Untitled - Skilliter

Feminist criticism 109
To begin, we need alternatives to the current way we think about gender because
the current way we think about gender includes so many inaccuracies. Although
research findings about gender, just like research findings in every field, often
can be complex and contradictory, they can nevertheless alert us to the ways in
which we’ve taken as facts too many widely held but unsubstantiated opinions
and myths about gender. Let me cite just two striking examples, starting with a
belief that I think most of us share about the biological operations of testosterone,
or the “male hormone.”
We’ve often said or heard it said about a male exhibiting overly or inappropriately
aggressive behavior, “Oh, he just has too much testosterone.” That is,
aggressive behavior in males is generally considered an instinct rather than
a product of such social factors as upbringing, psychological dynamics in the
home, exposure to a dangerous environment outside the home, and the like.
And once a behavior is considered instinctual and linked to gender, it is difficult
for many of us to see it in any other light. Robert M. Sapolsky points out, however,
that studies of testosterone levels in males have been limited to showing
merely that increased testosterone levels accompany increased aggression. That
is, there is no research indicating that increased testosterone levels cause aggression;
it is merely assumed that they do so. Sapolsky’s research indicates that,
in fact, testosterone does not elevate aggression. Rather, “aggression elevates
testosterone secretion” (16). Sapolsky observes that “[s]ome testosterone” is necessary
for “normal aggressive behavior” (17), but the range of what is necessary
is very wide. “[A]nywhere from roughly 20 percent of normal to twice normal”
(17) produces roughly the same amount of normal aggressive behavior in males.
So even if we know the testosterone level for each individual in a given group of
males, we will not be able to predict their aggression because the range of what
is considered a normal amount of testosterone is so wide. Excessive amounts
of testosterone, Sapolsky notes, can “exaggerat[e] the aggression that’s already
there” (17, Sapolsky’s italics), but it doesn’t cause aggression. In other words,
testosterone permits aggression to occur only if that aggression is elicited by “the
social factors and environment in which [aggression] occurs” (Sapolsky 19).
Just as unsubstantiated opinion has been widely accepted as fact concerning the
role of testosterone in male aggression—a role that is also associated, for many
of us, with the male “instinct” to be the breadwinner and to protect the home—
so has unsubstantiated opinion been widely accepted as fact concerning the
role of the maternal instinct in females. Again, because caregiving, especially
caregiving to infants and young children, has been labeled a female instinct, it is
difficult for many of us to consider it in any other light. As Linda Brannon notes,
however, “research on . . . emotion has revealed that there may be few gender
differences in the inner experience of emotion. Gender differences appear in
how and when emotion is displayed” (213), she observes, rather than in how