Politics of Rape Science (was Re: After the Fall)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>At 17:34 11-07-00 -0400, you wrote:
> >> >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
> >
> >Perhaps in your world scientists are still trying to come up with a
> >"biological basis" for inadvisability of miscegenation & advisability
> >of prohibition against it.
> >
> >Yoshie
> >
>
>I disagree with your use of the word "disappear".  I mean, simply, that
>even if we get rid of rape there will always be people arguing that when it
>existed among us there were biological reasons for its existence.  You
>disagree?
>
>Joanna

I doubt people would (for in the case of "scientific" arguments over 
miscegenation, the topic has disappeared from biological discourse 
altogether, and we only discuss it as part of the history of racism), 
but let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're right & 
scientists would be still speculating on "biological reasons" for 
rape; in that case, we'd be thinking of "biological reasons" in a way 
very far from Randy Thornhill & Craig T. Palmer's conception of 
"biology."  The word "biological," as it is currently used in 
ideology, seems to me to be euphemism for "not likely to disappear" 
(as in "boys will be boys" because of evolutionary adaptation).  And 
that is why it is useful as a device for depoliticization, since 
politics is about social change.

Yoshie