(x-posted at Women@Brown)
Jezebel had a good post the other day about a new study showing that promiscuity may be more culturally influenced than biologically/evolutionarily. Well, yeah, no kidding. But evolutionary biologists have long held that, based mainly on studies of fruit flies, males are more promiscuous than females. Spreading one's genes is an evolutionary advantage, but producing eggs is more of an investment than insemination, so females tend to have fewer mating partners while males tend to have more. While these findings are undoubtedly important, the subsequent application to human behavior has been, well, problematic. Claiming cultural norms/stereotypes as "natural" tends to lead into dangerous territory, reinforcing expectations of men's and women's roles in society.
However, a new study that actually takes a look at human behavior has shown that "Evidence for sex differences in variation in reproductive success alone does not allow us to make generalizations about sex roles, as numerous variables will influence [previous findings] for men and women." But not only is the notion of promiscuous men and choosy women culturally based, it may also be wrong. While men had more children by different partners than women did overall, number of sexual partners is extremely difficult to measure because people lie about it. The social expectation for men to sleep around and women to want committed relationships tends to make men exaggerate upwards and women exaggerate downwards when surveyed about the number of sexual partners they'd had.
This study is encouraging, because it shows an awareness by the scientific community that humans are embedded in culture - a fact that tends to be ignored in evolutionary biology. On the other hand, Elizabeth Wilson (who gave a talk at the differences colloquium a few weeks ago) got me thinking about the fact that feminism tends to ignore biology, too. To paraphrase Wilson, although nothing can be explained in purely biological terms - especially biology - feminism does need to be more engaged with biology. When we distance ourselves from the scientific community, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot when we could be focused on working through similar issues. And the last thing we want is to show how completely out-of-touch we are by suggesting that fruit fly research is unimportant.
How to engage biology is, of course, the difficult question. But I get discouraged when I end up in arguments with my biology-focused friends about things like the influence of evolution and/or culture on sex and gender, because it gets in the way of our shared commitment to social justice. I make a habit of calling out science out for its assumed objectivity - nothing is purely objective; we don't exist in a vacuum - but the last thing I want to do is alienate it because it isn't self-aware enough. It would be more productive to help it become more self-aware, and then work in conversation with it.
Showing posts with label academia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academia. Show all posts
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
TGIF
(With apologies to Jezebel.)Okay, I'm taking a quick break from the New Mexico postings to update on my (current) life. But first, I'd like to introduce a new feature...not only did Lyndsay and Mrs. Mills get me inspired to start blogging (at which I've been doing a terrible job keeping up), but they also got me intrigued by Friday Fill-Ins. So here goes, new feature! This will at least get me to blog once a week, before my weekend starts...
1. Please don't tell me I'm a bad person for being too squeamish to give blood.
2. Can you believe how lovely and peaceful campus is early in the morning?
3. The color orange makes me want to puke!
4. I have a craving for sleep.
5. If my life had a pause button, I'd pause it often, to get caught up on all of my reading. Argh.
6. Eyes are the sleepiest part of me right now.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to bed early, tomorrow my plans include Club Gallery and Sunday, I want to go to yoga and then get some work done!
General updates/impressions of the classes I am taking...
Intro. to Gender & Sexuality Studies: Fitting, because it's sort of my concentration. Hah. I love this class, partly because after fulfilling nearly all of the concentration requirements I'm pretty familiar with the concepts we're covering by now, so it's not going to be difficult. And yet - I feel like I'm still learning new things, or at least gaining new insight on old things. Also Denise Davis is awesome and always has hilarious stories about her daughter. As a good friend and classmate pointed out, professors of gender theory always have the most interesting child-rearing practices. As a side note: between this class and the next class I'll discuss, I am reading three volumes of Foucault. The same week as Butler was assigned, too. I'm sorry, but I'm in agreement with Professor Davis - Butler is brilliant, but she needs a good editor.
Religion & Gender in the Ancient Mediterranean: A once-a-week, evening seminar - my only small class this semester, which is a switch from the usual and actually quite a relief. Again, the professor is awesome - she definitely knows her stuff and intimidated me at first, but now that I've gotten to chat with her I've realized that she's a very nice, interesting and interested person. The subject matter is fascinating, because although the gender stuff is old hat, I've never taken a class that focused on the ancient world, and I feel really...academic. In a good way. The other day we looked at the writings of Artimedoros, who was a dream interpreter - the really interesting part is that while he had all of these ideas about the types of predictions you could make through dreams, in doing so he also left us with valuable information about the daily lives of the ancient Greeks, particularly their ideas about gender and sexuality systems. Cool stuff. Also, I was incredibly proud of myself the other day, because I not only spoke up in class (I'm terrible at that - I get intimidated much too easily) but I even argued my point and made a critique of Foucault with which Professor Kraemer totally agreed. Ten points!!
The U.S. Metropolis: An Urban Studies class I decided to take on a whim (and a recommendation from a friend) - and I think I'm going to end up really liking it. Professor Zipp (isn't that a great name?) is a good lecturer, and the TA also gets a mention for being quite adept at facilitating section. The class basically deals with the rise of the American city (and, of course, the suburb) from the postwar era up to today. So far we've had a lot of introductory stuff leading up to this time period - the great black migrations, the Chicago and New York World's Fairs - but I think it's going to be fascinating to trace the history of some of the major social problems that plague our cities. Also there are several films assigned for the class (I'm always tempted to call them "movies", but in college, they're "films"), which always seems to bode well. We already had to watch a funny (in the way that old movies from the 30s are funny) black-and-white propaganda-ish film about the problems with cities, as well as A Raisin in the Sun, which is one of my favorite plays of all time.
The Foundation of Living Systems (a.k.a. Bio 20): Yes, I've gone back on my word - I'm taking a science class after all. But I love it so far - quite honestly, the science nerd inside me (which essentially died during AP chem and physics) is slowly reawakening. It goes without saying that Ken Miller is an awesome and hilarious lecturer.
1. Please don't tell me I'm a bad person for being too squeamish to give blood.
2. Can you believe how lovely and peaceful campus is early in the morning?
3. The color orange makes me want to puke!
4. I have a craving for sleep.
5. If my life had a pause button, I'd pause it often, to get caught up on all of my reading. Argh.
6. Eyes are the sleepiest part of me right now.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to bed early, tomorrow my plans include Club Gallery and Sunday, I want to go to yoga and then get some work done!
General updates/impressions of the classes I am taking...
Intro. to Gender & Sexuality Studies: Fitting, because it's sort of my concentration. Hah. I love this class, partly because after fulfilling nearly all of the concentration requirements I'm pretty familiar with the concepts we're covering by now, so it's not going to be difficult. And yet - I feel like I'm still learning new things, or at least gaining new insight on old things. Also Denise Davis is awesome and always has hilarious stories about her daughter. As a good friend and classmate pointed out, professors of gender theory always have the most interesting child-rearing practices. As a side note: between this class and the next class I'll discuss, I am reading three volumes of Foucault. The same week as Butler was assigned, too. I'm sorry, but I'm in agreement with Professor Davis - Butler is brilliant, but she needs a good editor.
Religion & Gender in the Ancient Mediterranean: A once-a-week, evening seminar - my only small class this semester, which is a switch from the usual and actually quite a relief. Again, the professor is awesome - she definitely knows her stuff and intimidated me at first, but now that I've gotten to chat with her I've realized that she's a very nice, interesting and interested person. The subject matter is fascinating, because although the gender stuff is old hat, I've never taken a class that focused on the ancient world, and I feel really...academic. In a good way. The other day we looked at the writings of Artimedoros, who was a dream interpreter - the really interesting part is that while he had all of these ideas about the types of predictions you could make through dreams, in doing so he also left us with valuable information about the daily lives of the ancient Greeks, particularly their ideas about gender and sexuality systems. Cool stuff. Also, I was incredibly proud of myself the other day, because I not only spoke up in class (I'm terrible at that - I get intimidated much too easily) but I even argued my point and made a critique of Foucault with which Professor Kraemer totally agreed. Ten points!!
The U.S. Metropolis: An Urban Studies class I decided to take on a whim (and a recommendation from a friend) - and I think I'm going to end up really liking it. Professor Zipp (isn't that a great name?) is a good lecturer, and the TA also gets a mention for being quite adept at facilitating section. The class basically deals with the rise of the American city (and, of course, the suburb) from the postwar era up to today. So far we've had a lot of introductory stuff leading up to this time period - the great black migrations, the Chicago and New York World's Fairs - but I think it's going to be fascinating to trace the history of some of the major social problems that plague our cities. Also there are several films assigned for the class (I'm always tempted to call them "movies", but in college, they're "films"), which always seems to bode well. We already had to watch a funny (in the way that old movies from the 30s are funny) black-and-white propaganda-ish film about the problems with cities, as well as A Raisin in the Sun, which is one of my favorite plays of all time.
The Foundation of Living Systems (a.k.a. Bio 20): Yes, I've gone back on my word - I'm taking a science class after all. But I love it so far - quite honestly, the science nerd inside me (which essentially died during AP chem and physics) is slowly reawakening. It goes without saying that Ken Miller is an awesome and hilarious lecturer.
(June 2008)
(January 2006)
In all seriousness, though, I'm 100% on board with everything he says about evolution - particularly because, as a Catholic, he focuses a lot on the fact that evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive. Thank you, Ken Miller, for practicing good science and good theology.
The biggest problem with these classes is that there is a heck of a lot of reading - but that's not really anything new. Otherwise, I'm enjoying being the head conductor of the world's only ice skating band, singing in an incredibly talented church choir with fantastic people from the Providence community, working too many hours at Orwig Music Library (I keep adding shifts - can't keep away!), and living with my amazing suitemates - who happen to be excellent cooks in addition to being spectacular people.
The biggest problem with these classes is that there is a heck of a lot of reading - but that's not really anything new. Otherwise, I'm enjoying being the head conductor of the world's only ice skating band, singing in an incredibly talented church choir with fantastic people from the Providence community, working too many hours at Orwig Music Library (I keep adding shifts - can't keep away!), and living with my amazing suitemates - who happen to be excellent cooks in addition to being spectacular people.
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