Women's Subordination through the Lens of Sex: Conservatism

T" the extent that it wishes to retain the status quo, conservatism obviously cannot be regarded as a framework that is feminist. Applied to issues of gender, conservatism typically offers an explanation for the subordination of women that works simultaneously as a rationalization for it. Secular versions of conservatism often account for women's subordination in terms of human biology and warn of the high cost, in terms of social inefficiency and human unhappiness, of any deviation from this supposedly biologically engendered norm. Despite the fact that conservatism is not feminist, two samples of biodeterminist conservative arguments are included herealong with a feminist rejoinder-because biological justifications of women's subordination continue to be widely circulated, Over the past twenty years, psychoanalytic explanations of people's behavior have \0\"~t, been superseded to a considerable extent by biopsychiatric approaches. These, as their l' \9-(f'(' name implies, attempt to explain many human desires, moods, and actions in terms of (,\~ c;)-I biological phenomena such as brain chemistry. Until about 1970, however, Freudian \C' '0J\\ theory was probably the most powerful secular rationale for women's subordination, ~\'+3~'J and even today it retains considerable influence, We have again reprinted extracts ) (}C\ from Freud's famous article "Femininity," partly for its historical significance and partly as a basis for understanding recent feminist attempts to reread Freud in ways that illuminate the subordination of women without at the same time rationalizing it. Sociobiology is the second version of conservatism presented here, Sociobiological approaches to understanding human behavior came to prominence in 1975 with the publication of entomologist Edward O. Wilson's ground-breaking work Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Most of this massive tome was devoted to explaining insect behavior, but it was the last chapter, in which Wilson extended his theory to human action, that predictably aroused the most public interest and controversy, Wilson later elaborated his reflections on this topic in the popular paperback On Human Nature (1978), from which the present extract is taken. Like Freud, Wilson refrains from asserting that changes in traditional gender arrangements are impossible but he argues that any fundamental changes in these arrangements are contrary to the biological predispositions of human males and females, predispositions that originally had some evolutionary advantage. Wilson claims that thwarting these predispositions will impose social and individual costs much higher than the benefits produced, Ruth Hubbard is a Harvard biologist who, despite-or perhaps because of-her training, strongly opposes biodeterminist explanations of human action. Challenging both biological reductionism and biological holism, she argues that it is impossible in principle to separate biology's effect on human behavior from social and economic influences, Although Hubbard's piece is clearly feminist rather than genderconservative, its inclusion in this section is designed to help students understand the ultimate incoherence of all biodeterminist explanations of human action, including but not limited to psychoanalysis and sociobiology. Looking through only the lens of sex obscures as much as it reveals about women's subordination, If ~02?>l. b"SIS, ~"" YO'll hCl.l!v cH3ume,,+ .f'0',v-Jhy {hOC'; th;"5s Shouldc:.hal'tCjc WOMEN'S SUBORDINATION THROUGH THE LENS OF GENDER: LIBERALISM