While reading Sexing the Body, my initial impression was, well, being impressed. Like Jeehye, I found it fascinating that unlike my, and most likely others', expectations, 1) Sterling heavily believes in reality (in the context of Latour) 2) she not only believes in science and a material world, she, rather descriptively, describes science in a cultural context, which is extremely important for the case she is making: that making science is a cultural activity (though fact exists!) and so is the "sexing the body."
Her initial topic is Maria Patino, a 'female' Spanish Olympic athlete who was found to be of an intersex (specifically a female with developed testes). The first thing I thought about was if what happened to Patino undermines having a dichotomy of male/female athletes, who cannot play together or in competition, at least unequally. It is certainly unfair to ban people of intersex or other who do not fall within a sex/gender binary, yet how does this leave the Olympic Committee when judging two athletes? Certainly biological males are, on average, taller and larger, and live their lives under the term "male" - thus would it even be ethical to have a Human Olympics? Sterling brings up the case of men, under disguise, playing as women in the Cold War Era performing worse than their female counterparts, but across all sports, sexes, and genders, there is something that I believe would be unethical about this. This is just a question I felt the text alluded to.
I felt at ease when Sterling brought up the Kinsey scale. The Kinsey scale serves as a very social tool - its scale is nearly common knowledge amongst the LGBT community and probably a significant part of the heterosexual population, yet, Sterling presents it in the context of its scientific roots and its modern usage. Something like the Kinsey scale works well, at least for me, in the way A Billion Subtle Thoughts works - its simple, popular, and a bit reductionist (just a few numbers expresses a vast majority, ideally all, human sexual orientation!). Its also a scale I use in everyday life, so it was comforting knowing she would use the scale, as well as point out that scientists actually use it (though nearly a third don't think the scientific method applies to blurred sexual orientation).
The appeal of Sterling is in her identity: one part scientist; one part past heterosexual / current homosexual. The book subtextually comes off as very personally important for Sterling. It represents a joining of her field: the science of biology, gender studies, and sexology with her life (her culture) as someone who challenges what science (and feminism) has said/done. I admire her for writing a book with such personal significance, but I also admire her for the large amounts footnotes, scientific studies, and creating a air-tight seal of her case in the book. Not only does this disallow critics and her opponents to ignore the book or discredit it entirely, it helps legitimize her cause as something that can exist within the realm of scholarly and scientific thought. The text comes off as very historical and dense (meaning a great deal of time and research is present). The book may have a bit of nudity on the cover, but the text seems separate from pop-science (unlike OGaddam), but she also goes out of her way to put herself and her humor within the pages, asserting she is not like the feminist stereotype, with no humor.
Her political position is explicit, which makes me feel at ease; there is not, for the most part, a hidden political and cultural assumption going on here. In literary theory we might call this a healthy text (thanks Barthes) as it points attention to its stake in the content - she is trying to prove a political point and she also has a personal story relevant to the topic, all of which are communicated in the preface or first chapter. From what we've read so far, the text has a large potential to be really interesting in a way that we can trust Sterling, which, refreshingly, points to "reality" (as opposed to OGaddam science or people who scare Latour).
~Eric Best~
I really appreciate that you brought up the importance of Fausto-Sterling's identity in creating legitimacy for her work. It is the first thing I noticed when I started contemplating how she builds legitimacy, and somehow I didn't work it into my post on this topic. Fausto-Sterling is fighting against multiple contradictory currents, and is asking feminists, the trans/queer community, biologists, and other academics to pause for a moment and hear her out rather than responding with a knee-jerk reaction in either direction.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who occupies a space both in the laboratory and the queer/feminist community, Fausto-Sterling can use her fluency in both scientific and queer/feminist discourses to navigate the space between them and attempt to forge a bridge, a space for trust and reconciliation. Her PhD in developmental genetics, as a highly respected certificate of knowledge in our society, is essential to the strength of her arguments. Written by a non-scientist (or a non-practicing scientist), this book would not have anywhere near the same impact, and would be much more likely to be dismissed offhand by those in the scientific community.
For this reason, I have been considering doing some graduate work in the sciences before moving back to the sort of theoretical/activist work that I mostly do now. Being able to identify yourself as a fellow scientist seems to make all the difference in how your ideas will be received by the "scientific community," as well as by mainstream society. Science occupies the position of legitimator in mainstream society today - think how often, in daily conversation, you hear someone back up their argument with a reference to a study (which they most often have not actually read). I think it is really important for me to do the work of understanding at a practical level how scientific knowledge is produced, by going through scientific training myself. I have taken biology, ecology, soil sciences, horticulture, and am now in a climate science class. Although I don't necessarily enjoy these classes as much as my classes in the humanities, I feel that they are essential to building both my legitimacy and my understanding of the physical and social world that I navigate as a human being and an aspiring academic.