Part I Gender as biological essence
2.3. Biological essentialism: understanding the limits of the theory
“The full self-determination, including economic independence, of both women and children” (Firestone 1970:11). However, she argues that their proper integration will only be secured if there is a fundamental change in the social and economic structure, thus arguing for a feminist socialism. Firestone argues that under capitalism
women’s integration into the labour force can only exist at the level of tokenism, as she points out that women have increasingly been integrated into the capitalist labour force but only as useful and cheap paid labour and as unpaid labour in households supporting the economic functioning of society.
Even though Firestone claims that by attacking the biological reproductive basis and economic basis of the organisation of the family, it would be destroyed — she called for a third demand to further eliminate it. Firestone demands “The total integration of women and children into all aspects of larger society” (p.236). She however, restates that these three demands could only be realised in the context of a feminist revolution which was based on advanced technology.
Lastly she demands “The freedom of all women and children to do whatever they wish to do sexually” (p.236). She argued that she called for this demand in the context of her contention that the full sexuality of women was restricted to
reproductive purposes by religious and cultural institutions, where she saw that the sexual freedom of women would question the fatherhood of children and threaten patrimony.
transcendence in society. They both also allude to social factors which use biological differences to subjugate women. For de Beauvoir it is culture and history’s definition of women as ‘Other’ and for Firestone it is the institution of the family. The social and historical context of the female body is also seen as influencing how it is conceived. However, both emphasise biological constraints which both believe can only be overcome by technology.
They both believe that reproductive technology could help women regulate and control their biology in so far as the female body is viewed as an impediment to intellectual and cultural achievement. Women’s social, economic and political participation, indeed equality itself, is technology dependent. Male bodies are not seen as inadequate but rather are seen by them as the standard for humanity and superior consciousness. The individual body and technology are abstracted from social relations. The body sets the parameters for women’s subjectivity. The views of de Beauvoir and Firestone preclude the possibility of there being any
interrelationship between individuals, their biology and social structures and relationships
Firestone’s approach can be seen as falling within a biosocial perspective; namely, that the objective and observable ‘real’ distinctions between males and female are rooted in human physiology, anatomy and/or genetics (Wharton 2005:22). Women’s reproductive biology is conceived of as the ‘real essence’. The underlying substratum from which gender distinctions, ‘nominal’ essences emerge are constructed between men and women in society. A unidirectional relationship is assumed between biological/sex differences and individual behaviour; where biology acts as the determinant of subjectivity and agency.
Epistemologically Firestone's materialist explanation fits into a positivist view of human behaviour which argues that knowledge of human behaviour can be
objectively acquired (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2000:6). Sex/biology is seen by Firestone as being an objective, material and identifiable real distinction between men and women, a difference which is rooted in human physiology and anatomy.
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These sex distinctions act as the ‘raw material from which gender is constructed’ and are held to be powerful organisers of human capabilities and behaviour. Thus gender difference is rooted in a real objective reality located in women’s essential sexual difference which imposes itself on and structures the social relations between men and women. It is this material biological difference in itself and the social relations of power and domination within the family that acts to constrain women’s agency in the world.
In other words, the cause of difference lies in human biology, or at least in those aspects that define apparent physiological difference. Barrett (1980:12) argues that these types of explanations do not account for ‘why’ or ‘how’ men acquire control of women’s bodies. She argues that this type of analysis is a form of biologism which philosophically tends towards reductionism, because it reduces complex social and historical phenomena to one causal category — namely, biology. Such reductionism is problematic for several reasons. For Connell (1991:78) it makes biology the determinant of practice instead of seeing practice as being socially determined. For Birke (1986:7), because this argument is dependent on isolating a causal factor which is explained as a prior cause to an event, observed events are accounted for by
arguing backwards from the event. The complexity of social processes is reduced to one essential component from which everything else emanates.
Jagger (1983:112) argues that Firestone fails to see how women’s biology is also determined by their subordination. This failure is somewhat paradoxical given Firestone’s claim to presenting a dialectical materialist analysis of sex
(reproduction), without pointing to the structural, systemic or even subjective
contradictions that, as Therborn (2007:76) notes are intrinsic to a Marxian analysis of modernity.
A biological view of difference also implies that social arrangements are ‘natural’
and therefore fixed and immutable. Walby (1990:16) argues that the main problem with ‘natural’ conceptions of gender is that they embody ahistorical and trans- cultural notions and utilise a simple base-superstructure model of causal relations.
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This problem in turn, limits the theory’s ability to account for variation and change.
Alsop et al (2002:297) argue that feminists who have a naturalistic conception of the body view it as fixed and given and a constraint to the possibility of action. Rather, they suggest, it is not the body that prevents action but rather that action is prevented by the meaning and significance that is attached to the body by society. As Grosz (1994:19) puts it, bodies are not inert, passive, non-cultural and ahistorical but, in fact, are a site of contestation in varied economic, political and sexual struggles.
Bodies exist as racial and classed bodies as well.
Biological determinism as argued for by Firestone (and de Beauvoir) presents a specific, scientistic model to explain or justify the existence of social hierarchy and social inequality (Lowe 1982:108). It is a particular way of viewing the causes of social structures, where observed social differences are accounted for in the biological nature of humans. This kind of theorising also tends to generalise and homogenise the experiences of all women.
Firestone has also been criticised for universalising the position of women across time and place. Barrett (1980) and others (Segal 1987; Rowbotham 1981) have argued that in construing all men as exploiters of all women, radical feminists imply that the categories men and women can only be biological. Connell (1991:55) holds a similar view and argues that where men and women are treated as general categories and the relation between the two is of direct domination, this can only be biological explanations. As Scott (1988:34) argues, physical difference conceptualised in this way takes on a universal and unchanging character which is problematic because it rests on a single variable of physical difference outside of the historical context. It attributes a consistent, inherent and universal meaning to the human body outside of the social or cultural experience and therefore cannot take account of the fact that, for example, menstruation, childbirth or breastfeeding practices differ across time and place and are influenced by social and technological changes that alter social relations.
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Subjectively, Gordon (cited in Gimenez 1983:297) suggests that in spite of the problematic aspects of reproduction, at least some women regard it as a creative and rewarding experience that provides them with a source of meaning and comfort that compensates for the alienating features of work. Rich (1977), a radical feminist, goes further to argue that rather than being burdensome and dehumanising, motherhood and bearing children are a source of joy to women and contends that the problem for women is patriarchy rather than bearing and rearing children.
By reducing the differences between men and women to their reproductive
functionality, Firestone reifies relations of sex, placing them outside of the plural and multifaceted human interactions that constitute society. Firestone’s recourse to technology to regulate and control reproduction in order to eliminate the constraining effects of women’s biology is also questionable. Inherent in her solution is the belief that biology predetermines social differences and it is therefore biology that needs to be altered through technology. But technology, itself, is a product of and mediates social relations affecting individual choice and agency (Walby 1990:66; Rose and Hanmer 1976).
Thus although the availability of reproductive technology has the potential to modify reproductive behaviour, it is not sufficient in itself to trigger drastic changes in reproductive patterns for invariably non-technological, that is social, reasons.
Gimenez (1983:292) argues that Firestone overestimates the power of technology to give women control over their reproductive lives and underestimates the power of social and psychological factors in influencing women’s behaviour, the structural basis of sexism. She further argues that individual decisions always have social content. Gordon (cited in Giminez 1983:296) argues that reproductive freedom is an important dimension of human freedom but is similarly affected by all other
institutions which act to curtail that freedom. She argues that reproduction affects women differently; specifically creating more difficulty for women who, whether employed outside the home or not, have sole responsibility for children.
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Lastly there is the question of Firestone’s solutions to gender oppression. In an age of cloning, genetic engineering and significant family restructuring, her ideas that sexual reproductive differences or the biological family can be eradicated and that together, they will end gender oppression are scenarios that may sound plausible to the contemporary ear. But, like her other contentions, they need to be tested
empirically to see what truth, if any, they have in specific contexts, times and places.
I now turn to this task of empirically exploring and testing the theory.
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