categories in question in these threads & the central concerns for Hubbard -- have been a political affair.
>>It is invidious to naturalize the social categories created by oppression,
>>and such naturalization generates a pseudo-scientific research program.
>>I wonder what happened to your perennial criticisms of those who racialize
>>statistics while disregarding income & wealth data.
>
>Well that's the point: the demarcation of groups with different
>susceptibilities to disease do not map out on racial ones. Grouping and
>classification need not be a reflection of power and oppression.
I agree, and I've already made this point. I have not argued that sex(es) will disappear altogether in a classless, genderless society. The "opposite sexes" model will disappear, though, if gender oppression gets abolished. The "opposite sexes" model is a model that has helped gloss over gender inequality in a society that proclaims the ideals of equality, because of the support that it provides for the ideology of "separate but complementary" genders with their own spheres.
>> But we must do so while acknowledging that biological
>>differences automatically determine *neither the number of sexes nor how
>>sexes are socially characterized*.
>
>Well in only a small percentage of cases of intersexuality, chromosomal,
>genetic, hormonal and social sex are consonant, giving us two sexes, one of
>which continues to be confined on average to a position in the social
>division of labor that is sysematically devalued.
Naturalizing sex, gender, & sexuality will obviously help perpetuate this social division of labor in question. Why is it so difficult to understand that sexing is a political affair?
>>Even _within_ the paradigm of so-called
>>"sexual dimorphism," there is no biological reason to necessarily posit
>>"opposite" sexes. Why "opposite"? Why not "neighboring" sexes? Why not
>>"different" sexes? Why "opposition" instead of "gradation," "variations of
>>the same," etc.? And why two sexes, instead of one, three, five, etc.
>
>That's not the point. You are missing the point. Sexual dimorphism is not a
>paradigm. It was a major transition in the way reproduction is carried out.
>It requires explanation.
_You_ are missing the point, my friend. What matters in evolutionary biology is not "sexual dimorphism" but the distinction between sexual and asexual reproduction (the former being more likely to give rise to differences). You are making a category mistake here. Obviously, one can have sexual reproduction, however many sexes one uses to understand biological differences. Otherwise, why do you think Stephen Jay Gould argues that "males" is a developmental modification of the universal "female" ground plan? Does Anne Fausto-Sterling's five-sex model make sexual reproduction impossible? In fact, the mental block placed on people by "sexual dimorphism," together with the concept of pervasive utility, made the existence of male nipples a puzzle for many and created a myth of vaginal orgasm, as Stephen Jay Gould argued. One might make an argument against the paradigm of "sexual dimorphism" in the interest of a better understanding of evolution!
BTW, you wrote in another post:
>Kelley,
>
>>did i not make it perfectly clear the the
>>operationalization of sex was about research examining the correlation
>>between educational attainment and sex.
>
>Aside from an excuse as to why I don't have my PhD, that question does not
>interest me, and its relation to the ongoing debate is far from clear. You
>make no attempt to explain why you are shifting to a different facet of
>sex. Since you have posted over 150 K (much more than double mine despite
>my own overposting) in about 30 posts in three days (also double mine),
>maybe you want to take a break. And give us a break.
>
>Yours, Rakesh
That's uncalled for. If a feminist argument against sexism in science doesn't interest you, you might as well refuse to take part in these threads, at least. Why don't you take a break and finish your dissertation?
my last post today, taking Doug's advice,
Yoshie