Where do we go from here?
This week was a first for me on studying feminism and gender, and I’m glad to say I found the experience to be very enlightening. Coming from a science and engineering background, however, I could not help but constantly think to myself how the empirical findings recounted by the readings play into the debate of nature vs. nurture.
I wholeheartedly agree with the empirical observations made by many of the authors — whether it is the sexual objectification of women (MacKinnon), one-up one-down behavior and the hierarchical social order (Tannen), or the gender differences regarding intimacy and independence (Gilligan). These observations hold true whether they are:
1. the product of men creating the world in their own point of view, as MacKinnon suggests (nurture only),
2. the product of differences in the genetic makeup of males and females (nature only), OR
3. a combination of nature and nurture.
None of the articles from this week address whether innate differences have an effect, if at all, on the unfair discrimination and treatment of women over the last few thousand of years. From one end, this doesn’t matter; the origins of gender inequalities do not change the fact that these inequalities exist. The origins, however, are relevant to how one should best remedy these inequalities. For example, are there chemicals, akin to oxytocin and its effect on truth, that help explain the differences in behavior between boys and girls during recess?
Several of the studies from this week suggest that in some circumstances men are more independent and less reliant on their partners than are women. These differences and others probably contribute much in developing Alison Jaggar’s suggestion that “[w]omen should not make the world a better place for everyone in general; rather, their primary aim should be to make the world a better place for women in particular — and perhaps also for other vulnerable people like children, the elderly, the infirm, the disabled, minorities, etc.” As a male, statements like these make me feel that I am somehow personally complicit and therefore should pay for the problems we face in gender inequality.
I am certainly no expert in the field of behavioral genetics, but I am aware of some evidence that may explain things like the differences in independence between males and females in some studies. Steven Pinker, in his book The Blank Slate, suggests that males of most animal species tend to be “independent” of their sexual partners because this behavior improves their reproductive success. Females, on the other hand, do not improve their reproductive success through multiple matings. Does this have anything to do with the fact that adult males don’t want their friends to think that they are being controlled by their wives? I have no idea. But until more work is done like that of the readings from last week, where scientists explore the role of biology and biochemistry in human behavior, current approaches to solving gender equality, at least to me, will seem incomplete.
NB
February 26, 2008 @ 11:58 am
I think you get at a key question when you argue that the “origins of gender inequalities … are relevant to how one should best remedy these inequalities.” It seems to me that these inequalities/differences likely have *some* basis in the inner workings of various brain structures, and that these structural differences are then ‘expressed’ through the process of socialization and molded into shape by parents, teachers, peers, and culture at an early age. So if you want to stop these innate gender differences from being expressed as inequalities, you have to figure out the points of contact between socialization (nurture) and brain structures (nature).
In this vein, I liked Carol Gilligan’s suggestion (p. 13) of the importance of myths & narratives to the way we understand the dynamics of female adolescence. She points out that in Snow White & Sleeping Beauty, “the girl’s first bleeding is followed by a period of intense passivity in which nothing seems to be happening.” Applying the logic in the above paragraph to the story here, one way to target the socialization process (at the inflection points where it cements into place certain stories about the gendered brain) would be to replace ‘Sleeping Beauty’-like narratives with more ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’-like narratives where blood represents an awakening rather than a lull into sleep.