I feel the need to start out my post by making the unpopular move of defending Ogaddam's generalizations. I know many people were upset by some of the "facts" Ogaddam present in their attempt to provide a picture of human desire. Near the end of the preface to BWT the authors do provide the following caveat: "We might say that men are taller than women because the average height of the human male is taller than the average height of the human female. But perhaps you yourself are a tall woman or short man, defying the averages and exposing the limitations of such generalizations. Nevertheless, by identifying a real difference in the average heights of men and women, scientists can then look for reasons why." Interpreting the book through this lens, I really didn't pick up on the arrogant tone that seemed to irk so many people. Most generalizations are really a necessary evil. If Ogaddam had been attempting to write a book entirely free of generalizations it would have went something like this: "Every one has different desires. The End." Not only would such a book not be marketable, it would be entirely useless to us! Without looking at statistics or patterns, science can't make any claims. I don't think it would be fair to entirely dismiss Ogaddam's work as rubbish, though it should probably be read with a healthy dose of skepticism.
That being said, I agree with most people that Fausto-Sterling provides a more nuanced and realistic view of human sexuality. Fausto-Sterling does a great job of hitting home her main points about the futility of trying to categorize sexuality and gender into a few categories, and the manner in which science and society shape our views about these topics, and our very identities. Her data seems a lot more reliable than Ogaddam's and her up-front admission on her perspective really helps put her ideas in context. There's no need to worry about any secret agenda she might have, or secret biases. Her ideas challenge me more, because they expose some aspects of gender and sexuality I have never explored before. While Ogaddam throw up many surprising bits of data, their tacit acceptance of the gender dichotomy really makes their work somewhat easy to absorb, whereas Fausto-Sterling's more subtle view of gender really challenged me to think deeply about the issues.
I am really glad that you made this post and that I read it, it really helps me clear up my own thoughts on the how I feel about BWT and prevented me from trying to add to my own post to sound less dickish, which is good because you wrote more eloquent ideas than I wanted to add.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Sexing, I was thoroughly put off by Ogaddam until I read your post. Reading the disclaimer out of the books context here in your blog post gave me a gentle reminder to what Ogaddam is actually trying to do. I think that each book corresponds well with each other. I think Ogaddam is almost a more light-hearted (take that as you will) discussion about gender and desire than Sterling and maybe that's why Ogaddam is seemingly falling second to Sterling.
ReplyDeleteI think that in your blog post you made some very good points and you caused me to look back and reflect and reeevaliatw my stance on theses two pieces. I think that you really shed some light on what Oggadam was actually trying to do and I understood where they are coming from, rather than jumping to conclusions. Kudos!
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