CRJ #3 - Gender and Science

There are some people that believe that ideas about gender and sexual behavior are natural and occur because of one’s predetermined genetic, biological and physiological make-up. Carol Vance argues that this idea must not be accepted and that we need to understand that ideas about gender and sexuality are “social constructions”. This means that there are external influences from society which shape how one perceives gender and sexuality. Cultural context changes throughout history and through cultural classes so one needs to understand that these different aspects will have an affect on how people react to gender and sexuality. In contrast to Vance’s beliefs, essentialists believe that one’s behavior is completely independent of time and space. They believe that if a person is to be homosexual this is because he or she was born that way. This is based on the theory of biological determination defined as the belief that biology determines fundamentally all behavior and actions (pg 32). A large framework for essentialists’ beliefs is based upon the natural, unchanging influence of one’s genes. Essentialists believe that genes are in a way in control of a person, and this seems logical since there is so much science backing the notion. We are basically slaves to the preferences and sexual desires that are concreted into our genes. They also believe the fact that any sexual behavior we exhibit must be based upon “an expression of an underlying human drive or tendency. Behaviors that share an outward similarity can be assumed to share an underlying essence and meaning” (pg 29). This is to say that our behaviors are not readily shaped through cultural interaction, but they are actually a part of our foundation and who we were born as. As opposed to the essentialist view, the social constructionist view is that identical behaviors may have different meanings depending on the type of culture it is taking place in and the historical time. People do not behave in a fixed manner to different sexual acts; a person can also change the way he or she perceives things over time. This is important because “cultures provide widely different categories, schemata, and labels for framing sexual affective experiences…” (30-31”). To say that sex/gender is socially constructed means that there is not a “natural”, hard-wired vision that people have of sex or gender. Cultures throughout the world are so different, that it seems that sex and gender must be interpreted in different manners in different regions. Vance states that “…social construction theory strives for uncertainty through questioning assumptions rather than seeking closure…” (pg 31). This means that the meanings of sex and gender are always being examined because the meanings do change over time and in different regions.

After reading Martin’s article, I was surprised at how blatantly the roles of the egg and sperm have been depicted in society, yet I have failed to realize this. In school I remember learning that the egg was the dormant partner waiting for the diligent sperm to find its way. It seems so odd that this was taught to me in middle school. This is where many children’s beliefs are shaped and they are clearly being introduced to the fact that males are dominant over women. Martin described the negative view of female reproduction and how the eggs “merely sit on the shelf, slowly degenerating and aging like overstocked inventory” (pg 10). It seems almost as if people believe that the woman’s eggs are useless until one day a sperm might decide that the egg is worth the trouble. At some points I did laugh when reading what seemed to be the tales of the sperm and egg; however, it is sad how accurately they depict real life. I was extremely pleased at the positive spin that Martin put on the egg being more efficient than the sperm. It is not the quantity of what one can produce but the quality. She describes how a woman wastes only about 200 eggs for every baby she produces while a man wastes more than one trillion sperm. Men may think this makes them seem macho, but women can just laugh knowing that our system is much better.