On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Joanna Sheldon wrote:
> >[Yoshie? 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
>
Your enthusiasm for biological explanations for rape would make a lot more sense if rape was a cultural universal of about equal prevalence throughout the world and history. However, the evidence on this point is clear: the prevalence of rape varies dramatically across culture, history, and economic conditions. In fact, in the human world you live in, I think it's quite plausible that changing social practices and institutions-- as with the Victorian scientific ideology about women's delicate constitutions-- will lead us to laugh and shake our heads in disbelief 100 years from now about the blatant sexism of evolutionary psychology "theories" of gender and rape.
Miles