Companion to Feminist Studies. Группа авторов
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clear that essentialist thinking will always be with us and the tendency to ascribe essences to the categories man and women, male and female, will continue. Research by Bastain and Haslam showed that essentialist thinking was related to the endorsement of stereotypes, including those related to gender (2006). This implies a need to redouble efforts to encourage evidence‐based critique of essentialist thinking whenever it moves beyond being a handy shorthand to fostering restrictive stereotyping and prejudice. Given this proclivity for humans to look for essentialist explanations, vigilance is required to identify and counter examples of unfounded or oppressive essentialist thinking, wherever it raises its Hydra‐like head.
Persistence of Biological Determinism
Although biological determinism in its various forms has been subjected to sustained and cogent criticism, such theories continue to emerge and are given attention in the media as well as in academic circles, as is readily seen in the current popularity of brain‐based accounts of a wide range of behaviors and human differences Since these theories are often based on weak evidence and flawed arguments it is clearly important from the scientific perspective that they are critiqued and that more adequate scientific explanations are advanced such as those studies critiquing neurosexism mentioned earlier. However, since such alternative viewpoints and disconfirming studies do exist, the question then becomes, why do they not take hold in the imagination of the public, in the thinking of a wide range of practitioners, and among policymakers? For example, current research on the brain is widely cited in the media and by policymakers but they favor the kind of brain research that promotes a simple Brains R Us view of human functioning (Tallis 2014). Undoubtedly this information about brains and the biology of sex and gender also influences the thinking and practice of parents who listen to or read popularized versions of the views of biological determinists in the media. This public uptake of the latest biological fad – however flawed – was recognized as far back as 1978 by Lowe in her paper on “Sociobiology and sex differences.” She says, “We do not have to treat sociobiology seriously as a scientific theory of human behavior. Unfortunately we do have to take it seriously as a political theory” (1978, p. 123).
In 1993, the psychologist, Lerner, wrote a paper arguing against biological determinism and reductionism, in which he stated, “These questions are not merely academic. Science and public policy are at this writing being influenced by biologically reductionistic ideology” (p. 124). One quarter of a century later, biologically reductionistic and deterministic theories are, if anything, more pervasive. Tallis comments on the dangers of the widespread influence of what he calls “neuromania” and “Darwinitis” for our perception of what it means to be human. He sees such theories as promoting a view of humans as mere animals, thus failing to recognize what it is that makes us different from animals. While not dismissing our biological reality he calls for more attention to the moral and self‐regulatory capacities of humans, both undermined by excessive “science‐based naturalism,” as he terms it (2014, p. xi). In a 2005 article called “fMRI in the public eye,” Raeme et al. report the results of their analysis of 13 years of media coverage of brain research using fMRI imagery. They concluded that the media present the research as though the brain images allow us to “capture visual proof of brain activity, despite the enormous complexities of data acquisition and image processing” (p. 160). They appear to be the first to coin the term neuroessentialism by which they mean how fMRI research locates subjectivity and personal identity in the brain. They say, “In this sense the brain is used as a shortcut for the more global concepts such as the person, the individual or the self” (p. 160). It is not hard to find articles in the press with titles such as “How provocative clothes affect the brain” (The Guardian 2018) or books with titles like The Brain: The Story of You (Eagleman 2016). Raeme et al. also comment on how common it is for scientists and science writers to “provide the audience with the news that is easiest to assimilate.” Studies have shown that if reports of new scientific studies are accompanied by colored images of the inner workings of the brain they are found to be more credible than when accompanied by graphs or tables, especially if readers do not see themselves as experts in the topic (McCabe and Castel 2008).
According to O'Connor and Joffe (2014) the general public has, for the most part, a tendency to assimilate scientific data to fit their existing conceptions of how society works. They say,
Research shows that humans have a deep‐seated motivation to justify the social system in which they live, and their cognition is moulded by the desire to construe that system as good, just and legitimate. This orientation shapes public reception of scientific information, which is often absorbed into efforts to preserve existing group hierarchies (2014, p. 2).
These authors have a somewhat pessimistic and maybe patronizing view of the ability of the general public to understand scientific information. However, the persistence of sexual dimorphism in society and the perpetual emergence of new theories about its biological justification – for the most part happily received by the media and the populace – lend weight to their point of view.
We can see the evidence of the resurgence of biological determinism, sexism, and sex‐role differentiation all around us, in the shops and on the media and in daily practices, public and private. Even in this age when gender fluidity is a topic of interest and discussion and despite the pleas of second‐wave feminists for a less gendered treatment of boys and girls, the market continues to brand their clothes and toys as pink or blue. As England notes, the gender revolution is uneven and, in some regards, stalled (2010). Men earn more and occupy more positions with power. Women are demeaned and abused across the globe. The OECD's 2014 report on the position of girls and women in 160 states concludes that “across the globe every day women and girls experience some form of discrimination solely because they were born female” (Social Institutions and Gender Index [SIGI] 2014, p. 6).
The fact that people cling to the status quo and prefer simple theories to complex ones is part of reality. It is also part of current reality that we live in society where old forms of patriarchy are being threatened and where a defensive reassertion of the inevitability and fixity of sex and gender roles serves the agenda of the white, male ruling class and its favored political ideologies.
In the 1980s, Lewontin wrote a paper called “Biological determinism.” Among other things he said,
If we want to understand where these biological determinist theories of human life come from and what gives them their perpetual appeal, we must look not in the annals of biological science, but in the social and political realities that surround us, and in the social and political myths that constitute the ideology of our society. (1982, p. 152)
His warning is as relevant today as when it was written.
Conclusion
Biological determinism has a long history and is deeply embedded in Western scholarship. Both biological determinism and essentialism have taken many different forms over the centuries. While extreme biological determinism is rarely advocated by scholars today, theories that promote biology as offering the strongest explanation for sex and gender differences and differences in sexuality are still popular and widely accepted in academia and in the media. Current theories centering on genes, hormones, and brains have been critiqued by feminist scholars and others, who question the quality of the science behind the assertions that are made. Questions arise, also, about the narrow conception of humanity and human life that a theory focused primarily on genes, hormones, or brains can offer. Such theories fail to capture the reality that humans are not only biological but also social and psychological beings, enmeshed in complex and ongoing exchanges with their human and nonhuman contexts. It is thus unhelpful to ignore the social nature of human biology as much as it is to ignore the biological nature of all humans.
Essentialism is often found hand in hand with biological determinism although the perceived roots of difference may be social as well as biological. Seeing males and females, homosexuals and heterosexuals as different “types,” with fixed and enduring essences is questionable given the evidence of a degree of life‐course fluidity within individuals and the varied and overlapping nature of sex, gender,