SOC 603 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Sociobiology, Orgasm, Social Darwinism
Document Summary
Ordained by nature: biology constructs the sexes. Biological explanations hold a place of prominence in our explanations of both gender difference and gender inequality. First, biological explanations have the ring of "true" science to them: Because they are based on "objective scientific facts", the arguments of natural scientists are extraordinarily persuasive. Second, biological explanations seem to accord with our own observations: women and men seem so different to us most of the time: biological differences, then and now. Prior to the nineteenth century, most explanations of gender difference had been the province of theologians. God had created man and woman for different purposes, and those reproductive differences were decisive. By the late eighteenth century, scientists were beginning to join the debate. Published drawings of the male and female skeletons that exaggerated the pelvises of women and the crania of men, thus arguing for the sexes" The debate intensified later in the nineteenth century under the influence of.
