Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!rshapiro@bbn.com
From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: sex/gender
Message-ID: <43161@bbn.COM>
Date: 24 Jul 89 15:05:01 GMT
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Reply-To: elroy!ames!BBN.COM!rshapiro (Richard Shapiro)
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>We know at least one reason that males behave more aggressively:
>testosterone.  In experiments with animals, females can be made as
>aggressive as males by administration of testosterone, and the males can
>be made even more aggressive than they naturally are by giving them
>extra testosterone.


I've already responded to this, implicitly, but perhaps it would be
useful to do explicitly.  The kinds of gendered behavior which we've
been discussing here CANNOT be unproblematically derived from the
sorts of animal behavior you keep referring to. You need to
demonstrate a connection, but instead you're using a metaphor to
simply assume it. 

Yes, indeed, it's well known that testosterone levels in (non-human)
animals are directly correlated with something we might call
"aggression". But raw aggression in this sense is so thoroughly
regulated in human society that it's not at all obvious that
testosterone has any significant effect on human behavior. You need to
show that it does, not assume that fact on the basis of studies done
on other animals. More importantly, what we call "aggressiveness" in
human behavior is related to this other aggression only
metaphorically. When it's said that men are more aggressive than women 
socially, or at work, we're talking about a behavior which
only superficially resembles animal aggression. But you've taken this
metaphor literally, assumed that the two kinds of behavior are the
same simply because they have the same name; and then concluded that
there's a simple physiological basis for the social fact of greater
male "aggressiveness".  

It should be obvious that the kinds of gendered behaviors which are of
interest to feminists are not replicated in any other animals. They
are quite specific to human society and need to be understood on that
basis. If animal studies are to be considered useful, you need to
*show* some kind of correlation, not assume it.  In fact, it seems
quite clear to me that there's no very good evidence, from animal
studies or elsewhere, that these behaviors have a physiological basis
at all. Quite the contrary, the diversity of social practices would
seem to suggest just the opposite.

The obvious questions to me are: why this *insistence* on claiming a
physiological basis for these behaviors? Why are you so anxious to
make this reduction, when there isn't any evidence for it (despite
diligent searches for such evidence)? What other assumptions are you
making that lead you to approach the issue in this way?