Speaker 1 (00:00:01):
Yes, it is very strongly male determining. Um, there are several theories about how this very small amount of genetic information can influence the course of human development so markedly. Um, most of these postulate that the Y chromosome genes turn on genes which are present on the other chromosomes, and these in turn, direct male development throughout embryonic and adult life. Thus, it follows the male can get by with less total genetic material than the female because the Y can activate genes which are present but not being used in the female. We really don't know very much about how the postulate y genes do this. Um, the first thing they do, however, uh, it seems is to, uh, somehow direct the formation of the embryonic testes, um, the testes in a male embryo form earlier than the ovaries in the female embryo. And so part of the answer is probably timing.

Speaker 1 (00:00:58):
Once the testes are formed, they begin to, uh, secrete those hormones that seem to be so much in the news these days. That is androgens, um, which play an important role in the further development of the male sexual apparatus. Um, and it is also claimed the male emotional and psychological characteristics. Very often, um, both male and female reproductive structures developed from common or dual precursor structures, which are present in embryos of either sex early in development. These precursors are capable of development in either a male or a female direction depending on the hormonal environment. The testes provide this hormonal environment in a male embryo normally, and if you remove them, even if the embryo is genetically male, uh, female sex organs develop, uh, this will not be a fertile female, but in all external respects and some internal respects will be female in body type.

Speaker 1 (00:01:56):
It's worth emphasizing that the female embryos ovary, which which develop later than the testes, are not necessary for bringing about the development of the female sexual apparatus. Um, what is necessary in this case is an absence. It seems of testes. The obvious conclusion is that an absence of sex hormones makes female. Uh, it's been suggested, um, that in embryonic mammals where high levels of female hormones are unnecessary concomitant of, uh, life in the uterus, uh, that male embryos needed some such strategy to differentiate as males. This is a very attractive hypothesis and it's supported by a lot of experimental evidence, but it does not explain the less well known fact that masculinizing effects can also be brought about in genetic females by the administration of female hormones. That is estrogens. Again, part of the puzzle here is probably timing because the testes normally develop earlier.

Speaker 1 (00:02:51):
This seems a good place to point out that all of the sex hormones are closely related biochemically, and the the pathways for their manufacturer in the body intersect at several points. Male tissues, even the testes have the necessary enzymes to make female sex hormones that is estrogen and progess and vice versa. Thus, we normally find small amounts of estrogens and males and androgens and females. Furthermore, the normal manufacturing sequence is from progestin to androgens to estrogens, and this is why, for instance, some oral contraceptives have masculinizing effects on some women and also on female, uh, embryos. Um, at any rate, given this biochemical interrelationship, uh, especially in the context of embryonic development, the dichotomy between male and female hormones may be a false one. Um, however, a number of sex differences which are important to reproduction originate from the exposure of either genetic sex to sex hormones during early development.

Speaker 1 (00:03:54):
Such effects with hormones are called organizational, and they are typically irreversible. It's likely that organizational effects of sex hormones during early development represent a permanent turning on of genetic information, usually that which is appropriate to the sex of the individual and a turning off of that which is inappropriate. This genetic information may include the capacity to respond to later hormone exposure in a certain way. A striking example of this is seen in the male rat when the organizational action of its own androgens is blocked chemically during prenatal development, not only do the genitals of such male rats develop in the female pattern, but memory glands are present. The adult male rat does not normally even have nibbles. I might add, when these androgen blocked males are adults appropriate hormonal treatments, simulating pregnancy can induce them to produce milk. None of these effects can be obtained by hormone treatment of an adult male rat who's undergone normal sexual differentiation.

Speaker 1 (00:04:50):
The milk genes have been permanently turned off. Uh, a similar organizational gene hormone interaction is probably involved in sex differences in body size. Uh, the greater size of males of many species, including ours, is often attributed to male sex hormones. But that, that there are genetic factors as well must be obvious from the existence of many species in which females are the larger sex. Uh, sex differences in body size may seem trivial in today's world, but the biological mechanisms bringing them about are of interest because the larger male is part of a familiar model from mythology. And anthropology also found in the popular literature how this model is a constellation of the larger, more aggressive male out defending the territory while the smaller submissive female of the species tens the youngsters. Actually, there are several recent studies made incidentally by women suggest there are not, there is not a consistent correlation among the various features of this model, even in other primates, but the model will persist, I think in part because of its anthropomorphic appeal, <laugh>, that hormone manipulation in prenatal life or infancy can mimic the other sex pattern of development is consistent with the concept that the information from making a male is mostly present in chromosomes other than the Y that is as present in females, but it normally takes a y chromosome to turn on those directions and carry them out via the androgens from the testis.

Speaker 1 (00:06:14):
If that chain of event fails, the female type develops, one can describe the situation in various ways. A good deal has been written in the scientific literature about whether the embryo of either genetic sex and before androgens exert their organizing effects is bisexual and be sexual neutral. And these terms have been extended to, uh, psychosexual development of the child. We as yet understand so little of the interaction between genes and hormones on the molecular level that these debates seem pretty silly to me. Moreover, in the popular writing, interpreting such experiments to the public, one finds such statements as the female pattern is the one that occurs by default, or all embryos are innately female. Again, this really is just a semantic problem, but the choice of term seems to me to tell more about the writers than about the reality of the embryo. And to illustrate how often we feel compelled to make value judgments about data, which is really just data, perhaps the need in this case is related to the E of Adam myth or to Freud's goings on about the inferiority of the clitoris.

Speaker 1 (00:07:24):
The debate about whether the embryo is basically female or not may also be related to other sex differences than those which are associated with strictly reproductive function. In my observation, even most feminists are not usually upset by these differences. Uh, not only do we thus far require these differences in order to leave descendants, but they make heterosexual activity more pleasurable and they are therefore both inevitable and desirable. Uh, sex differences in behavior are more controversial and most often attributed to socialization. Because I'm a biologist, I think about behavior in terms of nerve cells and their connections rather than in terms of motivations and extinctions. This is not to say that the latter way of describing behavior is not useful, especially in the clinical sphere. We are very far from a complete understanding of the cellular and molecular workings of the nervous system. But if we accept that level as the basis of behavior, we have a large body of evidence, mostly from animal work that demonstrates genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences on neural circuitry during development.

Speaker 1 (00:08:30):
There seems to be no reason to suppose that the human species will be different in this respect, although it seems likely that the degree of plasticity toward social and environmental influence will be greatest in our species because of its long infancy. The effect of hormones on behavior has been an area of serious research for some 30 years, and many of the findings are relevant to the subject of sex differences. As with the differentiation of the genitals, there are organizational effects of hormones that is effects which are exerted early in development, but manifested in behavior later on. For instance, a castration of the newborn male rat results in what is called the female type of mating behavior. Um, when death rat is an adult, the female type in rats is rather easily defined as, uh, being mounted more often than mounting. Uh, conversely, if you treat an infant female rat with male sex hormones or female sex hormones early enough in development, you find the Strat as an adult has the male type of mating behavior.

Speaker 1 (00:09:33):
Um, this has been taken, I think correctly to to indicate that early exposure to hormone organizes the nervous system, uh, presumably by modifying genetic expression to respond to lay hormones in later life with a specific behavior pattern. It's not obvious that these findings have any relevance to human sexual behavior. Uh, hormonal factors appear to be much less important than social influences, certainly with respect to the postures assumed in intercourse with respect to sex drive. The evidence for a sex difference in the human species is confusing. In few non-human species is the female continuously receptive to mating, rather her willingness to make coincide with hormonal changes associated with ovulation. Some studies have found a parallel periodicity in libido in human female with an inter menstrual peak. Others have not, but in any case, the variation seems to be small. Um, it's been repeatedly suggested in fact that the androgens or male sex hormones are the libido hormone in the human female.

Speaker 1 (00:10:34):
Uh, the evidence is not convincing to me and in view of the chemical interrelationships I mentioned to you earlier may be sort of mood, but the question of sex drive I bring up because evolutionary arguments maintain that among species, uh, in which the maternal investment in the offspring is great, which is certainly true of ours. The females lesser appetite for mating activities has adaptive value for the species because the female can take her time selecting the best father for the next generation. Um, observations of many primates of female primates demonstrate that receptive females are anything but co. So I find this, um, somewhat questionable interpretation, but while we're on the subject of sex, uh, one interesting, uh, sex difference in, uh, the human species is the human female's capacity for multiple orgasms next to nothing is known about the physiological basis for this sex difference.

Speaker 1 (00:11:27):
It's difficult to investigate this matter with animal experiments because except for one or two reports, we don't even know whether females of other species experience even one orgasm. Uh, since in a number of mammals, uh, intercourse is the trigger for ovulation. It seems reasonable to me as an endocrinologist anyway, uh, to assume that there may be some associated sensory reward for other mammalian females. However, uh, we don't have, um, much evidence except the soliciting behavior of receptive females of other species, uh, unbalanced. Therefore, it seems to me that the reverse sexist arguments about the sexual and sati ability of the female, uh, are as little supported by biological evidence as the evolutionist arguments about female reluctance to participate in sex in this area as many others. We just need a lot more data before we can make comparative arguments of any kind. Uh, one of the most difficult categories of behavior to define is aggression, yet it's a sex difference in this area, which is so often argued to be inevitable, desirable.

Speaker 1 (00:12:29):
And furthermore, an explanation for the historical fact of male, uh, domination of human societies. Um, Mr. Goldberg's inevitability of patriarchy is perhaps the worst example, uh, recently of this kind of argument. And I have probably a page here, uh, in which I have rebutted his, um, basic argument, which I think I shall have to, um, skip, uh, the essence of my no <laugh>, you don't want me to skip that by skip. All right. Okay. Uh, Mr. Goldberg defines aggression operationally as an element that flows from spec hormonal factors and determines the limits of specifiable social institutions. He then establishes correctly I think, that a males have a lot of androgens, and b, societies have always been dominated by males given his definition. Aggression is of course, the missing link. Yet nowhere does he clearly show the causality between androgen and aggression or between aggression and dominating society.

Speaker 1 (00:13:36):
This then is a status quo argument with physiological trimmings. Goldberg neatly avoids the difficult issue by not defining aggression except to complete his totology. One may argue that we all sort of know what aggression means, but in fact, if we're going to study it in the laboratory or in society, we need to know exactly what it is we're talking about. In the three biological studies cited by Goldberg, the measures of aggression use were frequency of fights in the hamster mouse, <laugh> and roughen tumble play among young monkeys. In two, two of these three cases, the males did show more of the behavior defined as aggression, and in one early androgen treatment did increase the incidence of this behavior in females. Now there are in fact many more studies, although not all of them, which confirms sex differences in fighting behavior using a variety of experimental situations and species and measures of the behavior. My favorite measure is the number of holes in the hide of the participants at the end of the boat <laugh>.

Speaker 1 (00:14:40):
There are indeed indications that this sort of behavior is related to sex hormones, especially to the organizational effects of either androgens or estrogens that is either male or female sex hormones early in development. However, measures of aggression, which could just as well be called physical assault, seem to me to have little relevance for human society, at least at its best. A broader definition of aggression as acquisitive or dominant seeking behavior may be much more relevant to the human situation, but it's just such a broader definition, which fails to show a consistent sex difference in animal studies. Experiments with laboratory animals can tell us much about the physiological mechanisms involved in sex differences in behavior, but any conclusions about the biological utility of such differences are our own inferences and should be made carefully from observation of the species in question under natural conditions. Far too often, both experimental design and data interpretation take place in the unconsciously or consciously assumed framework of the model mentioned earlier, the large aggressive male depending the territory in this limited re resource situation.

Speaker 1 (00:15:45):
This kind of scientific anthropomorphizing leads to amusing difficulties, For instance, with laboratory rodents where the female is less fearful and I I'll here to define my terms, uh, more apt to emerge and to explore a new territory than the male of the species. The assumption that, uh, sex differences would not have come into being if they were not adaptive for the species in is probably a correct one. However, their adaptiveness may not be the sort that we would assume from our human perspective. And furthermore, some differences which were once adaptive that is desirable may no longer be especially in human species. I've tried to illustrate for you how physical and some behavioral sex differences arise from genetic and hormonal factors, which provide a substrate for social conditioning, but the situation is really much more complex than this, than a, a simple unfolding of these determinants over time.

Speaker 1 (00:16:37):
There are also feedbacks of the social and the behavioral onto the physiological, which are just beginning to be recognized. For instance, the availability of a mate in many animals affects the reproductive system, and in the human female, uh, ovulation may be accelerated by intercourse. Uh, androgen level in the human male may be affected by sexual activity. Even in fact, the anticipation of sexual activity has been shown to affect androgen level. Um, psychological stress is well known to inhibit sex hormones in both sexes and reason. Studies at least, uh, on monkeys indicate that, uh, the correlation between social dominance and testosterone level or androgen level, um, which has been shown to be a positive correlation. Uh, may the causality, there may not be that the monkeys with the highest androgen level are the most dominant, but the other way around that is that being dominant increases one's androgen level.

Speaker 1 (00:17:33):
Uh, so it seems to me that we just don't know enough that is, um, for instance, it seems possible to me that there may be experiential effects in the development of certain behavioral sex differences. Even non-human primates show differential treatment of male and female offspring. And, uh, so when we talk about sex, sex role differentiation, we have to keep in mind this may be a physiological as well as a psychological quote unquote, um, development or differentiation. Um, I'm going to try and discuss in the remaining time a sex difference. So, which is supposedly purely psychological, at least the, the way it's measured is, um, and that is a difference in spacial ability, and I have a long list of reasons why I've chosen this. No, I think I won't give you the reasons. I'll just go right ahead and discuss it. Uh, it's a very interesting example.

Speaker 1 (00:18:22):
Okay, and it has no relationship to reproduction as far as we can see. Uh, first of all, what is the evidence for this difference in spatial? It's called spatial visualization and orientation. Actually, it's a technical name. Um, those of you who, um, these tests usually involve mental visualization of objects, often in three dimensions, usually have to manipulate something that's put before you on a piece of paper, uh, mentally and, uh, choose the right answer either from a multiple choice situation or by actual manipulation of objects. Those of you who, like me, are bad at this, uh, will remember such tests as extremely frustrating. Uh, well, uh, of the 40 odd studies reviewed through 1973 by Mava and Jacqueline almost all have found a significant difference in favor of males beginning at about 10 years of age. Additional studies which have appeared since Mc Van Jacqueline's review have also found such a difference, although there's still some question about whether it's two or three dimensional visualization that's involved, um, and I therefore simply call it spacial ability.

Speaker 1 (00:19:25):
From here on. Um, before we go any further, we should ask about the magnitude of this sex difference. This vital information is very hard to locate often in papers on sex differences. Uh, in this case, the average male score exceeds the average female score by one half to one standard deviation of either means score. In non statistical terms, uh, this means that some females score higher than some males. That is, there's some overlap between the sexes, but in general, males score higher. This is how a very significant difference by ordinary statistical criteria for the reason that the sample sizes are quite large. Clearly, this is a dimorphism of a different order quantitatively than the strictly reproductive anatomy I was talking about earlier, but its development may have some factors in common. For one thing, the heritability of this particular aspect of psychological functioning has long been suspected to be higher than that for, for instance, verbal ability.

Speaker 1 (00:20:24):
Uh, however, heritability, as I'm sure you're all aware, is often indistinguishable from other modes of intergenerational transmission. In the case of spatial ability, as measured by the criteria mentioned above, there is fairly good statistical evidence for a specific pattern of inheritance. The evidence comes from studies in which both sexes and their relatives were given the same tests of spatial ability. The observed distribution of scores is consistent with a recessive gene for superior s spatial ability located on the X chromosome. Oh, if you, most of you who have had biology recall, um, the, and, and I mentioned this earlier, that the mode of inheritance of a recessive sex length genes is like that of hemophilia that is a male who has, uh, this gene will express it. A female has to have two to express it. If the gene is a good gene, that is determined superior s spatial ability.

Speaker 1 (00:21:19):
This would result in a higher average score for males then for females, if one assumes that the gene is equally distributed among males and females, which we have no reason not to assume, and this is of course, exactly what we obtain, a higher male average score. However, more specific evidence has been provided by parent offspring and sibling correlations. The X-linked model, for instance, would predict a much higher correlation between mothers and sons, since mothers give their sons an X then between fathers and sons. Since no X passes from father to son, it is of interest that socialization effects would, I think, predict a high father's son correlation in four studies on different populations in the United States and another one that is about to be published, The expected order of correlations were obtained between parents and offspring and among siblings. However, it's important to note that this x gene model, which predicts a specific kind of correlation, by the way, in distribution of scores, only accounts for about half of the observed variance among the individual scores before we consider the remainder of the variance.

Speaker 1 (00:22:25):
Certain things about the genetic model should be pointed out. If the dominance of the normal gene that is for ordinary special ability is complete, the female with two superior, but recessive genes should be just as skillful at these tasks as the male with one superior gene, however, that only be half as many such females as males. Now, all these studies were made on US students high school and college, and their relatives in these populations. About half the males exhibited the superior s spatial performance, suggesting that the frequency of this populated gene is about 0.5, but now a reason from the genetic model, the number of females exhibiting this trade should be about 0.25. That should be the percentage given equal distribution, however, fewer females than that did. So if we now wish to account for the remainder of the variance, we might consider hormonal influences, cultural factors, and of course, random individual variation.

Speaker 1 (00:23:23):
Um, there is some evidence that, uh, the sex difference may be, uh, hormonally, um, expressed that is in people, uh, with various sex chromosome abnormalities or disorders of their sex hormones. There seems to be, um, some suggestion that, um, androgen levels increase the expressiveness of this gene, uh, in people who have it. Uh, this evidence is based on very small samples of people who had lots of other problems anyway, and I don't think that at, anyway, it's not convincing to me, but it is an important point because this sex difference you remember, doesn't show up until near puberty. So that that suggests quite obviously that one explanation. There could be, um, the rising, uh, hormone levels at puberty. Of course, the late appearance of this difference could also be due to socialization. One early study showed a correlation between high females spatial performance and the girls identification with her father, while a lower male performance correlated with maternal identification.

Speaker 1 (00:24:27):
This of course could be due either to a role model effect or just a result of time spent on tasks which were in those days, sexually dimorphic, for instance, tinker toys. Uh, there's some evidence that training can significantly improves spatial performance, by the way, um, when we come to cultural influences on spatial performance, the data are extremely confusing. At least to me, all cross cultural studies have found the same direction of male female difference in this regard, except for two studies on the Eskimos. These were two independent studies, however, which gives them certain validity. There is no sex difference among the Es Eskimos in, uh, these s spatial parameters. Um, it has been, this has been attributed to the permissiveness of Eskimo culture. Uh, it's been attributed McAfee and Jack even conclude that in cultures where women are subjugated their s spatial, a ability suffers, but we need more data.

Speaker 1 (00:25:24):
One cannot really rule out the possibility of either a different gene pool among the Eskimos or, uh, an occupational training effect. That is, uh, I I don't, I did not find any data on what tasks women perform among the Eskimos that might in fact give them a, an edge in terms of training in view of the president evidence for some biological causation of the sex difference in spatial ability. It's amusing to review older work in which the female's inferiority in this respect was argued to be an outgrowth of their different body image, inner versus outer space, or of their dependency on context due to their traditional emotional support role in the family structure. These things may still be true, but it would seem that they are added on to some degree of biological predisposition. It's worth noting that a similar male superiority in solving certain kinds of mazes has been shown in the rat by many workers.

Speaker 1 (00:26:16):
I haven't been able to locate any data on other primates than man. Be interesting to know, uh, if this were true, because the, the same paradigm that I mentioned before is used to discuss, um, this, this particular sex difference. And that is the male out there surveying the territory. Uh, but as I mentioned earlier, a territorial argument seems skimpy to me because of the sex difference, at least in rodents, in favor of females in terms of exploratory behavior. Um, beyond this, it's been suggested that spatial ability would've been of great value to our male ancestors in the aiming of projectors, either for defense or for obtaining food. Um, this idea is supported by two field studies on baboons and chimps who do apparently throw things. Um, one researcher even went so far with this hypothesis is to get a bunch of adolescent American males out in the field and to correlate their spear throwing accuracy with their performance.

Speaker 1 (00:27:14):
On the PMA special test, the correlation accounted for 14% of the variants. Um, okay, before going on to the social implications, I would like to return to the question of magnitude. I tried out a summary of this s spatial ability research on two friends, both feminists and both nonscientists. Their reactions were, one, females were only half as likely as males to have this gene. And two, this gene appears to be expressed in less than half the population anyway, and therefore is irrelevant for most people. My own way of describing it is that the male average score is greater than the female average score by less than one standard deviation. These are, of course, all equally valid ways of describing the same data and model. Another possible response is aha. That's why there's so few AMA female architects and engineers. It would be interesting to know, and we do not have this information if the proportion of females expressing this trait among female engineers and architects is in fact greater than the proportion among the female population at large.

Speaker 1 (00:28:18):
As one would expect if this ability confers any advantage in these fields, note that even if socialization and outright discrimination were ne and the postulated gene were an absolute determin of success in these fields, one would expect half as many females as males in these fields. And of course, we find many fewer females than that. Well, I wanted to conclude with a few remarks about, uh, why I am upset by izing. Um, I pointed out at the beginning that inevitability and desirability of biologically based differences are the sources. I think of the heat of the argument on these things. However, I think we can't ignore these issues. We, we have to confront both inevitability and desirability and, um, I had some more examples of bad, uh, bad izing, but I think I won't give them to you. I'd just like to make one point that is that the same evidence for biological causation, which is used by status quo arguments, can also be used as an argument for changes in social policy.

Speaker 1 (00:29:27):
Depending on one's assumptions about egalitarianism, that there may be a residue of biological causation does not imply that social reform should not take place, for instance, in terms of the sex difference in spatial perception. If we decide that this skill is quite important in today's world, then we might think in terms of training for both the 75% of females and the 50% of males who lack this genetic trait. In no case if we believe this ability matters at all, would we argue for differential socialization of males and females? In fact, this difference like so many others, is not so great that one can reliably predict even here, where we have a genetic model, uh, an individual's capacity by examining his her genitals, our judgment about the desirability of a difference is too often influenced by a male value framework, which equates female with inferior. An objective evaluation of social desirability might in many cases put a higher value on the female pattern, for instance, in the case of physical aggression or emotionality. And in either of those cases, we can affect the outcome, uh, by, uh, socialization. We socialize for and against all sorts of natural tendencies anyway, and quite effectively,

Speaker 1 (00:30:40):
Uh, we may ask what degree of biological determinism, if any, justifies a social policy which treats the sexist differently. Reproductive function is the most extreme example of a biologically determined difference. Yet this difference affects her relatively small part of a woman's lifespan. And convincing social and psychological arguments can be made for paternity as well as mat maternity leaves. Here is in so many cases, biology cannot answer the social question. It can only provide data which may be relevant to the indicated social judgment. Feminists will certainly have an important influence on such judgements, and as feminists, we should encourage research which seeks to describe the genetic, hormonal and social environmental interactions in the development of sex differences. We should make it our business to examine the data and its interpretation very critically. We must not be seduced by our own ideology into denying that real sex differences exist, nor should we be confused by the propaganda of naturalism into losing sight of the real social issues.

Speaker 2 (00:31:56):
Thank you, Helen, for a superb clarification of an area that is, uh, has remained a mystery to some of us non-scientists for too long. Our next speaker is our commentator and synthesizer, Katherine Stimson. Catherine Stimson wears several hats, none of them visible and all of them audible.

Speaker 2 (00:32:24):
That's the polite way I've ever been called. A big mouth <laugh>. She's a tenured member of the English Department of Barnard College, Ab b Mar, the A, Cambridge, PhD, Columbia. But perhaps more importantly today, she teaches the modern novel and images of women in literature among other matters in ways that seem to attach her students permanently to the life of the mind. Just as she is always available to advise her fellow faculty members in the administration. So is she held an enormously high regard by her students. Currently, she is also an embattled editor, engineering what will surely be one of the most significant feminist publications signs. Catherine,

Speaker 3 (00:33:15):
Before I begin to exercise my, would you all like to just stand for a second and stretch?

Speaker 4 (00:34:01):
I

Speaker 3 (00:34:58):
May. I may I exercise. My equally well known authoritarianism we're running behind. So should we begin again then?

Speaker 4 (00:35:20):
Yes. I never color.

Speaker 3 (00:35:26):
Should we start again?

Speaker 3 (00:35:36):
If I were a biologist, I would wish that I had written the Lambert paper, and if I were a historian, I would wish that I had written the Kelly Goodall paper and my envy would not be sinful, a sign of my sinful nature. But high praise for both papers show intellectual ambition, the desire to grasp the empirical world in terms of a totality, yet neither follow that great pattern of intellectual ambition, that of false. The papers do not overreach. They are flexible, skeptical, tentative without being timid. Lambert, for example, insists again and again upon the limits of what we know, upon the extent of mystery, upon the great boundaries of the unknown. She need, we need, she says in a phrase that does honor to science more data, I think it should be the name of a biologist child

Speaker 4 (00:36:40):
<laugh>,

Speaker 3 (00:36:46):
I'd like you to be my oldest more dollar, right?

Speaker 3 (00:36:55):
Moreover, both papers avoid one of the unhappy errors of some feminist speculation. Though both were aware that there is a class of error we can call patriarchal bias, they refused to cramp thought into two modes. One, the viciously male, the other, the redemptively female. To look at the papers together is to see two approaches to a complex body of material. Kelly Gaal is building a brilliantly suggestive model. When I showed her the the, my commentary before I said I was going to cut out the brilliantly cuz I'd gone through everything and cut out the adjectives. Well, I wanna restore the adjectives. Kelly Gaal is synthesizing massive amounts of theory and data into a new theory. We may then take that theory, we may refine it, we may refute it, or we may use it to give order and coherence to more raw data. Lambert is of course also offering a model.

Speaker 3 (00:37:50):
She uses the metaphor of the continuum and she suggests that the development of sex differences is a continuum from genetic determinism to social conditioning. However, the controlling intelligence of her paper is analytical. She examines theory and data to determine where we can stop and say with some relief. Yes, I believe this to be true, but perhaps a more important difference than that of methodology is that of subject and focused for Kelly Gaal construes reality. The reality of the past in terms of society. I found it odd and I think this is probably simply because they had to cut and write short pa comparatively short papers that neither did very much with their intellectual ancestors. Despite a mention of Morgan that great triad, Morgan Bov and angles, Kelly Gaal set writes the relation between the sexes is a social and not a natural one. She looks for common social developments. She looks for common social developments for institutional reasons, for the advance of one sex and the oppression of the other. Another way to construe that idea is to think of history as a pattern of rewards and punishment. And in the case of the sexes, one sees the males have gotten the lollipops and the females the sticks

Speaker 3 (00:39:17):
All puns intended.

Speaker 3 (00:39:26):
Kelly Gaal is postulating a theory of social change that incorporates the relation of the sexes into a complex structure. She wants to consider how general changes in production affect and shape production in the family and the respective roles of men and women. She wants us to regard the impact of family life and the relation of the sexes upon psychic and social formations. On the other hand, Lambert Construes reality in terms of nature. She writes the clarity that distinguishes her paper. Because I am a biologist, I think about behavior in terms of nerve cells and their connections. Her focus is not the family, but the genes not the factory, but the hormones. An absent or frail category is one that might link social process In biology, the difficult, tempting intellectual tasks that the conjunction of the two papers that we have had this morning suggests are these.

Speaker 3 (00:40:34):
First Lambert, like most of us, fails to postulate a rich theory of social process. She simply refers to the influence of society, socialization and environment. But what if one were to use Kelly G Doll's interpretation of those terms to show enricher detail and interplay between history and biology? It would immediately help to reduce the simplicity of Lamberts remark that quote, societies have always been dominated by males. A second intellectual task that the conjunction of these two papers offers us is this Kelly, Go doll. Again. Like most of us hesitates to grant that biology may have a pervasive if limited causal influence on behavior. She talks about nature in only two ways. One, to refute it as a determining force to argue against, to use Lambert's happy phrase, the propaganda of naturalism. B Kelly Gaal talks about nature to admit that sex as a physical fact is the only common denominator that men as a set share and that women as a set share.

Speaker 3 (00:41:48):
But what if one were to use Lambert speculations about the influence of biology? That is the assumption that physical sex differences would not have come into being if they were not adapted for the species in question. What if one to incorporate that idea of the efficiency of evolution into Kelly Goodall's sense of social process? Would it really do irreparable damage to her brilliant model? There's another category absent in the papers about a culture perhaps is by literary training, but except for one fleeting reference to sexist art historians and to a non-sexist art historians. Where was mythology, ritual art and religion? Perhaps 19th century England exemplifies Kelly Gaal society in which the domestic and public spheres have been separated out and in which the patriarchy is at home in the home. But what does it mean that that same period in the 1850s produced a domestic epic?

Speaker 3 (00:42:56):
A better poem than give people give it credit for being by Coventry Patmore called angel in the house, an angel in the house. The speaker tells us that the whole world longs for just one thing and believe it or not, ladies and gentle persons, what we're waiting for is quote, a worthy hymn in women's praise. According to the terms of that domestic epic angel in the house, a good wife is quote, mistress, wife and muse and married love between male and female scans if dimly, God's reflexive self love. Now, as I speak, my intellectual conscience is twitching and prickling because I know that that domestic epic angel in the house is replete with inequalities for the wife is either wonderfully superior or wonderfully submissive. Moreover, I also believe that the poem is a literary text which has its own conventions and obeys its own laws.

Speaker 3 (00:43:58):
One simply cannot be vulgar and say that the relationship between historical process and imaginative artifact is that of simple cause and effect. But I miss, I miss an understanding of the interplay among biology, society and culture. And I think if we were to examine culture among our most fascinating jobs would be the mapping of constellations of sexual imagery. If we were to examine culture, we find these wonderful constellations of sexual symbolism and one paradox that we have to investigate is the way in which the symbolism of masculine and feminine is so often ripped away from a context of male and female. There are, for example, occasions in which males may be feminine. There are religious texts and religious novels in which God is at once donative and masculine, and the believing human male in the presence of God is at once receptive and feminine. It seems in certain cultural texts that is rero for poetic descriptions of certain charged experiences. We seem to separate nature from those psychological traits that we have otherwise used language to assign for it. I also can suggest in certain literary texts we may find structures of feeling. I take that phrase from the great English critic, Raymond Williams, but we may find in certain literary texts structures of feeling that will illuminate for us again in their own aesthetic terms, but will illuminate for us the secret labyrinth of feeling that lie behind the social processes and the hormonal events that Lambert and Kelly g Doll have outlined.

Speaker 3 (00:45:47):
Both papers share another trait besides this missing category. More implicitly than explicitly, they endorse the possibility and the value of human freedom. Indeed, Kelly Goodall uses liberation or repression of women's potential as her criteria for progress in or retardation of women's status. Lambert is more willing to see nature as a source of control, but thinking nature's control as both minimal and manageable, she urges us to put aside our childish fears. Moreover, Lambert's papers assumes that we have both individually and collectively a good deal of freedom. In her very first paragraph, she reminds us that society has the power to reinforce or to minimize a particular biological disparity where it exists. Both women also pay again, more implicitly than explicitly tribute to the beneficial powers of consciousness. The more we know they assume, the more able we will be to exercise our freedom. Generously and judiciously grounding the fit exercise of freedom in consciousness, they are altering one interpretation of the Garden of Eden. To gather as much of the fruit of knowledge as possible enhances our capacity for freedom. It enhances the pride of gathering. The fruit of knowledge does not endanger our powers of freedom.

Speaker 3 (00:47:25):
Result behind each paper is an optimistic vision and like all optimistic visions in these precarious ti, in these problematic times, it is precarious. But nevertheless, both Lambert and Kelly Gaal encourag us to be defiant of fatality. We are not. They are just, we are not prisoners either of the force of history or of the intricacies of the flesh. We are thoughtful social organisms who may have inherited the past, but whom we create the future. This connection between consciousness and a fit exercise of freedom may offer us the nucleus of a definition of feminist scholarship that is scholarship will help us to move in the world in ways that will help provide value for women in that world. What that value might be remains if noble, vague, a promise of humanity achieved rather than ascribed status, useful work and a nice balance of autonomy and the just demands of a group, the mobility of such that it overrides, at least for me, the vagueness. Kelly Gaal.

Speaker 3 (00:48:44):
Kelly Gaal is more precise than I implied. She writes, the women's history quote, intends to restore women to history and to restore our history to women. Her pronoun hour is instructive. She assumes that women treated in some ways as a group may now self-consciously behave as a group. A pick note, Joan a pick note in her comments about se Debo war. A clear distinction might be made between de Bo our sense of personal subjectivity and of collectivity between the psychology of the grammar of I and the psychology of the grammar of we. But a feminist scholar will see in ways that we have yet to fully grasp that the knowledge that we assume to be liberating will be thoroughly diffused among women. There has always been some problem in precisely distinguishing scholarship about women from feminist scholarship. As such, the definition of feminist scholarship, I think implicit in these two papers is less one of origin and of genesis than one of usage.

Speaker 3 (00:49:53):
The definition of seven a scholarship is what do we do with it after we have it? The feminist scholar does not simply concentrate on women or on a theory that incorporates women into large and magnificent intellectual constructs. The feminist scholar works to infiltrate her discoveries into the world of women. Of course, she or sometimes he worries about the possible isolation of feminist scholarship. For God knows, we do not wish this planet of thought now being created to remain in orbit in the colder, in more remote reaches of intellectual space. Yet another and perhaps greater and more severe and more moral anxiety is this, that our planet will orbit in the colder and remote reaches of political space to be seen only by those who have had either the privilege or the luck or the dog at will to master the optical devices of modern scholarship. Thank you both.

Speaker 2 (00:51:18):
Catherine, you may be a loud mouth, but, uh, as a scholar and feminist, I want to say you're a very talented and very lovable loud man. Um,

Speaker 5 (00:51:37):
You're

Speaker 6 (00:51:38):
Only as good

Speaker 3 (00:51:38):
A commentator as you've got material to work with.

Speaker 2 (00:51:48):
I think we have a few minutes for questions and comments and discussion perhaps even among the panelists, uh, and the commentator. Uh, so let me invite any comments or questions that you may have in the audience.

Speaker 7 (00:52:05):
Somebody Yeah, this was,

Speaker 8 (00:52:13):
Uh, you, you made a quick remark. I might not have heard correctly that differences between the sexes, uh, between one sex tend to be more radical than differences between male.

Speaker 6 (00:52:28):
This is the kind of time when I wish I had a blackboard. You know, you can have two sort of gian looking distributions, right? And, and the spread of each of them is greater than the distance between the two peaks. That's the point I was trying to get across, which is hard without a slide. Obviously that is not true for the genitalia, but that may be the only thing.

Speaker 2 (00:52:53):
Yes.

Speaker 9 (00:52:54):
Um, I, my, uh, question is addressed to Suzanne, but, uh, could you gimme, uh, some explanation on the embryo development of first of the transsexual? I went to a seminar on human sexuality and uh, there there was some, uh, talk about, uh, development, the embryo development of the, that there was some problem in the quality of Amgen in this, uh, child who later becomes a male but does not, um, have sufficient quantities

Speaker 6 (00:53:26):
To be a male bully. Well, I I guess I have to ask you, do you mean transsexual or homosexual? Because there are awful lot more homosexuals than there are transsexual. Well,

Speaker 9 (00:53:34):
It was on, uh, it was, uh, toward transsexual. I

Speaker 6 (00:53:37):
Wanted to know more about the transsexual. Okay. Well, I believe it's true that even for the people of whom there's more sample now applying to transsexual surgery clinics, even those people, which is certainly a very highly selected sample, don't demonstrate a consistent hormonal characterization as an adult. Um, and it certainly has not been consistently demonstrated for homosexuals, which is a much larger category of ish sex. Um, despite the fact people keep looking for it and, and, um, I'm not sure that I think it matters, but at any rate, um, people have looked for it. Some people find it, some people don't. In my opinion, the answer is not clear. Um, but the business that you're referring to, the relationship to the embryonic thing is just something we don't know because you can't sort of look back and say something was wrong in utero. Um, it has been looked into that is, for instance of, of transsexual patients.

Speaker 6 (00:54:34):
How many mothers took progess during pregnancy, these kinds of things and then just isn't enough. Um, it isn't consistent enough. Finding, um, money has suggested this, that, that this may be what he calls disturbances of psychosexual identity may be due to physiological factors in utero, but it remains to be demonstrated what those were. Um, and I guess one reason I feel ambivalent about these theories is because it's just another way of saying it's a disease and I'm not sure that's what we want to say. Okay. I mean, like so many things it might be better to look at the social, at least at the same time as someone's looking at the child.

Speaker 2 (00:55:12):
In fact, I found myself talking to an endocrinologist yesterday who quoted a study in which all of the transsexuals can be said to have had in common no homosexual past. Uh, so I think that's an interesting Yes,

Speaker 9 (00:55:29):
In connection. This is for Lamber, um, in connection with the spatial test and it's going a little beyond your particular area. I wonder if there are any studies which correlate two things. One, how much is this type of test used an employment and guidance situation to how much, and I think you've touched on this a little, does in fact success in this test show isn't related to any particular success in any particular

Speaker 6 (00:56:01):
Field. That wasn't the part I had to leave out. Um, yeah, there, there does appear to be some correlation, but the larger scale source of data on these kinds of things is always the armed forces is testing burden because I have tested more people than anybody else. And the watch repairing and drafts being a drafts person, being a drafts person do show a correlation above 0.4. I think for that. These particular tests, there's a whole nother issue, which I didn't get into, which is the relationship with spacial perception to field independence, um, which was long, another kind of sex difference, um, which was not previously seemed to have anything to do with spacial perception, but now it's thought through. Um, and this has to toity with dependence on context. I'll talk to you about it after it. Um, but the answer is no, it's not clear that it, it's the major determinant certainly in engineering and architecture. Do you happen to know though, whether the test

Speaker 10 (00:56:53):
More,

Speaker 6 (00:56:55):
Well there's a section on the regular, you know, things like the Wesley, the standard IQ test has a section of this, but it's important to remember that while women ex excel and verbal, they don't do so well on this. And all these tests were, I don't know how many of you're aware of this Correct. Constructed to minimize sex differentials. In other words, that they didn't just make up a bunch of questions, they made up a bunch of questions and tested them on both sexes and then eliminated those but couldn't be balanced out so that both sexes did. I mean, the test would be useless if the means score for males who are hired and that for female, I believe there is still one in use if that's true for, but the big, the waste in those things are all corrected that way. And it's a verbal s spatial dichotomy correction that is males generally do better on, on s spatial and women on verbal. Yes.

Speaker 10 (00:57:39):
What do we know so far about, uh, the part that ps play in sexual

Speaker 6 (00:57:45):
Attack? I just got to <laugh>. Do you, do you do

Speaker 10 (00:57:48):
Your conjecture that they will be subject, I mean if they're isolated and so on, I mean I I understand that they have the, uh, will they be subject to the same feedback mechanism that other hormonal aspects will apparently Are I proceed?

Speaker 6 (00:58:03):
Well? Oh, I'm really so sorry I had to cut that cuz I just, I knew somebody would ask about it. Michael's demonstration was in science in January of a human phmo. Um, I guess a lot of feminists were upset about that cause they thought it sort of was catering to the vaginal deodorant spray industry. Well, I don't see it that way at all. Um, but then I have a biological perspective, and it's certainly true of our animal relatives that both males and females have pones and does everybody know what a PMO is? No. Okay. A fair amount is a substance which usually via smell is a means of communication among individuals of the same species. Okay. Typically, a pone brings about a physiological effect in the receptor individual Right. Given off by one and tell the other one something. And, uh, sexual ones are very common among mammals and both males and females have them.

Speaker 6 (00:58:47):
And the fact that this was demonstrated in a female, I think is more, um, a choice according to experimental restrictions. That is, it's a lot easier to look for one in a female because you expect, you got all these chemicals being produced by your body, thousands of them. Which one are you gonna look at? Um, well, you, you'd like one that varied over time. I mean, that would help you to know that's what it was. And, and that's precisely the approach that was used, uh, in this this study. Would you spell please? P h e r o m o n E? Yes.

Speaker 11 (00:59:21):
Um, well, I'd like to ask either one of you, since, um, this may be the first time history anyway in my history, that the comment, the commentator, the Stinson has, um, criticized both of your papers in a sense, albeit, you know, very gracefully right in front of you while, you know, while the process going on. And I was wondering how you felt, cause I was a little disturbed too, um, that both of you gave a historical or a, you know, a scientific viewpoint of just where you were without, um, without really commenting on the interplay or the possibility going on with, from your own observation. I wonder

Speaker 12 (00:59:58):
If I can answer like your, the second part of what you said, Ansys, the first <laugh> that is, um, my response to what Kate said is wildly enthusiastic and what was going through my head was, Wow, what kind of a synthesis we can look forward to when, uh, a lot of work has come in from feminist biology and related fields and feminist work in social sciences and the work being done in, uh, literature and art history. You know, what a combination, uh, of, of, um, knowledge that we will, we will have here. And indeed it's already happening in the sense that I've done more reading and anthropology, psychology, biology, art history and, and whatnot over the last three, four years than I have done over my entire, uh, scholarly career that has ever since college. You know, there's been that, that tremendous narrowing and now it's all opened up and I don't think any of the work in any, any of the feminist work, in any of the, uh, fields is carried out in that old kind of isolation.

Speaker 12 (01:01:11):
One of the most rich things about it is precisely that I can, I can see what's important in Helen's work that's applicable to mine and, and vice versa. And therefore, um, Kate's, I mean, I don't know why you're upset by, by what you what, by what you consider to be criticism there because it's really a bringing together and appointing out what needs doing. And no one mind. You see, one of the beautiful things about feminist scholarship is its collective nature. And that's a very true, it's hard for me to say what in my own work is, is is mine in any sense any longer. Uh, I've drawn from so much. And that's exactly what makes it not simply rich content wise, but fun to do. And, uh, also it's a very genuine character, a feminist scholarship that we are drawing upon each other in a remarkable way. I mean, you know, that most of all work circulates in manuscript, right? We don't, we can't even wait to publish things. We, we pass it all on so that you need people to say, Well, this part we haven't considered that area you haven't gone into. And that's how it, that's how it all gets done. And that's my response. Amen.

Speaker 5 (01:02:31):
Yes.

Speaker 12 (01:02:32):
The back, I

Speaker 13 (01:02:33):
Have a question and it's from your, I heard you saying that, um, our view of history was from a one sided perspective, and I was wondering how that affected us as women, um, as we come into a sense of power.

Speaker 12 (01:02:50):
Well, um, how it has affected us, I think, is that it has held us back from coming into a sense of power. That is when you, when you see that all the achievements in the development of humanity are male achievements, and you identify with those achievements as a human being, but not as a woman, you see, because they're not women's achievements. It's almost like saying what I read in letter is, uh, fear of women The other day, um, he was talking about psychoanalytic theory and he said, Well, isn't it at these kind of surprising that's in well over half our patients are women and a lot of our practitioners are women That psychoanalytic theory addresses itself only to male problems. But then he who is very sensitive to the whole issue, wrote a whole book on fear of women goes on to say, Well that's really because you see what is feminine is perpetually the same, it is natural.

Speaker 12 (01:03:58):
And therefore when a woman goes through, uh, psychological transformations, it asks when she goes through a cultural development, it is really the male in her that is being developed. Now, that is the, that kind of impression of ourselves is what I would call patriarchal history. Why patriarchal history has reinforced that is, on the one hand, it has been written by people who did not have our perspective, who thought our perspective, honestly believe our perspective is unimportant to history, to culture, to civilization. But secondly, the impact upon us is a reinforcing impact. That is, we don't exist historically. We have no historical existence, we have no cultural life, and therefore why should we aspire to such? And that's why once, that's why feminist scholarship has emerged in history, just you, you just can't buy it any longer. You see, and that's why I trace women's history, the, the, the renaissance of women's history to feminism where it's not for feminist consciousness. We just wouldn't see through this the way we we see through it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
Yes. At the end of,

Speaker 11 (01:05:22):
I, I am a scholar outside of the academic world and I, uh, I think partly consciously remained outside because I felt that there are certain restrictions in going into academia in terms of the kind of scholarship that is able to be carried on there. In terms of the synthesizing thing that I'm really interested in and completely absorbed by, I'm just wondering maybe if some of you could reflect on whether that is changing, um, in the academic setting, whether, uh, or what kinds of barriers there are to really bringing about this kind of, uh, interdisciplinary synthesis of, uh, knowledge.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
Okay. Oh heavens, I see two tendencies at work

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
As we all, we have to look at the general patterns of higher education at this moment. And as we know, the general higher education is in a period of contraction. What is it? 1980, when the number of students of college days is about to go down, this means a contraction in faculties. This means unless there's a revolution and an increasing competitiveness in terms of academic tenure, slot means everybody's scared to death. It means everybody's doing the conventional thing, which is publishing your specialty, publishing your specialty, publishing your specialty. The countervailing tendency, and I see that even in some establishment places, is towards interdisciplinary work. I do see a countervailing tendency towards interdisciplinary work, trying to put the categories together. I think however, we, many of us who believe very strongly in interdisciplinary work do feel you have to have a grounding in one discipline, that interdisciplinary work. I think my excursions into anthropology are more soundly based if I tend to have my literary criticism from under control. But I think there are two tendencies. My hunch is the first and unhappy tend I described is the more dominant one. But the other one is there. I don't know. Do you want comment?

Speaker 12 (01:07:29):
I, I would like to say that that's a really good point that you've brought up because it's, it's a political one and, um, it's what I meant at the end of my little dialogue, you know, that women's history is not a purely academic matter, uh, with the economic, uh, contraction. It's women who are losing out. Um, the pressure on them is much stronger. Uh, and consequently, the whole, uh, development of women's history, which is so promising over the last couple of years, is very threatened right now who's going to be teaching it? A woman gets a, a good position as a historian if she manages to come in. There's always hostility toward the, toward the women's history and the interdisciplinary development. She will, as Kate said, under these, uh, situations, be very, very pressured to follow a more traditional line. Once again.

Speaker 10 (01:08:26):
Um, maybe to go back to feminism completely at this moment, uh, we, we brought up the year 2000, and we're all working toward a goal, ideally with the way things have been going in the last 10 years. It's been about 10 years that all of this has beyond the permit. Have any of you have fantasized where we're going, hopefully along the way and what we'd like to achieve really, ideally, and also realistically maybe your next conference?

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
I think so speaking of comprehensive questions, the, uh, maybe that question should just hover over the reminder of the discussion. Yes.

Speaker 14 (01:09:16):
I wanted to ask, uh, John dollar question, um, and that is, you, uh, said early in your paper, um, referring to Greece, the period of the Renaissance and the French Revolution, that although those have, uh, been looked upon usually as very liberatory models, um, that under those, uh, period, in those periods, women were particularly subjected to, uh, oppression. Have you speculated at all as to why that contradiction exists?

Speaker 12 (01:09:48):
Yes. Um, to answer you just very rapidly and very briefly, um, it does have to do with the kind of economic developments that take place in all, uh, three periods. That is the tremendous releasing of, um, energies by way of reorganization of work, uh, namely capitalistic, moving toward a capitalistic work and the consequent developments in the organization of the state and, uh, oi society. And in all those instances, they are this dual pattern clearly, uh, emerges. If I can give one very brief example, uh, if you look at, uh, Renaissance period, early modern European period, the very advent of capitalism in our society comes out of that cooperative work, which brings people, uh, together where labor is now socially organized. That is, it's a little bit like what I said before about feminist scholarship. All of us doing, you know, doing it together, uh, in, uh, increases the scope of what we do enormously.

Speaker 12 (01:10:59):
And there is, there are tremendous advances. The whole scale of work, uh, is, is transformed. Think of the large scale projects that are made possible, but it's precisely that development that led to the separation in our society of the socially organized fear of production and the domestic sphere. A separate from with, uh, although women were working in that one nonetheless, the idea that women are primarily confined to this one and, and men to the other. And that kind of separation, which in turn leads to, uh, a loss of, of, uh, many ways in which women's power is, is restricted, where it, she's no longer seen as a socially productive individual. And the same thing is true of grief. Yes. Uh, with, with comparable, I mean with differences, you know, but that kind of a pattern. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> but not happy class.

Speaker 9 (01:11:52):
Yes. Now I would, I would just like, uh, there I think where Catherine's, uh, comment on the difference, uh, between the outlook of cultural, the outlook of economics and history comes into play. Cause though it is true that in the Greek world, uh, of this period that the, uh, the average middle class woman, uh, is more or less restricted to the role in the household and as the carrier and the legitimate he, uh, and theurer of her husband, that it is the legitimate, he, this is a big problem. This is, this is the basic problem. Uh, this is also the period in which, uh, with the development of, uh, critical examination of the nature of human nature, that we also begin to get the first documents questioning the role of women, the oppression of women. I'm thinking of Platos Republic. I am thinking of the Aris Hispanic plays.

Speaker 9 (01:12:52):
I'm thinking of the, uh, my sister and Poria suicide. I'm also seeing the ties, uh, in which woman is seen as the oppress class in which there is a result of women, uh, in which is a great deal of speculation and also their exposure because of their geographical location and, uh, seafaring so on their exposure to other cultures, uh, especially in the East, and seeing different ways of doing things. So that, I think that on the one hand, yes, there's no difference in the historical condition, but there, the debate begins there and the question begins there. And it seems to me that, that that's difficult to ignore unless you are only centered on what actually happens rather than what is

Speaker 12 (01:13:34):
Deemed Yeah. On the, on the country. I wouldn't ignore it that as I got into it, by means of it. What's really very interesting is that, uh, early renaissance texts on the situation of women are exact copies of the Greek, uh, one I'm thinking about is xenon, uh, work on domestic economy, and Albert's work on the family where Alberti just literally took from Zeon, the characterization of the Athenian citizen wife locked up in the GY came and that division between, uh, public and domestic. And he just took it and put it in 15th century Florentine terms. It's a really, uh, I mean, there's a renaissance in a way that nobody ever figured before.

Speaker 9 (01:14:15):
Uh,

Speaker 12 (01:14:15):
Renaissance with that status of, of, uh, the, uh, middle class, if we can call it that, in, in Greece middle class life.

Speaker 9 (01:14:24):
Yes. You had your hand. Just to follow that up, why did you then compare the position of women today to the, um, woman, the position of your other analogy timers?

Speaker 12 (01:14:38):
Yes. Um,

Speaker 12 (01:14:42):
Well, uh, again, I came to that by way of the cultural work, the literary work, particularly on sexuality. And it struck me that futile noble women, regardless of actual practice, the official ideology, uh, of, of courtly love literature, uh, not only tolerates, but advocates par, uh, uh, non-marital adultist love relations. Now, there's a lot of debate about, well, how sexual are they? And so forth. And I think in any case, we can see they are erotic relations outside marriage, in which the relationship of the man and the woman is a freely chosen relationship. They enter into it out of love, you know, out of the, the, uh, quarter gente. And, uh, it's a mutual, reciprocal relationship. Um, that kind of sexual activity becomes, uh, restricted as soon as you move into the renaissance situation where domestic and and public pull apart. Now, what's the case in feudal society?

Speaker 12 (01:15:47):
Well, what is the case is that, um, the political and the familial are very much overlapping because you don't have a state, you don't have a public realm, but rather society is organized by families. It's a futile situation, which means exactly that. And because of that family rule of the society, women of those families, that is women of that class, uh, exercise power, and have authority that they lose. As soon as the modern developments begin in the 20th century, what's happening is that, as you know, the whole, um, set of functions, which we call housework, that is all of that work of rearing children, uh, of, uh, producing for home consumption. All of that is moving out of the household as itself becoming socially organized, which is the basis for contemporary feminist movement. So, once again, the division of spheres is being, is being minimized. Uh, and the con, one of the consequences of this is the liberation movement, which again, is seeking a parody, an equa, uh, an equality. So that's why I, I brought in those two as more comparable to each other than the renaissance is to the futile, which is immediately before it, or then our situation is to the 19th, which is immediately preceding hours.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
It seems to be time for us to reconvene in the Hewitt dining room for lunch. I wanna express warm thanks to all our speakers for giving us

Speaker 4 (01:17:25):
Stimulating that goes with.