Which Feminist/Womanist thinkers talk about biology?

[IdaBWells]

OK with all the trans debate, at the heart of it, clearly, is the undeniable objective biological differences between women and men.

The feminist ideas that got widespread exposure in the past were those claiming that everything is socially constructed and playing down biological difference. Roles and stereotype are based around the biological differences between men and women which clearly separate us. As a result of playing down biology we now have some theorists trying to claim it doesn’t exist or is socially constructed.

Biology is surely central to everything in feminist/womanist ideas? Especially motherhood and the way it changes us biologically and the work, commitment and dedication in wanting to protect the next generation. The status of women is always strongly correlated to that of children in any society.

So I would be interested to know of thinkers that acknowledge biology and motherhood with constructive ways forward.

given a mismatch in physical strength plus a whole load of other contingent factors including the choices men made about how to set up and order society).....

I don't think we can argue like that. Nothing is given .....

If men are generally stronger than women that's because that was a successful evolutionary strategy for our foremothers and forefathers ....i.e stronger men were more reproductively successful than weaker men, but also weaker women were more evolutionarily successful than stronger ones

Similarly "men making choices" -- in every generation there would have been men making different kinds of choices, and societies that encouraged men to make particular choices.....we are descended from the ones that had the most surviving offspring through their choices (or the behavioural tendencies and emotional responses =biology that led them to make those choices

stronger men were more reproductively successful than weaker men, but also weaker women were more evolutionarily successful than stronger ones

No, this doesn’t follow. You have to look at the ancestral condition. The derived condition is humans is to be less sexually dimorphic and less physical in general. Why? Likely selection for pro social behaviors given our reliance on our brains to survive.

During human evolution, men have become weaker relative to females, not stronger.

Both sexes are much weaker than eg chimps and males are weaker relative to females.

Candid I see what you're saying, but I think you're in danger of sliding into the evo-psych version of the naturalistic fallacy (as GE Moore called it). First off, evo-psych isn't solid science, it's more akin to scientifically inspired just so stories (Stephen Jay Gould wrote some very good critiques of Evo psych and socio biology).

But second, even if the Evo psych people were right about how what we see around us came to be, that wouldn't establish that it ought to be that way. Usually in moral philosophy, it's taken as a truism that what ought to be must be possible (no point requiring of people something that would be physically impossible to do, eg to pick a silly example "you can only be morally virtuous if you completely abstain from food").. But the converse is not the case - what contingently is the case about society (high prevalence of rape, murder, physical assault, child abuse and neglect) doesn't mean society ought to be that way.

Rape (to use your example) could be evolutionarily selected for (as a way for men maximizing their genetic heritage) and still wouldn't be morally right. (As a matter of fact it's unlikely that selection pressures would act that straightforwardly and unambiguously - as noted upthread humans tend to go in for cooperative child rearing, so it's quite possible that a higher percentage of the smaller initial number of children fathered by a man who goes in for cooperative pair bonding make it to adulthood than the percentage of children fathered by a rapist who leaves single women to fend for themselves in an environment of scarce resources - evolution throws up competing strategies, not one uniquely optimised strategy).

Doesn’t almost everything ever written by feminists centre biological sex?

Otherwise we wouldn’t have the maternity care we have, or any understanding of women’s sexuality. Or women’s health in old age.

If men are generally stronger than women that's because that was a successful evolutionary strategy for our foremothers and forefathers ....i.e stronger men were more reproductively successful than weaker men, but also weaker women were more evolutionarily successful than stronger ones

No, you can't assume that's the direction the pressure is coming from.

It's possible, and I would even say likely, that the reason for women being comparatively weaker is the trade off required by the physical requirements of childbearing. So women need different shaped pelvises or more body fat to birth and feed children, or perhaps at a chemical level for oestrogen to do what it does, it has other effects that are limiting. (I just made that last one up, FTR, that may be total bollocks but you get the idea.)

We can't maximise for everything, it's like trying to find the perfect map projection. There is always a trade-off. In cases where you are talking about nature selecting against some trait that seems desirable, like running fast, I think it's usually that kind of situation, it's really selecting for something else.

that wouldn't establish that it ought to be that way. Usually in moral philosophy, it's taken as a truism that what ought to be must be possible (no point requiring of people something that would be physically impossible to do, eg to pick a silly example "you can only be morally virtuous if you completely abstain from food").. But the converse is not the case - what contingently is the case about society (high prevalence of rape, murder, physical assault, child abuse and neglect) doesn't mean society ought to be that way.

This is true, however I do think it can create really important differences in how we see an outcome working, or what will limit what we do.

If we take our biology as a given, any kind of oughts have to contend with that in one way or another. Is sexual violence, as some think, a socially created phenomena, and if we just root out the rotten parts of our society (ie patriarchy) it will disappear, or close to it? There are thinkers who seem to believe this.

Or does it have deeper biological/psychological roots, in which case it will always have to be something we try and minimise in some way through social means - in this case it may not be that our social mechanisms are the things enabling violence at all, it could be that some of them may be reining it in and it would be much worse otherwise.

Those are different perspectives which will tend to answer very practical questions, political questions, differently - personally I tend to think the former approach is rather utopian, and that's some of the appeal for people.

But second, even if the Evo psych people were right about how what we see around us came to be, that wouldn't establish that it ought to be that way.

Absolutely. Not trying to suggest that we should derive morality from nature. I agree that is not the way to go.

it's unlikely that selection pressures would act that straightforwardly and unambiguously

Agreed, humans are flexible and have different strategies (but not a blank slate) . the choice between cooperative child rearing and sex with strangers (including rape) is not an either or - a man could successfully do both (with different women)........evolution throws up competing strategies, not one uniquely optimised strategy .....yes indeed - but both strategies are part of our nature and might be triggered by different circumstances it is not that the 'good' strategy is more natural.

didn't mean to cross things out! No idea how to do that at all!

Natalie Angier's Woman is an amazing book that celebrates the specific nature of female biology.