Companion to Feminist Studies. Группа авторов
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and bodily acts but he notes a recent increase in interest in research into the embodiment of sexuality and forms of sexual expression (2012).
Ussher was among a number of feminist theorists who felt uncomfortable with this preoccupation with the discursive alone and argued accordingly for the need for a material‐discursive perspective (2006). In this century a number of feminist scholars have reembraced the material and the biological and there has been a return to some form of acceptance of the material reality of the body, with material‐discursive approaches and “the new materialism” becoming more popular (Barad 2003; Hird 2004). Such work resonates with the work of critics of mechanistic and reductionist perspectives within biology who are associated with the emergence of “the new biology” (e.g. Woese 2004). Importantly, the “new materialists” and cognate theorists have found ways to resist any form of biological determinism.
Currently, biological determinism is under attack from feminist scientists, from those who favor sociocultural determinants but also, even more importantly, from those who oppose the very idea that all human behavior is determined, either by biological or by social factors.
Explaining the Role of Biology
There are some contemporary theorists who attempt to take account of the biological in their approach to understanding what shapes sex and gender‐linked behavior. The basic premise behind these theories is that human life is complex and should be seen from a biopsychosocial perspective. One hypothesis is centered on the fact there are some physical and physiological differences between the sexes that are both evident at or shortly after birth and more or less universal (Eliot 2009). These relatively small but consistent differences are mostly to do with size (males are larger and heavier), activity level (males are more active), maturity (females are more mature physiologically), and vulnerability (males are more likely to die in utero and after birth and are more prone to suffering from a range of childhood disorders). Eliot argues that “each of these traits is massively amplified by the different sorts of practice, role models and reinforcement that boys and girls are exposed to from birth onward” (2009, p. 6).
Although Eliot does not mention the work of researchers in the dynamic systems and relational developmental systems fields, her hypothesis sits quite comfortably with these very active areas of research (see, for example, Overton and Lerner 2012). Fausto‐Sterling (2012a,b) and Martin and Ruble (2009) see dynamic systemic developmental models as offering a more adequate theoretical framework for explaining how gender‐typed traits develop and change over time. This stable of theories works at the intersection of biology and the psychosocial sciences and recognizes the ongoing interconnectedness of biological, social, and psychological processes, adopting a developmental and longitudinal approach to research. Fausto‐Sterling discusses the process of “gender fortification,” which is set in motion as soon as it is known whether the new baby (or baby in the womb) is a girl or a boy. As she says, “the social response to the genitalia of the newborn is intense” (2012b, p. 7). This chimes with Eliot's view that originally small differences are amplified by our social response to them.
Once factors external to the body enter into the picture, i.e. as soon as conception takes place, there is a fundamental inseparability between the biological and the environmental, between nature and nurture. Fausto‐Sterling talks about the ways that external influences become embodied (2012b). This implies that when scientists assess what they claim to be “the biological,” whether it be hormones, brain structures, or brain function, they cannot excise the effects of previous experience on those material substances or processes. Thus, when the brains of men and women or boys and girls are compared, what is found in the brain is as likely to be the result of gendered experience as it is innate biology. Experience changes biology.
In countering the fatalism of deterministic and essentialist theories in relation to human behavior, it is necessary to take full account of the biological, the social, the psychological, and the environmental. It is critical to do this in a way that is scientifically robust. Scientists from both the natural and the social sciences have embarked on this project, in different ways but with a common recognition that the old either/or polarities – opposing the biological and the psychosocial – are a theoretical dead‐end. Biology is in itself dynamic, evolving, and totally interdependent with the environment (Rose 1997; Woese 2004). In this sense, strong biological determinism with its connotation of a fixed biology impervious to environmental influence is not tenable. As long ago as 1978 Lambert commented,
The notion that “innate” factors, such as genes or hormones, influence human behavior is often called (usually pejoratively) “biological determinism.” To equate biological with intrinsic, inflexible, or pre‐programed is an unfortunate misuse of the term biological. Behavior is itself a biological phenomenon, an interaction between organism and environment.
(Lambert 1978, p. 104)
Feminist biologists such as Anne Fausto‐Sterling (2012a) regret the neglect of biology that has been a consequence of the rejection of biological determinism. She says, “Everybody breathe a sigh of relief: We do not have to fight biology anymore. But, take a deep breath: If we invite biology back into our theoretical lives, we have to do it right” (2012a, p. 411). She argues that any complete and adequate view of human behavior, including gender and sexual identity, must incorporate biology.
A counterdeterministic or nondeterministic view of human behavior emphasizes human agency and intentionality. This viewpoint foregrounds the capacity of human persons to act on the world and respond to it in ways that are novel, creative, and essentially unpredictable (Martin et al. 2010). Thus an important consideration in any approach to understanding gender or sexuality is the self‐making capacity of the human. Theories need to take on board the emergent, novel, and autopoietic quality of human thought and action (Greene 2015). Self‐construals and self‐constructions are inevitably influenced by ambient societal discourses but each person is capable of selecting from the discourses around her and arriving at her own relationship with her sex, gender, and sexuality, if permitted.
Another cognate strand of work, promoted by social scientists and philosophers rather than natural scientists, is found in the rise of “the new materialism.” Braidotti was one of the feminist forerunners of the new materialism. In 2000, she criticized feminist writers for their “denial of the materiality of the bodily self” (2000, p. 160). However she was adamantly opposed to biological determinism and argued for a perspective that was as she termed it “post‐humanist.” Humanist thinking, she argued, tends to essentialize and reify the attributes thought to define the human. This tendency has been seen in both biological and social essentialist thought. A number of feminist writers has explored the potential of the new materialism (see Alaimo and Hekman 2008) and they do so in a variety of different ways. However, there is broad agreement on the need to move beyond the discursive and social constructionist theories to embrace the material but not within the old rigid framework of biological determinism. The new materialists eschew dualisms between mind and matter, nature and nurture, and in some cases, human and nonhuman. They see the mind and body in constant fluid interaction, fundamentally inseparable from each other and from their context.
One might conclude that, as with the nurture versus nature debate, old ideas about the fixed and predetermined essence of human beings can now be assigned to the dustbin of history. However, they persist.
The Enduring Appeal of Essentialist and Biological Explanations
Persistence of Essentialist Thinking
Essentialist thinking is a common and understandable human pattern of thought. Studies have shown that lay people frequently use essentialist modes of thought in relation to both objects and people (Medin and Ortony 1989). The developmental psychologist, Gelman, has researched the development of essentialist thinking in children and adults and concludes that “Essentialism is a reasoning heuristic that is readily available to both children and adults” (2004). To Phillips it is “a psychologically inevitable feature of the way humans think” (2010). In order to make sense of the complex and diverse world around us we seek to group things and people into categories on the basis of some – actual or presumed