ATS1365 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Determinism, Paradigm Shift, Gynaecology
8 May 2018
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INTRO TO SOCIOLOGY: LECTURE 8
MODULE 2: GENDER & SOCIETY: LECTURE 2
Sex and Science
Module Overview
Week 8: in this week, we delve into the role of medicine in shaping and defining ideas of sex
and gender difference. We explore the development of scientific knowledge about sex and
reproduction from the period of Enlightenment and how gender and sex binaries have been
articulated by scientific discourses
Lecture Plan
• Introduction: Science & the social world
• Locating Science and knowledge in history
• Scientific ideas, social norms and reproductive realities
• Keller 1985
• Brain sex and how biological explanations work – what they do
• Concluding remarks
Matthe Co The Egg ad “pe ‘ae
• siee ee follos a diet path. Istead of pogessig staight to some new
truth, it takes strange detours, finding itself temporarily trapped in unexpected dead
ends. It unwittingly restricts itself to addressing only some of the potential questions
that a e asked…istakes pla a fudaetal ole :
Why Frankenstein?
• Fais Bao I a oe i e tuth leadig to ou Natue ith all he hilde to
id he to ou seie ad ake he ou slae
• “helle offeed a igoous itiue of siee ad huis
• Ad of the gedeig of atue as feale…ith implicit implications of
passive/active
• Hence Doctor Frankenstein
From Religious Gods to the Gods of Science?
• The historical transition in epistemological strength from religious doctrines to
scientific knowledges in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries that still dominates
• We need to consider how scientific knowledge production expanded into all other
forms of knowledge and how this set the gold standard for truth in western societies
New Conceptions of Mind and Body
• Descartes – 1919 – dea: I thik theefoe I a
• Promise of a mathematical formulation for the universe – to contain all information
• Development of rationality and the predominance of science led to reinvigorated
distinction of the mind and the body (woman as body)
• The Catesia dualis – still defining the shape of modern science
• What are the effects on how we think about sex and sexual difference?
Sex as Masculine in Nature
• Hardening polarities between men/women, nature/culture in the Enlightenment
period
• Emphasis on rationality
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• Rising value of science as better than religion, even though it established the same
ideas
• Estalishet of sietifi isight/eploatio as ale poess
Sigificat chage to the Two-Se Model
• Previously thought of women as the inversion of men – an absence but of the same
stuff – more commonality and complexity
• Enlightenment leads to clear difference between sexes – of two different orders with
oseuet effets o oes eualit; ad failue to eogise the opleit of
sexed bodies
Scientific insights into Sex & Difference
• Important tightening of definitions of difference inaugurated by the new scientific
knowledges
• Silencing of other knowledges/voices/bodies
• Project of validating and entrenching social roles of women using scientific means
• Early emphasis on the defective nature of women and their biology
• Costutio of oes diffeee alas as lesse
Defining Homosexuality – using the Gender Lens
• Long history of diverse sexual practices and activities between different people –
never clearly tied to a set of identities
• I the s, the fist edialised defiitios of hooseualit as a disease ad
therefore as an essential attribute/identity – rather than the prohibition of certain
acts
• Many have argued that the trial of Oscar Wilde (1895) was really about
setting/exploring the limits of appropriate male sexuality
• “teiah poedue i the s hee othe testiles ee iplated ito
hooseual e to ue the
• Shock treatments around arousal – images of naked men and electric shocks (1950s
& 1960s)
• Deelopet of the ga gee theo fo s oads – John de Millo says
good and bad elements (Havelock Ellis 1901 – inborn)
• Maiteae of hooseualit i D“M util
• Recent pardons in Australian states of hooseual ies
Sis Speculu…Se, Geder & ‘ace…Fouder of Gaecolog
• J. Marion Sims:
• 1845-1849: invented the speculum and found a way to repair vesico-vaginal
fistulas
• Perfected the speculum and his technique on women who he purchased as
slaves and operated on them repeatedly, perfecting his technique before he
used it on white women
• Some of the women endured up to 30 operations before the technique was
perfected
Ben Barres
• Stanford scientist – previously Barbara
• I a still disappoited about the prestigious fellowship competition I later
lost to a male contemporary when I was a PhD student, even though the
Harvard dean who had read both applications assured me that my
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