Friend? Or Just Another Theorist?

So far, reading Anne Fausto-Sterling's Sexing the Body is like meeting a new friend. She has tied me in with her self identifications as a scientist, a teacher, and simply her épisteme. Also the story of Maria Patiño is always a tragic reminder of the real world consequences that science and politics can inflict.

The style of writing and tone of this work is academic (incredibly notated, 138 by the end of chapter one!) yet incredibly smooth sailing for the reader with everyday language outside of academia. It's comfortable yet it has a serious, mature tone. Hell, it's even got comic strips and illustrations.

Though she is a friend of mine now, this is a controversial topic and I was left used, confused, and abused by Ogaddam. (If I would of read A Billion Wicked Thoughts two years ago, I would of ate every last word out of it as the truth. It held my hand a few times but twisted my arm around and fed me foreign candy that tasted bittersweet.) Also, my current experience with GWSS has filled me with mixed feelings. [I don't think a lot of the kids in my class believe in reality] So feminists in the past haven't been quite my forté.

Does Anne Fausto-Sterling's statement of her political position get her closer to the "truth"? I would say sort of. It gets us there faster I think but Ogaddam's account is just as "real". People really think and believe Ogaddam's claims. So it's true to some people. There is a very real, strong belief in science and it's powers esp. to decrypt the body. I love Sterling's explanation of how the body is simply just too complex for science to definitively determine sex. Not that science is inherently wrong or evil or something, which I feel like a lot of feminists do.