Biology Section

Aaron Clarke
13/02/01
S=Sex
G=Gender
SI=Sexed Identity
GI=Gendered Identity
1. Why Look At Biology?
a. Role in the Culture
b. Central Features of Biological Thinking
c. Biology as (Desirable) Destiny
2. Overview: How Biological Features Have Been Used For
Sexist Purposes
a. Western Philosophical tradition
b. Rise of institutionalized Western science [Carolyn
Merchant, The Death of Nature Brian Easlea, Science
and Sexual oppression Evelyn Fox Kellers Work]
3.

Main Methodological/conceptual Moves: Analyzing

Reductionism
Determinism
context-stripping
uni-directional thinking
A Priori Dichotomous Sex/Gender Di-Morphism
Androcentric Interpretive Principles and
Methodologies.

The behavioural endocrinology field sees the results of sexually

From brain imaging studies, scientists have found that men have
greater activity in their limbic system. The implication of this
finding is that men dont think before they lash out (men are like
reptiles in this way). Men dont have an intervening stage between
initiating event and lashing out where they think about what they
are about to do. The part of the brain more active in women deals
with confined more symbolic expression.
The questions which preoccupies our discussion is how do we
interpret these findings, and how do we get men to think about
their actions before they go out and do something like rape. The
biological discussion about the brain, genes and biological sexual
strategies are what compose bioCulture.
The characteristics of biological thinking are as follows, and may
be nicely contrasted with those of anthropology. There are 9
general differences between biology and anthropology.
1.
Biology is interested in what is universal, where anthropology
is interested in what is particular. Everet Wilson says that
sociobiology can be understood as the systematic study of the
biological basis of all social behaviour. Its a theory that claims to
have universal significance that explains all behaviour. Wilson goes
on to say that it may not be too much to say that sociology and the
other social sciences are the last branches of biology waiting to be
included in the greater synthesis. All will be unified in
sociobiology. Anthropologists, are interested in looking at
particular cultures and villages and at particular patterns of
relationships.
2.
The biologist is interested in looking for uniformities and
commanalities. The anthropologist is interested in looking for
differences and expects to find them. The anthropologists who
studies gender is expecting and searching for differences and is
trying to be on guard for ethnocentrism. They dont want to export
the thinking that is common to ones own culture into their thinking
about the culture of their study. The biologist wants to know what
the biological norms are for different species.
3.
There is a very strong tendency in biology to engage in
context stripping, whereas in anthropology, it is very highly
contextualized, where there is a lot of attention payed to specific
details of specific cultures and practices. In biology there is a
tendency to strip away social, historical, and political processes in
order to practice pure biology. This is evident in the shift in
language, where biology refers to men and women and boys and
girls, are referred to as males and females. This allows one to talk
about the male or the female brain, no matter where it occurs.

4.
The anthropologist celebrates diversity. It is expected that
people living their lives in different cultures in different locations
will experience diversity in their living. In biology, the focus is on
convergences given all of these different contexts, what is the
same? There is a tendency to say that differences converge and
result in sexual polarization, where descriptors of males and
females are mutually exclusive.
5.
In anthropology, the study of a particular culture or society, is
open ended in terms of how the anthropologist finds the culture
negotiates questions of sex and gender. In biology, the assumption
is usually that there are 2 sexes (males and females). If anything
falls outside these categories, they are dropped out of study, or
there may be technological interventions such that the deviant
individual is made to fit into the 2 gender categories.
6.
Biological factors are taken to be rigid and fixed. Sometimes
the language of hard-wiring is used (suggests rigidity). In
anthropology, the existence of diverse practices suggests to the
anthropologist that humanization is extremely maleable.
7.
In biology very often there is an a priori assumption of
activity and being active with being male and of being passive with
being female. In anthropology, activity and passivity in males and
females is taken to be something that can only be determined
empirically.
8.
With respect to what is classified as the normal, very often in
biology, the emphasis is on fixing what is abnormal with respect to
sex, sexuality, gender the idea that if something isnt normal, we
can technologically intervene to fix the abnormality. In the case of
biological abnormality, technological intervention is seen to be
warrented. In anthropology, there is a sense in which you stand
back and dont intervene with what is considered abnormal,
because for the anthropologist there is no normal.
9.
With respect to institutional connections, in anthropology, we
look at imperialism, racism, and how they were promoted by other
anthropologists. The biologist on the other hand, has much more a
connection with the rise of medicine as the dominant institution,
and with clinical theraputic practices. Medicine and clinical
practice are the correlative institutions that go along with sex and
gender. Pharmacutical companies have an important role to play in
sex and gender. Anthropologists are now zooming in on Western
bio-culture as a separate culture with its own practices and
conventions.

Biology as Destiny
Argument from Natural Biology
Determinist
Biological Factors
Must

Normative

Ought To
Result in

Sex
Sexual ID
Gender ID
Gendered
Personality
Emotion
Intelligence
Social roles
Structures
Normative institutions (e.g. coercive heterosexuality)
According to Richard Dawkins, all of our behaviour is
directed towards the replication and proliferation of our genes. It
makes sense for us to consider biology today as a kind of social
science. There are two arguments from natural biology. The first
is a determinist argument. This argument stipulates that certain
biological factors must result in sex, sexual identity, gender, gender
identity, personality traits, emotions and intelligence. These
aspects of human nature result in social roles and structures, and
in normative institutions (which practice coercive heterosexuality).
The second argument from natural biology is that what is
biologically natural is what should be or what ought to be. This is
the normative argument. What is important here is to see what
the biological factors are, and how they manifest themselves. This
has meant the naturalizing of male aggressiveness and male
striving, and female passivity as things that are normative and
natural. This is referred to as uni-linear thinking. It priveledges

biological factors as factors that are given and are hard wired, and
have certain consequences.
Western philosophical tradition
Aristotle observed that females produced menstrual fluid and
that males produced seminal fluid. He knew that females produced
offspring, but he saw this menstrual fluid that kept on flowing each
month until seminal fluid was injected into the female. He
hypothesized, then, that there was something in seminal fluid that
was responsible for conception. Aristotle argued, then, that
females contributed matter in the process of reproduction and that
males contributed the factor of form. Matter was like plado, which
was there and had the potential to assume many different forms,
but until a form was imposed on the plado, nothing came of the
plado. Women were the flower pots, and men provided the seeds.
Aristotle assigned importance to the ability of seminal fluid to
produce form, whereas, menstrual fluid was considered less
important. According to Aristotle, when you have reproduction
with a male and a female, something active and something passive
come together. Males provide the motion, and the female provides
the passive matter, and she is acted upon in the reproductive
drama. This picture of conception has dominated our imaginations
for a long time.
Aquinas raised the question (in suma theologica) of whether
the woman should have been made in the first production of things
at all. The first argument in favor of not creating women, is that
the female is a misbegotten male, but nothing misbegotten or
defective should not have been made in the first production of
things, especially since God foresaw that women would be an
occasion for sin in men. Aquinas saw, though, that woman could be
a helper to man in the work of generation. According to Aquinas,
in animals the active power of generation belongs to the male sex,
and the passive power to the female. Woman is still considered
defective and misbegotten.
Rousseau wrote in the 18th century (after the anatomists).
Rousseau said that a perfect man and a perfect woman should not
resemble each other in mind or in features. He thought that the
male should be active and strong, and that the other should be
passive and weak. In his view, the relationship between men and
women should be such that it serves to bring pleasure to the man.