[Fwd: Re: ignore this, it's about women and sexism ...]]]]

Katha Pollitt kpollitt at thenation.com
Tue Nov 30 11:22:54 PST 1999


kelley wrote:
>
> And I think that Katha is correct in arguing
> >that most of the arguments presented so far in defense of
> >the thesis that sex is socially constructed only demonstrate
> >that gender is.
>
> it also demonstrates how gender is. how many people here believed that
> hormones *must* be a fundamentally decisive devision between the two
> morphs? and how many people here believed, prob still, that testosterone
> really is the reason why men are so aggressive?

It's true that "science" is now the language in which people express their sexist views. (Compare the social acceptability of 'evolutionary psychological" explanations of women's subordination in marriage with the theological account given by the Southern Baptists.) But "science" is also the language in which people -- Natalie Angier, Barbara E, me,you for example -- express their anti-sexist views. What has lowered the stock of the evolutionary psychologists hasn't been non-scientists putting forth a general theory that "science is socially constructed" or "serves the status quo." As you point out, those ideas have been around for a very long time. What has made a difference is feminist scientists and anthropologists refuting sexist science with better science, and the popularization of their work by people like Natalie A and Barbara E.

katha



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