>>Why should they not? If we acknowledge having biological facts, why should
>>we deny their influence on us? How do we know what we are, essentially?
>>How can we be sure it's nothing to do with our biology? Why should we
>>assume our "essence" is divorced from our "facts"? I should think there's
>>a bloody good case to be made for biology playing a part in who we are --
>>which is to say in who we think we are -- and it's a short step from there
>>to saying that what defines us (for that's how I'd think of our essence) is
>>partly biological.
>
>For what purpose do we need to define the essence of being human, and
>which biological facts do you propose for such a definition?
I'm not actually arguing for a need to define the essence of what is human (though I find it an interesting question, one we'll never be able to answer finally). I'm arguing against denying that the biological facts about us are distinct from whatever it is we call human.
>Speaking of rape in the chicken house anthropomorphizes animal
>behaviors.
I'd say it zoologises human behaviours. I don't think chickens are acting like people when they hop on each other without a "by your leave", rather the other way around. ...But perhaps it's the word "rape" that's getting in the way. If you like, we can define rape as a uniquely human activity involving uniquely conflicting human feelings of guilt and desire, and call the thing that I'm referring to -- the typically animal thing that humans sometimes engage in -- forced sex.
And arguing for a "biological basis" of rape, men's
>preference for younger women, etc. (which are very far from universal
>characteristics that define all men to begin with) depoliticizes the
>question of gender-making & power relations (and that is why shoddy
>science gains mass media exposure). When NYC cops raped Abner
>Louima, no one dared to bring in an "evolutionary basis" for rape;
>why should you when it comes to rapes of women?
If I can find in evolution's procreative imperative reasons for the willingness of human males to engage in forced sex with members of either sex (and testosteronal impulses are not necessarily respecters of gender in any species), that's not by way of excusing the behaviour.
It is thankfully the case that not all men prefer younger women (I'd have been partnerless most of my life if that were the case since almost all my male partners have been younger than me), but the fact remains that younger women are more generally acceptable to older men as partners than the other way around, and the former is condoned whereas the latter is frowned upon by our oh-so-imperfect society.
>In a non-sexist society, nobody would bother to try to find an
>"evolutionary basis for rape."
Well. People like me will probably always be interested in what makes us tick, no matter how distasteful it is. It'd be great to live in a society in which the topic never had to arise except in the context of a discussion of "the bad old days". But the topic will always be there.
Also, in a pre-capitalist society in
>which inequality was taken for granted (in contrast to our capitalist
>world with an ideology of liberty & equality for all), nobody
>bothered to come up with a "biological basis for rape" either.
Can you be sure of this?
The
>use of the idea of biology, couched in scientific-sounding discourse,
>as the *main* device for rationalization of oppression is a
>phenomenon specific to our modern, capitalist world. The *main*
>legitimating discourse for gender oppression used to be appeal to
>divine sanctions for the status quo.
I'm the last person to rationalise rape/forced sex by identifying possibilities for its origin, biological or otherwise. Make no mistake, in my opinion there is no excuse for any human being to engage in forced sex. It's a bad thing, and we should make a strong attempt to write it out of our history. If I call it an animal thing that doesn't mean I consider it impossible to write out of our history. To look openmindedly for the origins of a problem is not the same thing as to give up on its solution. Quite the opposite.
>Even *within* the history of capitalist society, many arguments for a
>"biological basis" for this or that social practice that creates
>gender oppression have *already disappeared*. While in the
>nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the dominant ideology (put
>forward as scientific evidence, of course) said that women should be
>excluded from higher education because women's biology unfitted them
>for it (or alternatively higher education unfitted women for their
>"natural" function of reproduction), this idea has disappeared from
>the dominant discourse on gender by now in many societies. This
>ideological change didn't come about because sexist arguments were
>disproved in science;
It's likely, though, that improvements in scientific practice contributed to the demise of some sexist arguments.
rather, women's movements (among other causes)
>changed social practice first, and then invidious arguments regarding
>women's unfitness for higher education disappeared from science (for
>the history of this change, see Cynthia Eagle Russett, _Sexual
>Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood_, for instance).
>Practice precedes theory.
Wouldn't you say that women's emancipation has come about as a combination of activism, accident, and improved scientific practice?
>Make rape disappear from the world through our political practice,
>and then "scientific" arguments for a "biological basis" for rape
>would then disappear as well.
Not in the world I live in.
cheers, Joanna
www.overlookhouse.com