> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
>
> > Yoshie, I never claimed that there was a biological basis for sexism. A
> > biological basis for sexes such that they are not merely socially
> > constructed, yes.
>
> BTW, isn't that why people adopted the term "gender?" To distinguish a
> person's culturally determined gender from their biologically determined
> sex?
Yes, and no one has argued otherwise. The whole question has to do with the tendency of so many to anthropomorphize "biology," thus having an abstraction speak all sorts of mystic nonsense. Determining is always done by humans. In this case we determine sex on the basis of the facts of biology. But biology no more determines anything than it eats anything or sings Happy Birthday to You. Biology, also, is not life but the *study* of life -- and in any study errors may be made, facts misinterpreted. For several centuries now one of the favorite forms of misinterpretation has been the pretence (usually shamefaced and unadmitted) that facts speak for themselves. But only humans speak. The facts are dumb until we give them voice -- construe them, place them in a context, raise them to the level of theory. Roger, Rob, Brett, perhaps you in this post, are falling victim to the superstition that facts strut about the world with a sign on them (from God?) proclaiming their meaning. Since in his reading of *Capital* Roger is so careful to avoid empiricist errors it is strange that when he turns to sex and gender he produces posts that would be more at home in an Ann Landers column than in a serious intellectual/political maillist.
Rakesh, why don't you and I turn civil to one another. Just stop saying that I deny the reality of biological fact. And if you must use the phrase "socially constructed" instead of something like "historically generated," at least don't suggest I have ever used it. I haven't.
Carrol