We Don’t Come Out of the Womb Either Feminine or Masculine
Yet many people still believe this to be true
I’ve recently written an article, Do Men Actually Like Women, or Just the Performance of Femininity?, in which I talk about gender performativity and how it’s not an innate part of who we are and something that we learn through social conditioning instead. And that generated a lot of attention and made a few people (mostly men) angry.
Well, most of my articles make some people angry, to be honest, so there’s nothing special about that.
But in this case, a lot of the comments mentioned a similar thing, namely that I ignored the biological aspect behind the social norms and expectations for women and men. To quote one of the commentators: Why do people think that social norms precede reality rather than serve it?
Knowingly or not, people who tried to argue that biology plays a significant role in how gender roles are constructed refer to theories that stem from biological determinism. These were indeed used for a long time to justify human nature and patriarchal structures within our society — even though they completely disregard the role of the social and cultural environment in influencing behaviors and characteristics.
In order to understand why these theories still have such a stronghold on our society and whether they provide any plausible scientific evidence for the claim that femininity and masculinity are rooted in biology, we need to go back in history and deeper down the rabbit-hole of gender norms.
Let’s go then, shall we?
The sexist and racist origins of biological determinism
What has come to be called ‘biological determinism’ is a general name for theories which hold that the roots of all human social behavior and personality lie in the biology of individuals and groups and thus should determine fundamental aspects of social life.
These theories shared some common methodological roots and usually served similar functions in the broad social context of their times. They were used to justify the patriarchal systems of power that considered women inferior to men and slavery and racial hierarchies that put white men at the top of societal order.
And not surprisingly, biological determinism was also used to justify fascist policies (in the form of eugenics).
So when did it begin, and how?
The origins of biological determinism can be traced back to Aristotle, who in Politics remarked that distinctions between species are marked at birth and ‘determines who are intended to rule and who are intended to be ruled.’
But it wasn’t until the Enlightenment period when scientists went full speed ahead, trying to justify white men’s superiority with various ‘scientific’ methods. And it wasn’t a coincidence that during that very same era, the role of women in society and gender equality became a topic of discussion among influential thinkers and philosophers such as Adam Smith, John Locke, or Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
While not all intellectuals were on the same page when it came to gender roles, many of them labeled women as weak, hysterical, and lacking the intellectual capacities men held. As a result, women’s status as inferior to men during this period became institutionalized. The only problem was, the methods used to support this claim were neither scientific nor unbiased.
But for a while, this is what people believed in. And it wasn’t until the second half of the twentieth century that scientists started to seriously question these assumptions.
The most influential work criticizing the scientific methods behind biological determinism is The Mismeasure of Man, a 1981 book written by a biologist Stephen Jay Gould. One of the main arguments Gould advances is that all theories of biological determinism, past and present, have been based on bad biology and the flawed scientific method. He then argues that scientists tried to cast human social behavior in a primarily biological light using biased measurements, subconscious manipulation, or even falsification of data just to justify their sexist and racist prejudices.
And sadly, some notions stemming from biological determinism are still used today.
Why is biological determinism still present today?
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that science has been used historically — and continues to be used — to justify public policies and social attitudes which are discriminatory and oppressive. And the history of biological determinism is a prime example of how science can be a deeply political practice.
But today, few social scientists fully believe in the theories of biological determinism, as they have been largely discredited. And most of them accept the idea that social rather than biological or genetic forces drive human choices and human behavior instead.
Now, not everyone got the memo that just because something has existed for centuries, it doesn’t automatically means it’s true. And those that are particularly set on justifying their pre-determined practices and ideas (which so often happens in conservative social rhetoric) will surely find a study or two to cherry-pick from.
After all, upholding patriarchal, religious, and capitalist systems of power is closely linked with those traditional gender roles men and women ought to have in society. If you question these roles, you’re, by extension, questioning those very same systems. But that’s a whole other discussion, so let’s save it for another article.
And some people might simply be afraid of the idea that what we consider as feminine or masculine is a result of social conditioning rather than biology because it goes against what they were taught and believe in. As with many other new ideas, it takes some time for them to be widely accepted within society. And even when they are widely accepted, there will always be people who are skeptical about them (ahem, flat earthers).
But to blatantly assume that many complex adult traits are determined at birth, and that’s it, is literally ‘so last century.’
What drives the difference in behavior between men and women?
During the second wave of feminism, to dismantle the theory of biological determinism, feminist scholars such as Gayle Rubin and Simone de Beauvoir found it helpful to distinguish sex and gender. Sex came to be identified as the biological difference, whereas gender was addressed as a social construct.
One is not born a woman, one becomes one. Social discrimination produces in women moral and intellectual effects so profound that they appear to be caused by nature. — Simon de Beauvoir
This distinction enabled feminists to argue that differences between men and women are socially constructed and could be changed. And it is still primarily used today in the new and growing field of gender studies.
Now, there is no denying that anatomical differences between men and women exist — in terms of sex organs, facial hair, bone mass, body fat, etc. But more and more studies show that one’s sex has little or no bearing on who we are as people. It doesn’t largely influence our personality, behavior, or interests — society does.
And there actually aren’t as many sex differences between men and women as we used to think, and most importantly — the latest research finds that those differences do not extend to our brains.
In one of the most extensive and most recent neuroscience studies to date, neuroscientist Lise Eliot synthesized three decades of research to find that there are hardly any differences between male and female brains.
Men and women’s brains do differ slightly, but the key finding is that these distinctions are due to brain size, not sex or gender. Sex differences in the brain are tiny and inconsistent, once individuals’ head size is accounted for. — Dr. Lise Elliot
What about genetics, then, you might ask?
The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest philosophical issues within psychology. It assumes that variation in a trait is due to genetic differences or environmental differences.
Modern psychologists, like Cordelia Fine in her revolutionary book Gender Delusions, even argue that genes only lead to traits through interaction with the environment. In Part II of her book, Fine provides an excellent up-to-date review of the field of neuroscience, which counteracts claims such as boys and girls need separate pedagogies because they are hard-wired differently.
And most other modern scientific research concludes that individual physical and behavioral characteristics arise primarily from our socialization process (i.e., nurture) via social, cultural, and personal environments, and less so from our genetic qualities (i.e., nature).
We don’t come out of the women either feminine or masculine. We learn about gender from the beliefs, judgments, behavior, and claims of family, friends, celebrities, media, art, and science.
So to say that ‘men or women are biologically hard-wired to XYZ’ is scientifically inaccurate. We aren’t biologically hard-wired; we’re socially conditioned instead. And that’s a significant difference because it means that those behaviors which are toxic and sexist can be unlearned.
Oversimplifications only drive the men-women divide further
For a good chunk of human history, everyone worked together to reinforce social and cultural environments that soft-wire the brain’s circuits as male or female so that we have no idea what men and women might become if we were genuinely free from bias.
We built patriarchal and capitalist systems which profited off the unpaid labor of women who raised children and kept home. We passed down traditional gender roles from generation to generation as though it were all in the genes. And we tried to explain this divide between men and women with biological determinism until it was scientifically disproven.
Today we’ve finally arrived at the point where there is less and less need for that oversimplified divide that only drives us further apart. Men and women can be masculine, feminine, a mix of both, or whatever else works for them.
We don’t need to buy into the ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are from Venus’ crap anymore. Instead, we can embrace who we are before society dictated an appropriate role based on our sex.
And honestly, I think that’s incredible.
Humans are much more complex and nuanced beings than we initially thought. And there is beauty to be found in that diversity.
As I wrote in my initial article about gender roles:
No one is born either feminine or masculine. We are all different in our own unique ways, but that has little to do with our gender.
So let’s stop trying to fit people into their assigned boxes.
I find it ironic, though, that it’s often the same people who criticize feminists for creating the divide between men and women and then use biological determinism to justify how different we are. The good, old ‘women are for breeding; men are for doing hard stuff.’
We’re not the ones creating divides. Because we really aren’t that different.
When I criticize toxic masculinity, I’m not criticizing every single man that has ever existed. I’m criticizing what society has deemed as acceptable behavior for men. When I criticize rape culture, I’m not implying that every man alive is biologically hard-wired to be an uncontrollable animal. I’m criticizing how society and the media objectify and sexualize women and very young girls, which exacerbates gender-based violence.
The common denominator in all of this is societal norms, not men. Because men can be thoughtful, empathetic, warm, and caring beings, too, they’ve just been told they can’t because it’s our ‘job.’ It really isn’t, though.
Final thoughts
I have been questioning gender roles and gender performativity for quite some time. As someone raised in a very religious and largely conservative environment, I never understood why I have to behave or present in a certain way just because I was a woman.
It seemed unfair to me.
It still does.
But through researching the work of those wiser than me and writing about it, I’m trying to put all the pieces together and start a conversation around gender roles and what we today consider as ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine behaviors.
Because I believe it’s an important one.
We haven’t entirely left behind all the clichés like ‘men think, and women feel’ that further contribute to existing gender inequalities. Young girls and boys still need to play gender detectives in understanding what they can or can’t do. And hopefully, one they don’t have to do.
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