Thursday, May 02, 2002
Boys and Girls - Sexual Violence
[A shonky 'scientific' paper was published recently arguing that rape was "normal" for males and gossip the "norm" for women. Natasha Walters, a columnist for my local newspaper, wrote a refutation from a feminist point of view.]
I read with interest Natasha Walter’s article ‘Dubious Recipes for Boys and Girls’ (Canberra Times, Monday 2 June 2000).
Let me say, firstly, that rape is abhorrent to me, and, secondly, that anyone who suggests that it has an evolutionary advantage, and is therefore ‘coded into’ men’s genes, is no scientist and should not only be drummed out of academia, but also out of civilized society.
This sort of determinism seems to be increasingly common these days. It is a result of modern capitalism out of control under the auspices of economic rationalism — the petit-bourgeois, no longer able to control their own economic future, fall back on the twin certainties of micro-managing every other aspect of their own and others’ lives, and fundamentalism (in this case the modern fundamentalism of psychology and biology). It is a way of avoiding responsibility — ‘I couldn’t help myself, Your Honour, God/the Devil/my genes/my upbringing made me do it.
Yet the ‘politically correct’ also use this sort of determinism. Gays are gay because of their genetic makeup, and if you substitute ‘communication’ for ‘gossip’, and say that women’s better ability to COMMUNICATE is an evolutionary advantage, Ms Walter and her ‘sisters’ would no doubt be clapping their hands together in appreciation.
Moreover ‘unscientific’ methodology such as Ms Walter rightly rails at is also common among the ‘politically correct’. The surveys which ‘proved’ that ‘three out of four women have been/will be raped’ has been refuted several times (eg by [female author] Rene Denfield in her book The New Victorians). Yet there are still feminists and their allies who cite these studies as irrefutable ‘facts’ and see them as ‘proof’ that — in the words of author Marilyn French — ‘all men are rapists... and that’s all they are’.
Let me say, firstly, that rape is abhorrent to me, and, secondly, that anyone who suggests that it has an evolutionary advantage, and is therefore ‘coded into’ men’s genes, is no scientist and should not only be drummed out of academia, but also out of civilized society.
This sort of determinism seems to be increasingly common these days. It is a result of modern capitalism out of control under the auspices of economic rationalism — the petit-bourgeois, no longer able to control their own economic future, fall back on the twin certainties of micro-managing every other aspect of their own and others’ lives, and fundamentalism (in this case the modern fundamentalism of psychology and biology). It is a way of avoiding responsibility — ‘I couldn’t help myself, Your Honour, God/the Devil/my genes/my upbringing made me do it.
Yet the ‘politically correct’ also use this sort of determinism. Gays are gay because of their genetic makeup, and if you substitute ‘communication’ for ‘gossip’, and say that women’s better ability to COMMUNICATE is an evolutionary advantage, Ms Walter and her ‘sisters’ would no doubt be clapping their hands together in appreciation.
Moreover ‘unscientific’ methodology such as Ms Walter rightly rails at is also common among the ‘politically correct’. The surveys which ‘proved’ that ‘three out of four women have been/will be raped’ has been refuted several times (eg by [female author] Rene Denfield in her book The New Victorians). Yet there are still feminists and their allies who cite these studies as irrefutable ‘facts’ and see them as ‘proof’ that — in the words of author Marilyn French — ‘all men are rapists... and that’s all they are’.
