Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!daemon
From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: sex/gender
Message-ID: <13095@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 25 Jul 89 14:24:19 GMT
References: <8907071844.AA10158@cattell.psych.upenn.edu> <10546@polya.Stanford.EDU> <12869@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <43073@bbn.COM> <3115@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
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In article <3115@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> elroy!ames!cadre.dsl.pitt.edu!geb (Gordon E. Banks) writes:

>We were only talking about aggression, not complex gendered behavior.
>If you want to argue with me, please argue against positions I adopt,
>not those you read into what I said.

Well, let's see now. If your argument about testosterone and aggression
in animals is, as you say, not about the complex gendered behavior we
find in human beings, than we have nothing to argue about.  I agree
completely. I might then ask why you offered in the first place. But in
fact, you claimed an explicit relationship between this kind of
aggression and the general social aggressiveness typically considered to
be a masculine attribute (and that aggressiveness is nothing if not a
"complex gendered behavior"). You want it both ways: to make deductions
about gendered human behavior from animal studies, and then to deny the
deduction when it's shakiness becomes apparent.  I'd like to know
explicitly: are these animal studies relevant to feminism or aren't
they? If so, why?

>First, do you suppose there are *any* facts in science that are not
>subject to interpretation?  Everything must be interpreted.  

Just so. Consequently, you need to examine the presuppositions and
assumptions which lie behind any particular "fact".  This is exactly
what I've been doing.  One can't make assumptions and question those
assumptions at the same time. I've elected to question; you've elected
to assume.