This is a fantastic discussion. Can I steal your description of "necessary but not sufficient" re: gender? I don't know if I'd ever heard it before and it works fantastically well for me.
Some thoughts: Hird says that we should "Exercise caution when the behavior of nonhuman living organisms is cited in the service of discussions of human socio-cultural relations."
What did she do in her own work to allay this concern? I note this: "Only a minority of feminist studies analyze how physical processes, and particularly nonhuman processes, might contribute to feminist concerns." and see that she still seems to think it's ok, even laudable, to use analysis of aimals to contribute to human concerns. I am not sure that I disagree with her, but there is still something about the word contribute that sits strangely with me--it's not like the animals are doing a ERB approved study with disclaimer waiver. I think I would be happier w/it were there more feminists, or people in general, talking about animals' concerns and if there were not already a prevailing idea that we can take what we need from animals, including information, as long as it helps us as humans. Another way of using animals w/rhetoric?
She points out that we tend to call animals "natural" when they do things we like and "animalistic" when they do things we don't.
We totally do this to people, too.
Anyway, Hird takes this down by pointing out that Wilson uncritically assumes that the phenomenological (menstruating) and corporeal (vagina) elements of a female-sexed must be paired, and that a vagina constructed unable to give birth is not a vagina at all.Wilson thinks it's socially and materially artificial.
See my recent blog post on gender bending tampax ads.
Also, I read a fantastic article on sex research w/birds recently and will link it here.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-07 11:44 pm (UTC)Some thoughts:
Hird says that we should "Exercise caution when the behavior of nonhuman living organisms is cited in the service of discussions of human socio-cultural relations."
What did she do in her own work to allay this concern? I note this:
"Only a minority of feminist studies analyze how physical processes, and particularly nonhuman processes, might contribute to feminist concerns." and see that she still seems to think it's ok, even laudable, to use analysis of aimals to contribute to human concerns. I am not sure that I disagree with her, but there is still something about the word contribute that sits strangely with me--it's not like the animals are doing a ERB approved study with disclaimer waiver. I think I would be happier w/it were there more feminists, or people in general, talking about animals' concerns and if there were not already a prevailing idea that we can take what we need from animals, including information, as long as it helps us as humans. Another way of using animals w/rhetoric?
She points out that we tend to call animals "natural" when they do things we like and "animalistic" when they do things we don't.
We totally do this to people, too.
Anyway, Hird takes this down by pointing out that Wilson uncritically assumes that the phenomenological (menstruating) and corporeal (vagina) elements of a female-sexed must be paired, and that a vagina constructed unable to give birth is not a vagina at all.Wilson thinks it's socially and materially artificial.
See my recent blog post on gender bending tampax ads.
Also, I read a fantastic article on sex research w/birds recently and will link it here.