Posted by Tamar on August 4, 2005, at 5:59:46
In reply to Re: Lott: Q on getting attracted to older, wiser men » Tamar, posted by alexandra_k on August 3, 2005, at 14:36:25
> Hmm... I think there is a bit more to it. Apparantly... It is in the females interests to have her partner believe she is faithful... they went and discovered such things as 'fighting sperm' and some other stuff... I was hearing about this a couple summers back... I can't really remember but I think that the upshot was that females were just as likely to have an affair but they were much more likely to be very discrete...
And apparently women are more likely to be unfaithful at times in their cycle when they’re more likely to get pregnant… Now there’s a piece of research that seems likely to strike fear into the hearts of men…
> Biology influences social behaviour by restricting the options. I mean... I can't fly because of my biology. My biology allows me to walk (there is that 'innate' potential - if you like) but if I don't get food then I probably won't grow so I probably won't end up walking either.. Sorry that was a useless example... How about language acquisition. If Chomsky is to be believed (about linguistics at any rate ;-)) then we have this innate ability to 'hook into' the structure of any natural language. But then... There has been some talk around whether you are ever able to hook into the structure of a natural language if you don't have adequate exposure to it by age 7 I think it was. But then we don't really know. I just mean that biology and social factors are a complex interaction. I think biology is primary though - which isn't to say that it can't be modified quite significantly by our social environment
I wonder if the idea of biology as primary will become increasingly problematic as we challenge the limits of humanity through technology. For example, I think transgender people could challenge notions of the primacy of biology (though having said that, I think transgender people tend to argue that there is a biological basis for transgender identity). But if it is possible to change fundamental aspects of our identities by modifying our bodies (through surgery or other technologies), then perhaps biology becomes less of a determining factor in human identity.
> > The main difficulty, I think, is that many people cannot be easily categorised as male or female.
>
> depends what you mean by male and female...If the terms are open to interpretation, then I think it’s true that it’s hard to categorize people…
> >Some people are born with ambiguous genitalia, and others are born with chromosonal arrangements that are not simply XX or XY.
>
> yes, but not very many that we know of...Even if there aren’t many, the existence of gender ‘anomalies’ undermines the system of binary opposites on which we often depend in social interaction.
> >In social situations we can never be sure just by looking whether someone is a man or a woman. There’s always a possibility that the categorisation isn’t straightforward.
>
> ??? You don't think we might have something like a 99.9% chance of getting it right???Actually, I think that 99.9% might be a little over-confident. Estimates of incidence of a congenital intersex conditions depend on definitions of intersex, but some people put it as high as 1.7%. Some of these conditions might not be medically significant, but in a philosophical or sociological debate about gender identity they might be significant. After all, if 1 person in 60 doesn’t conform to the biological ‘standard’, that’s a lot of people we know.
And then there’s the issue of sexual orientation and gender identity (which is part of the queer theory debate)… Briefly: if we were to resist categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ on the grounds that they are heteronormative, then we can be even less certain of the gender identity of any person we happen to meet. (As I’ve said before, I know that some people might consider this kind of position to be postmodern w*nk, and that’s OK; I will respect other people’s opinions about it.)
So yes, I think if we take account of all the different possibilities, I think we might reasonably conclude that there is some degree of uncertainty. However, the significance of that uncertainty is downplayed by the cultural promotion of the idea of gender distinction, which leads to secrecy about gender ‘anomalies’ (and, even today, secrecy about sexual orientation), so I guess it’s another example of the complex interplay between biology and environment.
Just my two cents!
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:535438
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050801/msgs/537368.html