The Fluidity of Sex, Sexuality, and Gender

PAGE 4 OF 5

> The best evidence I can find documents the occurrence of fewer
> than 400 true human hermaphrodites

What is the "best evidence" here? It is true that people who
are medically viewed as "true hermaphrodites" are rare, they
are not that rare. I've seen some medical literature citing
that there are about 400 "reported" cases of "true
hermaphroditism," but that is because medical journals are
no longer publishing any more "cases" of gonadal dysgenesis
or ovotestes - when there are 400 cases reported already, no
new cases are considered for publication unless there is
something drastically new about them. I assume that your
figure came from the same source that I'm describing here,
and if so you must agree with me that the number of *reported*
cases does not indicate the actual frequency of the condition,
especially something as stigmatized as this one.

> (XX female/ovaries and XY male/testes - this is the
> definition of hermaphrodite)

XX female/ovaries and XY male/testes sound pretty standard
to me... perhaps you meant to say "XY female/ovaries and XX
male/testes" instead. Even so, your definition of "true
hermaphrodite" is incorrect, even by the classical medical
standard that intersex activists are criticizing. The correct
definition of "true hermaphroditism" according to the medical
community is the presence of both testicular and ovarian
tissues (or under-formed variation thereof) within the same
body.

Of course, this itself is an old definition that has lost
relevance since 1950s. Whether you classify someone's
intersexuality as "true" or "pseudo" hermaphroditism, they
are put through the same invasive and often unnecessary
medical treatment as a price for possessing unacceptable
bodies.

Intersex Society of North America defines intersexuality
simply as the "congenital anomaly of the reproductive system."
This is also the same definition used by the panel at the
National Institute of Health that administers the new grant
program aimed at developing an outcome research for
treatment of intersex children. Plus, soon we will be
publishing, in conjunction with supportive pediatric
endocrinologists, a new and more useful nomenclature for
intersex conditions.

Emi Koyama <emi  AT  eminism.org>
Intersex Society of North America
(See our teaching kit at http://isna.org/store/store-teaching.html)
--
http://eminism.org/ * Putting the Emi back in Feminism since 1975.

>>If I remember correctly (and I could be wrong, I
>>deleted the post), I think the original poster said
>>that _her daughter_ and her young friends engaged
>>in the practice of dressing up in an exaggeratedly
>>feminine style as a kind of self conscious gender
>>parody, and she was looking for a term to describe
>>this.  She may be a teacher, I don't know, but I
>>don't think the original question was about the
>>classroom per se.

I was the one who referenced my daughter and pals doing feminine gender
parody -- they call it "drag princess" and I don't know if those who are
familiar with the drag scene would consider that a correct usage or not.  My
reply was to someone who wanted to know if there was a word for this
phenomenon -- but I've forgotten for what reason she needed the word.

  -- Gina

JT Faraday wrote:

>>> qwertyuiop68  AT  MSN.COM 08/06/01 10:39AM >>>

As far as "sexual dimorphism" is concerned, they probably no longer
really
hold this belief either, although they probably learned it on an
afternoon
talk show and you'd have to take it from there.>>>>>

But this is exactly the point that Daphne and I wish to make.  Just
because they heard that sexual dimorphormism doesn't exist on daytime
talk shows, and just because they don't believe it, doesn't make this
position a viable classroom dogma.  It's wrong - not based on beliefs,
but based on biological facts.  Since the paradigm that acknowledges
biological and social contributions to gender doesn't require, why not
"take it from there?"

Ruthann Masaracchia
Director, Women's Studies
Professor, Biological Sciences
University of North Texas
Denton, TX 76203
940-565-2532
ruthann  AT  unt.edu

 From Judith Lorber, Gender and the Social Construction of Illness (2nd 
edition), Kluwer/Altamira, forthcoming 2002.

SEX DIFFERENCES AND GENDER STATUSES
         Sex and gender are often used interchangeably by laypeople and by 
professionals in science and medicine. In 2001, the U.S. Institute of 
Medicine issued a book-length report on sex-based differences in human 
disease. In it, the 16-member panel of varied professionals struggled to 
differentiate and define sex and gender. Their recommendations on 
terminology were that sex should refer ôto the reproductive organs and 
functions that derive from the chromosomal complement,ö and that gender 
ôshould be used to refer to a personÆs self-representationà, or how that 
person is responded to by social institutions on the basis of the 
individualÆs gender presentationö (p.139). These definitions make it seem 
as if ôsexö and ôgenderö are simple binaries  ôfemale/maleö and 
ôwomen/men.ö But sex and gender are both multiple, not binary, and they are 
interwined in complex ways. Even X and Y chromosomes are less distinctive 
than we think.
More problematic, the Institute of MedicineÆs definition of gender implies 
that people are treated according to how they perceive or present 
themselves, when in actuality, peopleÆs gender displays are a response to 
social pressuresà.
Bodies and biological differences have also been viewed from a social 
construction perspective. In this view, gender is not an overlay on 
biology; rather, biology itself is socially constructed as gendered. Sex 
differences do matter, but the way they matter is a social phenomenon. 
Menstruation, menopause, pregnancy and childbirth are biological phenomena 
that are mediated and experienced socially. Female and male bodies are 
gendered for femininity and masculinity through sports, exercise, and 
physical labor. As Anne Fausto-Sterling says, ôReading nature is a 
sociocultural actö (2000, 75).
Thus, it is extremely important for medical and biological research to be 
both sex-based and gender-based. Sex multiplies into physiological 
characteristics of children and adults, pregnant and non-pregnant women, 
women at different stages of the menstrual cycle, before menarche, when 
menstruating, and post-menopausal. Men differ at the stages of their life 
cycles. These within-sex difference must be considered when designing 
experiments for vaccines, medications, and surgery. Physiological (sex) 
differences occur in a social matrix of gender -- gendered patterns of 
social interaction, gendered expectations for how people should behave in 
families and workplaces, and gendered social institutions that legally and 
in informal social practices treat women and men very differently.
The framework for the gender lens on illness and health is the 
transformation of the body through gendered social practices. These 
practices start before birth -- what a pregnant woman eats, what prenatal 
technology and care is available to her, what her family and educational 
and economical status are, what social worth a child of a woman of her 
racial ethnic group, economic status, and family background is likely to 
have -- all affect the fetus, infant, and growing child as profoundly as 
genetic inheritance. Social practices produce social bodies all through 
life and death -- and beyond (consider how corpses are handled). Because 
gender is embedded in the major social institutions of society, such as the 
economy, the family, politics, and the medical and legal systems, it has a 
major impact on how the women and men of different social groups are 
treated in all sectors of life, including health and illness, getting born 
and dying. Gender is thus one of the most significant factors in the 
transformation of physical bodies into social bodies. The gendered body in 
its social context is the framework for the analysis of the social 
construction of illness.




****************************************************************
Judith Lorber, Ph.D.            Ph/Fax -- 212-689-2155
319 East 24 Street               judith.lorber  AT  verizon.net
Apt 27E
New York, NY 10010
Facts are theory laden; theories are value laden;
values are history laden.   -- Donna J. Haraway
****************************************************************

afternoon' Ruthann,

Thank you for engaging in another provocative discussion.  i appreciate
your response.

At 14:54 8/6/2001 -0500, you wrote:

 > You have quoted Paul Erhlich before and I would expect that being the
 > esteemed biologist that he is, he would be horrified to think that his
 > words were being used to support an argument against sexual dimorphism.

hmmm ... what you wrote here strikes me as a sweeping distillation ...
perhaps even intentionally minimalizing mischaracterization of the
discussion and the sophisticated analysis.  i hope your words were not
intended as such.  If so, the ethical implications would be very
disappointing as a scientific colleague.

i have presented evidence from esteemed scientific journals (Science &
Nature are not obscure) that challenges the concept of absolute presence of
two disparate sexes and also questions the assumed physiological/genetic
causation which produces the observed statistically bimodal distribution
(which i have never disputed, see for instance my post from Thu, 1 Mar 2001
00:13:30 -0600 Re: sexual dimorphism) in modern western society.  Science
is not static.

 > If you have a specific passage that would like to quote so we all can
 > see how this interpretation has evolved, I think that information would
 > move the discussion forward significantly.   I have sent him a message
 > asking him if he wishes to comment.

Great, i enthusiastically welcome his input!

If the, admittedly, 2nd-hand stories i've heard about his interaction style
have any veracity, i suspect that he will be proverbially tickled purple
and sincerely interested in probing "how" and "why" i came to such a
conclusion, *if* it is in fact substantially different than his intention.

One specific passage from Erhlich, which is relevant, is with regard to
chromosomes, genes and the influence on (deterministic sexual) behavior,
"genes do not shout commands to us about our behavior. At the very most,
they whisper suggestions." From _Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the
Human Prospect_ Island Press, 2000.  He expounds considerably on his view
(supported by ~200 pages of notes and references) that effects of
individual genes was over-emphasized in late 20th century biology.

 > Finally, it is irrelevant to cite examples from other species.

Erhlich studied butterflies; Diamond studied New Guinea birds; E.O. Wilson
studied ants; Young, Eccles, Hodgkin and Huxley studied the squid giant
axon; McClintock studied corn; Nuesslein-Volhard, Weischaus and Lewis
studied fruit flies ... all of which i have no doubt you are aware; they
serve to illustrate other studies of initially seemingly unrelated species
that have led to conclusions which have integral implications for our
understanding of human biology and modern human technology and as examples
of efforts by highly esteemed scientists.

The hummingbird study (Science citation) is relevant *AND* significant
because it demonstrated ecological causation of what are considered
sexually dimorphic traits.  The authors demonstrate that changes in
appearance (morphology) were influenced by the environment -- i.e.
environmentally constructed.

 From the accompanying commentary (Science, vol 289(5478) 21 Jul 2000, pp.
369-371):
"When it's time to dine on St. Lucia, an island in the West Indies, male
purple-throated carib hummingbirds horde the nectar from the short, sweet
flowers of a plant called Heliconia caribaea. Female caribs are stuck with
the less productive blossoms of H. bihai. But new research shows that both
sexes make the most of this jungle buffet--thanks to evolution.

"On page 441 of this issue, evolutionary biologist Ethan Temeles and
students at Amherst College in Massachusetts showcase these hummingbirds as
a rare example of food supply--in this case, flower shape--spurring the
evolution of a sexual dimorphism, or a feature that differs between males
and females. On St. Lucia, female caribs sport bills a third longer and
twice as curved as their male counterparts--one of the most extreme bill
differences between the sexes in any hummingbird species. In the paper,
Temeles links these 'whoppingly dimorphic bills' to the specific flowers
the male and female caribs frequent. 'This is the best example we've got of
male and female animals evolving to use different food,' Temeles says.

"Other researchers call the study impressive. ***'This is delightfully
strong evidence that ecology sometimes drives differences between males and
females,'*** remarks evolutionary biologist Richard Shine of the University
of Sydney in Australia. Larry Wolf, a behavioral ecologist at Syracuse
University in New York, adds that researchers have long thought that carib
bills might closely match their favorite flower's shape. 'Now someone has
actually gone out and shown it,' Wolf says. 'That's pretty neat.'"

The timescale of human generations and other ethical considerations are
prohibitive (or, at least, generally frowned upon) for direct control
experiments on people.

 > The
 > hummingbird man bifurcation of the genetic tree is the earliest among
 > terrestrial animals:  that is BIG differences.  We don't reproduce in
 > the same way and we don't fly and have feathers either.

hmmm ... i've flown over 1000 times, without mechanical aid.  i use my body
to deflect air to change direction along 3-axes in a controlled precisely
manner.  Some of us do *fly*!

Which further illustrates your point (perhaps inadvertently) that semantics
matter.  Your own experience (social construction) influenced your
perception and reference to flying.  Your usage of the term is highly
variable from that of mine and others who fly!

To again invoke Erhlich:  "I could be wrong here ... Differences of opinion
among well-informed people such as Chomsky, Pinker, Lieberman, and
Bickerton are standard in science and one of the things that makes science
so much fun."

----

It was suggested (by private communication and which i idealistically hope
is an incorrect interpretation) that this exchange is less related to
sexual dimorphism than to my status as a relative newbie challenging
Ruthann's "position as the WMST-L resident science expert" and my
challenging "authoritative biological dogma."  This put me in the somewhat
awkward position of trying to defend Ruthann, myself as someone who is also
significantly invested in the "dogma" of empirical science, and not having
any knowledge of Ruthann's participation beyond the last year or so.  The
origins and implications of this tension as they relate to feminism and
science & women's studies and scientific curricula may be more appropriate
to WMST-L.

Warm regards,
marg
kosal  AT  s.scs.uiuc.edu

"When we speak of a picture of nature provided by contemporary exact
science, we do not actually mean any longer a picture of nature, but rather
a picture of our relation to nature."
-- Werner Heisenberg (who knows, he may have slept here????)

Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore , Gender and the Social Construction of
Illness (2nd edition), Altamira Press, forthcoming late spring 2002.


The first edition is currently available at the Altamira website --
http://www.altamirapress.com/RLA/wepublishin/gender.shtml

****************************************************************
Judith Lorber, Ph.D.            Ph/Fax -- 212-689-2155
319 East 24 Street               judith.lorber  AT  verizon.net
Apt 27E
New York, NY 10010
Facts are theory laden; theories are value laden;
values are history laden.   -- Donna J. Haraway
****************************************************************

By coincidence, I was just reading an interview with Robin Morgan from
February 2001 (*Off Our Backs*, p 5). Morgan (who turned 60 earlier this
year) describes a several-year-long period in which she was in menopause:

"I was one of the women who marched around before menopause saying
'menopause is socially constructed, and if women were able to lead
meaningful lives, we would never [suffer] from menopause.'   Well, excuse
me.  I certainly got my comeuppance, and it had nothing to do with social
constructiion."

Carol Anne Douglas, editor of OOB, who did this interview, says she is
"thankful that Morgan admits that menopause can be devastating and can help
trigger depression; for too long, feminists have swept that piece of
information under the carpet."

DP
---------------------------------
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

To say that something is socially constructed is not to say that it *does
not exist* independent of culturally based interpretation.  Take the example
of "spirit possession."  In deliberately induced trances, or upon less
deliberate cues, in numerous cultural traditions including our own, people
enter a state of psychological dissociation during which they typically have
experiences and perform actions of which they later have no memory.  What
happened to these people?  Were they "taken by the holy ghost and speaking
in tongues," "ridden by loas or orishas," or "went somewhere else so
personality X could come out"?  Again, it's a case where the reality of the
phenomenon and that it has a physiological basis is not to be denied, but
what exactly the phenomenon *is* is a matter of cultural interpretation,
socially constructed.

Same with menopause.  Major hormonal shifts do occur, and I gather that the
effects are highly variable.  Menopause was nothing much for me -- other
people's experiences are different, but I'm sure that culturally derived
expectations and beliefs about the meaning of menopause are not irrelevant.
It's hard to generalize.  The only book about the subject that I tried to
read when going through the experience began, "No two women have the same
experience of menopause...." which made me wonder why I was reading the
book.....

I appreciate Judith Lorber's comment that our understandings of what the
scientific facts are exist only within a structure of meaning that is
cultural and highly gendered.  The article "The Mask of Theory and the Face
of Nature" by Marcy Lawton, et.al., gives this point great coverage, and I
highly recommend it to those who don't already know it (it deconstructs
several field studies of the behavior of bird species).

  -- Gina

Gina wrote:
"I appreciate Judith Lorber's comment that our understandings of what the
scientific facts are exist only within a structure of meaning that is
cultural and highly gendered."

This is obviously true, but does not help further our discussion because it
is only true in a trivial sense--if I hadn't learned the language and gotten
e-mail and didn't know what 'participating in this discussion" meant, I
couldn't participate in this disscussion, etc.  The underlying conflicting
views, however, which  aren't helped by these sorts of statements, continue
to exist.

 I keep detecting in this argument that seems to focus on how exactly to
think about bodies and facts and how about social rules and structures of
meaning desire to subsume the former two into the latter two - at least in
all significant ways. And I wonder what lies behind this drive, or need

For a dystopian vision of a society in which bodies and direct experience
count for nothing and intellect/social norms for everything, I recommend E.
M. Forster's prescient "The Machine Stops," written in 1909.  But, of
course, contra Forster's vision of the future [in which maternal feelings
have been socially constructed out of existence and there is a horror of
direct experience unmediated by past human interpretation of it], feminism
claims to honor experience . . . when, at least  it is women's experience of
oppression.  Perhaps that is socially constructed too?  And women need to
learn a different vocabulary and structure of meaning so as to recast these
expriences as positive?  Is there any women's studies classroom that takes
that as its imperative?

Daphne

---------------------------------
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

This has been an interesting discussion.

I think the point is menopause is a biological fact having various symptoms
that shouldn't be taken lightly, AND that menopause does not mean the
socially constructed ideas that women are washed up, and useless once they
are past their childbearing years.

It is unfortunate that medical conditions from menstral cramps, to hot
flashes and depression are seen in society as weakness--almost character
flaws--instead of what they are -- physical conditions.  The social
constructs around a physical change (menopause), or an illness (depression)
can undermind the person's desire to seek treatment, or even the development
of a cure.

Mary Beth Kwasek

J T Faraday wrote:
(snip)>
> I think rather, what college students today come to class struggling with
is more of a question of how/ why _despite_ the questioning of these
> "traditional" gender roles and "masculine/feminine" behavior in US culture
> at large, those embodied male or female end up, nevertheless, _compelled
> into_ "traditional" masculine or feminine behavior-- whether people
learned it and then forgot they learned it or whether people do it knowing
>full well they're doing it.

> While Regina Oboler wrote:
>
> What drag shows is that representing oneself as a "man" or "woman" is,
> indeed, a learned performance, because people with penises can learn to
> enact "woman" virtually perfectly, as can people with vaginas learn to
enact "man."

The answer to Faraday's question might depend on what kind
of traditional behaviour in particular she is referring to. I agree
with her that men and women do end up conforming with society's
expectations, to a large degree, no matter how hard they might try
to resist.  I think a lot of people/feminists like to pretend otherwise
or are in denial, as she says. Women still get married, and
struggle with combining motherhood and career, and making sure
the men are kept happy, but then there are rewards that come
with marriage (and keeping men happy)  that make it worthwhile.

Faraday also mentioned the separation between embodiment and
learned behaviour, something that she thought students seem
aware of in their lives (I hope I interpreted this correctly).  Oboler,
too, refers to this, in her statement about drag. Oboler talks about
the "learned performance" of drag, as being entirely distinct from
any sense of sexed embodiedness, so that whether one has a
penis or a vagina doesn't seem to matter, in this kind of performance.
women can be men, and men can be women.  But it is only* an act*.

If we look at films like Tootsie, or Some Like it Hot (rather old now),
we can see how an act* is just that but in moments of need, the
female impersonator can resort to using a deeper male voice to
summon a taxi.  Or Jack Lemmon, snuggling up to Marilyn Monroe,
still has to deal with the fact that he has a penis - a biological fact,
influenced by hormones, and something he has been socialized
not* to repress.

Sue McPherson
sue  AT  mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk

Sue McPherson
sue  AT  mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk wrote:

The answer to Faraday's question might depend on what kind of traditional
behaviour in particular she is referring to. I agree
with her that men and women do end up conforming with society's
expectations, to a large degree, no matter how hard they might try to
resist.

Response:

I wasn't referring to any behaviours in particular and don't require an
answer, since I'm not posing it as my question.  I also stated that I think
the term "traditional" is problemmatic, but that 18-22 year olds (and
others) will quite offhandedy use the term to describe behavior patterns.
If we're talking my thoughts now, I would restate your second statement
above as: people ("men and women" if you like) "will be compelled into
behavior _in contradiction to_ society's stated expectations."  ie., Outward
behaviour, internal emotions etc are the products of collective social
forces that are stronger than the power of declared expectations.

McPherson wrote:

Faraday also mentioned the separation between embodiment and learned
behaviour, something that she thought students seem
aware of in their lives (I hope I interpreted this correctly).

Response:

More or less.  But you could also turn it slightly and return to another way
of speaking it that I'm under the impression was more prevalent in feminism
and gender theory-talk in an earlier period (the 70s?)-- that outward
behavior patterns are not indicative of an innate, natural aggregation of
characteristics or a wholistic innate "character" that is rooted in
embodiment itself, fixed and eternal.  But rather, outward behaviour is
acquired in and through life in society, although one indeed moves through
society in a body and the body/society matrix matters. A more or less
"psychoanalytic" insight dating at least to Freud.

I'm also sure there are people who will assert that the above statement is
not a fact, but rather a dogmatic political statement, but I don't think
that students who voluntarily take intro gender courses would have a real
big problem with it.

What I think keeps this discussion from moving forward, is maybe, the phrase
"socially constructed" which is an alienating short hand term that people
familiar with academic work on gender use as offhandedly as an 18 year old
will use the term "traditional" to talk about the way "men and women" act.
But, I don't have a better way of speaking either.

I just realized I've assumed throughout this entire discussion that
"students" means undergraduate students.  If not, I apologize.

JT Faraday
qwertyuiop68   AT  msn.com

Faraday wrote:

" Outward
behaviour, internal emotions etc are the products of collective social
forces that are stronger than the power of declared expectations."

Well, this is of course a vast oversimplification and, while it bears some
truth, it also ignores all at work in humans that is not the product of
"collective social foces."  And that certainly includes biology.  Surely
people on this list are aware of research on, to mention just one area,
brain injuries that  can profoundly affect behavior, cognition, emotions -
in short, the whole gamut of what it is to be human. A fascinating
"accessible" read in that area is Oliver Sacks's work.

I also find odd the notion that because people  voluntarily choose to take
"gender" courses,  we owe them less than our best appraisal of the
information available on a given subject.  Do we owe only "involuntary"
students more? something different? something less dogmatic?

Daphne

---------------------------------
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

Faraday wrote:
> people ("men and women" if you like) "will be compelled into
> behavior _in contradiction to_ society's stated expectations."  ie.,
Outward
> behaviour, internal emotions etc are the products of collective social
> forces that are stronger than the power of declared expectations.

Faraday's statement describing 70s feminist beliefs that apparently
still hold true today, that "outward behavior patterns are not indicative
of an innate, natural aggregation of characteristics or a wholistic
innate "character" that is rooted in embodiment itself, fixed and
eternal", sounds reasonable. In simple terms just because a woman
can give birth does not mean she has to raise the child.  Nor is
motherhood instinctual.

But I wonder about the second part of this idea that she claims
students hold, that "rather, outward behaviour is acquired in and
through life in society, although one indeed moves through society in
a body and the body/society matrix matters".  I wouldn't like to say
for sure, but I wonder if this concept can really be understood without
the life experience to go with it.  And putting students aside for the
moment, is it a notion that most feminist academics can relate to?

What I had been wondering was if most students (or academics) do
actually consider their body as being lived within society, or do they
see themselves as separate, acting out parts they choose to play.
And going back to Faraday's statement at the top, do students see
themselves in control and perhaps think that they are not* within the
system rather than being products of collective forces, whose
direction is not yet known, as Faraday suggests?

Sue McPherson
sue  AT  mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/homepage.html

I've a question about two studies of lesbians that gained some attention
from the popular media in the last few years. The studies (one of finger
length ratios by Breedlove et al, 1998 and the other of click-evoked
otoacoustic emissions in the cochlea by McFadden, 2000), found that certain
specific anatomic features of lesbians were dissimilar to those of
heterosexual women, but similar to those of heterosexual men, and both seem
to think that an abnormally high prenatal exposure to androgens might have
created the effects in the women. One way to look at it is that both
studies look for relatively subtle physical markers of differences between
women correlating with differences of sexuality: a kind of sexual
dimorphism, but arranged around ears and fingers rather than genitals. So
here's the question: Can anyone explain why the sexual orientation, finger
length ratios, and cochleae--but not the genitals--of lesbians and bisexual
women would be affected by exposure to prenatal androgens?

And an unrelated question: I think I remember reading a comment by Donna
Haraway that she'd rather be the gestational mother for a nonhuman primate
than for a human, but I haven't been able to locate the quote. Does anyone
recall this?

Thanks!


Alice Adams
Visiting Associate Professor
Women's and Gender Studies
Macalester College
1600 Grand Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55105
adamsa  AT  macalester.edu
651-696-6529

Ah, but the problem with both of these lesbian studies is the data pool they
drew from.  How do you know a woman is a lesbian?  How lesbian does she have
to be in order to be cataglogued on one side of the chart or the other?  Can
she just have had lesbian fantasies, or must she have actually carried out a
desire?  Does kissing count? Is there a difference between self-identified
lesbians vs women whose friends and lovers believe them to be lesbian, but
who don't see themselves that way?

Obviously, we don't have the ability to see into people's heads and decide
their sexuality according to some 'objective' scale, so researchers have to
take only women who are willing to identify themselves as lesbian for the
purposes of either these tests or in _some_ public arena that data can be
drawn from.

Warning: anecdotal evidence--in a seminar I took long ago, there were 10
women students.  Once I got to know them fairly well, I realized that 6 of
them had had lesbian experiences of some kind (from un-acted-upon but
acknowledged desires to actual sexual experience; from long-term
relationships to one time flings).  On a test like the ones below, only two
of us would have been "identifiably" lesbian for the purposes of finger
measurement.  So what does such a study really tell about biology?  I'm
suggesting...not a heck of a lot.

Sheryl
U of Oklahoma English Dept
sjlesage  AT  ou.edu

Daphne Patai said --
"it is only true in a trivial sense"

One person's trivia is another person's science --

"Is that bit of light that's come through the multimillion dollar telescope
left over from the big bang or is it the beginning of a galaxy?"
Is that science to me? No, it's trivial to me --

Conversely, I think that the meanings and definitions of menopause and PMS
-- the social construction of biology -- is significant science because it
directly impacts on the lives of women in my society.
JL

Daphne Patai wrote:

concern all along has been that the feminist reliance on social construction
as a powerful explanatory tool of great political utility has led to an
overreliance on it and a distortion or suppression of inconvenient facts
that show the limits of social construction.

--------------------------------------------

I think that this is a legitimate concern and therefore the discussion
about "the facts" is worthwhile.

I also believe, however, that most people interested in Women Studies are
also interested in truth.  So, while I see the danger for error, it does
not concern me that people are asking the question.  If you trust that
people are interested in truth, those in danger of error will eventually
self-correct.

Fausto-Sterling may be a mistake, or she may be the beginning of
brilliance, or she may be misused and misunderstood.  It is legitimate for
feminists to spend time talking about which of those characterizations
best describes her work.

Unfortunately, most people, myself included, do not know enough about
science to critique it well.  In fact, most Americans know science only in
its popularized and overextended forms.  Thus, feminist and anti-feminist
debates about "science" generally boil down to two people misusing what
little is known about sex differences to advance their own understanding
of the world.  In this fight, misusing Fausto-Sterling to fight people who
are misusing, say, Darwin might seem "fair".  But it's not science.

Susan Kane
Reference/WS Librarian
University of Washington