BOOK REVIEW

The Pitfalls of ?Scientific? Feminism

 

Jorm Wallets/3 Scott

Deceptive Distinctions.- Sex, Gender;
and [be Sorrel Order by Fuchs
Epstein. Yale University Press, 1988,
300 pp.

ate last year, the New liar/e Times
ran an article that heralded two
scienti?c ?ndings on
sex differences. The placement of the
article?in the upper left-hand column
of the front page?and its headline?
?Female Sex Hormone Is Tied to Ability
to Perform Tasks??suggested the edi-
tors? glee at having new evidence to
support their views about the natural,
if only periodic, incapacity of women
for decision making. Not only did the
research indicate that biology is destiny
(as far as females are concerned), but
the fact that the scientists conducting
it were women added to its importance.
What interest ether than objectivity,
after all, could two women have in
producing these kinds of results?
The Times report and the study it
recounted are depressing reminders
of the power both of culture to shape
science and of scientific appeals to the
?natural? to legitimize inequality. They
are also indicators of an ongoing con-
test about gender in our society. This
contest has high Stakes, for it is about
whose conceptions of the relations be-
tween the sexes will organize ?reality.?
Yet the very terms of debate most often
obscure the purpose of the contest. For
instead of focusing on what the desir-
able forms ofsocial organization might
be and how they can be obtained, the
contesting sides ?rst argue about the
nature of the preexisting reality to
which societies must correspond. In
the case of gender, this means deciding
whether men and women are equal

 

jam; Wallet/J Scott is a professor of
social science at the Institute for Ad-
vanced Study. Her most recent book is
Gender and the Politics of History
(Columbia University Press, 1988).

90 TIKKUN VOL. 4, N0. 2

(that is, the same) or different.

In the discourse of the sciences
[natural or social), access to ?reality?
is said to result from objective investi-
gation and neutral methodology. The
problem, of course, as most philo-
sophical writing over the last thirty
years on these questions has pointed
out, is that reality exists only through
its signi?cation, only through processes
of conceptualization that confer mean-
ing on things, make sense of them.
There can be, then, no perfect method
of inquiry conducted ourside or apart
from language, hence no guarantee of
the ultimate truth of any investigation.
In this situation, the best reply to re-
search such as that reported in the Times
is not a condemnation of its inaccuracy
but a critique of any notion that objec-
tivity is possible. The discussion needs
to be directed away from what is ?nat-
ural" toward what is socially desirable.

Although, in recent years, feminist
scholars have developed important cri-
tiques of scienti?c discourses of objec-
tivity, much of the work on gender in
the social sciences has not taken those
critiques into account. Instead, research
has been designed to prove either that
sexual difference is fundamental to pet-
sonality and social behavior or that it is
irrelevant, that women are different from
or equal to men. Fuchs Epstein's
book, a general review of the social sci~
enti?c literature on the equality side of
the gender debate, provides an example
of the dif?culties?and, I think, the ul-
timate futility?ofresting arguments for
social change on claims to objectivity.

Epstein surveyed work not only in
her own ?eld of sociology, but also
in the allied fields of and
anthropology. Her goal was to detach
factual truths from ideological debates:
have aimed for objectivity in assess-
ing the research, but I acknowledge a
bias for equality. I believe my bias ?ts
the evidence."

Epstein?s argument is that men and

 

women are fundamentally similar; re-
search that has shown otherwise is
biased, blinded by prejudice, wrong-
minded, confused, flawed, grounded
in ideology or culture [rather than] in
systematic observation.? In contrast,
her own research and that which sup-
ports her position is described as
?objective, gender-free analysis." It is
?correct knowledge? that can confi-
dently displace ?old and inaccurate
conceptions." EpStein offers little de-
tailed analysis of the differences in
research methodologies that lead either
to biased or correct conclusions. In
fact, her reasoning is tautological: we
can tell that research is biased if it con-
?rms gender differences; we know it
is objective if it disputes them. Further,
Epstein does not undetsrand that scien-
tific claims for "objectivity" are them-

selves ideological, that they can work

to legitimize the authority of certain
systems of knowledge by grounding
them in ?nature? or ?fact? when they
are but social consrrucrions. Her main
point is that assumptions about?dichot-
omous distinctions? between the sexes
cannot produce objecrive results. (Ap-
parently the prohibition of dichotomy
applies only to discussions of gender,
because Epstein?s book is built on a
series of other dichotomies: research
that is true or false, that is biased or
objective, that proves equality or dif-
ference, that is old and inaccurate or
new and untrue.)

ccording to Epstein, ?dichotomous

distinctions" make it dif?cult to
see variety within gender categories
and thus similarities across gender
lines. I agree with that point, but I
don't think denying the "reality" of
gender distinctions is an effective way
to advance discussion. Those distinc-
tions are part of the reality we confront,
not only in social science research, but
in institutions and organizations as dis-
parate as schools, churches. families,

 



 

and the New Ebola Tri?es. If we deny
the reality of these distinctions, we
cannot account for them or explain
their operations; we can understand
neither the gendered organization of
society nor the gender identi?cation
of individuals, except as the result of
oppression or bad faith. The way to
deal with these distinctions is not to
disprove them but to figure out how
they work.

Here are some of the questions
Epstein's approach does not let her
ask: Why, if research on sex differ-
ences is so flawed, does it have such a
powerful appeal?\?l?hat about Epstein's
methodology guarantees her arm ob-
jectivity when so many researchers for
so long have been so unaware of their
own biases? How has she managed
to stand outside the cultural and ideo-
logical constraints of her own time?
Or has she? What is it about the
current era and current social scien-
ti?c thinking that has made possible
the transcendence ofhistorical context
and conceptual frameworks, thus per-
mitting the discovery of natural or
objective ?truth? when doing so has
not been possible in earlier periods?

If dichoromous distinctions between
the sexes are wrong, why haven?t people
realized this before? How do the power-
ful mechanisms of social comrol?which
Epstein says allocate and implement
social roles?secure the cooperation
of women and men? 801er by force?
If notions of socialization and 
analytic theories are too universal to
account for gender identities of women
and men [as Epstein suggests), how
then can we explain people?s gendered
self-identification? Where does insisting
that equality is natural and difference
?ideological? get us when we want to
understand the effects of ideas? Where
does social control (a concept Epstein
prefers to socialization) come from? By
what processes does it operate? What
is the nature of the power it exercises?

Epstein?s notion of social control is
something imposed from above in the
forms of law, public policy, and govern-
ment edicts. She doesn?t make clear
exactly what is at stake for those with
power to enforce rules about gender,
except to say that these people have
"inveStments in the social order.? Some-
times Epstein suggests that men have
an interest in subordinating women.
denying them equal access to lucrative
jobs and the like. At other times she

insists that we shouldn?t posit differ-
ences of interest by sex; after all,
she says, male social scientists have
produced unbiased work on equality,
while feminists often argue wrongly
for difference.

Epstein?s analytic confusion about
social control comes, I think, frOm an
approach that undertheorizes all the
important issues: how societies con-
struct gender difference, how contra-
dictions within even seemingly rigid
prescriptions about sexual difference
permit variety and change to occur,
how individuals establish gender iden-
tities. Epstein points out that indi-
viduals don't consistently live out the
rules of gender, but, instead of ask-
ing how and why this discrepancy is
possible, she uses it to prove that
"ideology" is superimposed on "reality,"
that women are not really different
from men.

I am not arguing here that difference
is the key to gender, but rather that we
cannot dismiss difference as ?wrong?
or ?false? and thereby dispel its cultural
influence. Instead of disproving the
claims of those who argue for sexual
difference, we need to relativize and
contextualize their arguments. What
have been the historical changes in
discussions of sexual difference? \?l?hat
have been the debates at any point in
history and who has taken what side?
What have been the effects of the
organization of societies according to
strict sexual divisions of labor? What
is the relationship among normative
rules about gender, social institutions
such as families, and individual gender
identity?

hese questions demand answers

more complex than those pre-
sented in Deceptive Distinctions. For
the most part, the research summarized
by Epstein and her own approach to
the subject oversimplify the issues and
perpetuate the dichotomous terms of
debate. Dichotomies depend on borh
sides of a contrast for their meaning;
to refute them, more is required than
a simple endorsement of one side or
the other. By setting up the discussion
as an argument for either equality or
difference, and by setting it up in
terms of either objectivity or prejudice,
Epstein lea?ves open the possibility that
her critics will simply reverse the pair-
ings, accusing her of subjectively (and
blindly) endorsing equality while their

objective research proves that men
and women are different. The New
lime Times article about the effects of
estrogen on women's performance is
an example of such a reversal.

The only way out of this dilemma is
to refuse the dichotomous trap entirely,
pointing out that nature and objectivity
are not the grounds on which to make
political claims. Instead, if we want to
argue for the equal
access of women to jobs, social re-
sources, and political rights?we must
make the case for equality as a relative
matter of justice and politics, not as an
absolute question either of scien ce. so-
cial science, or nature. Using that case
for equality, furthermore, we need not
establish that all groups are identical.
Rather, equality, in the liberal traditions
of political theory within which we
Operate, means deliberate indifference
to specified differences among indi-
viduals and groups. Equality is a right
women can claim whether or not they
are perceived as or perceive themselves
as different.

At several points in her book, Ep-
stein suggests that the progress of social
science has led to greater equality:
?Social science research has been used
as the basis for briefs written to rein-
terpret and change laws that set differ-
ent standards of justice, education,
and employment for men and women.
And it has resulted on balance in a
greater commitment to equality." She
continues: revolution in thinking,
created by the development of the
social sciences and a worldwide shift
toward an ideology of equality, has
made it possible for the ?rst time in
history to seriously question categorical
thinking about women and men.?

Leaving aside the historical claim,
which I think is wrong (categorical
thinking about gender has been chal-
lenged by feminists in orher centuries,
such as Mary Wollstonecraft or John
Stuart Mill), I believe that her charac-
terization of social science is naive.
Only by ruling out as biased or flawed
all research that doesn't agree with
her point of view (and there continues
to be plenty of research that promotes
racial as well as sexual difference) can
Epstein substantiate her optimism, and
this is indeed what she does.

But such an approach precludes a
more interesting and important kind
of analysis of the politics of research
in the human sciences. In these ?elds,

91

as in society as a whole, contests about
knowledge are contests for power;
labels of good and bad, objective and
prejudiced, are but weapons in the con-
tests. Social science is not then about
?truth,? but about knowledge and its
relationship?critical or subservient?
to power.

BOOK REVIEW

I do not mean to deny that things
happen, that peOple act, and that these
events can be studied systematically.
Nor do I want to suggest that, because
there is no absolute truth," anything
goes. Instead, I want to insist that any
critical practice?and I take feminism
to be such a practice?must turn its

attention to the terms of its own argu-
ment and address the disciplinary con-
ventions within which it operates. For
feminists in the ?eld of social science,
a critique of ?objectivity? would be a
good place to start. Cl

Happiness and the Single Woman

 

Elizabeth Lamhech 

Worm}: Adrift: Independent Wage Eam-
err in Chicago, 1880-1930 by Joanne
Meyerowitz. University of Chicago
Press, 1988, 224 pp.

he ?gure?one might even say

the specter?of the single woman
has haunted the Anglo-American col-
lective imagination from the height of
the Victorian era to our own times. This
woman, depending on the observer?s
point of view, either aggressively spurns
male companionship, or is pitifully be-
reft of that companionship, or, in the
ultimate male fantasy and most-dreaded
of respectable womanhood?s nightmares,
promiscuously revels in her singleness.
The genealogy of these forms is capri-
cious and somewhat arbitrary, running
from the so-called ?redundant?-?thar
is, unmarried?woman of Victorian
England; through the pleasingly avail-
able flapper of the twenties and her
latter-day sister, the sexy career gal of
the ?fties; to, ?nally, out culture?s own
redundant woman, the hard-bitten,
successful careerisr who humiliates men
of insuf?cient accomplishment by day
and weeps alone for want of these same
men by night. This succession of images
speaks not only to the enduring mix of
antagonism and fascination to which
single women have been subject, but
also to two signi?cant commonalities.
First, each of these representations

 

Eiizaheth Lzmherh teaches history at
Princeton University.

92 TIKKUN VOLsimple reflection of the status
of ?women? ?whoever they are?but,
rather, the product of a real struggle
over the very nature of ?womanhood??
single or married. Second, each is,
in its many referents, almost exclu-
sively middle-class and white; the flap-
per is the exception, encompassing a
broader spectrum of women and in
the right setting?a Harlem jazz club,
for exampleetaking on a darker hue.
In the progression from one image
to the next, we can trace the concur-
rent sexualization and trivialization of
womanhood?and women?that has
been such a salient feature of our
recent history.

Until feminist historians set out to
right the historical record, single Victo-
rian women appeared as caricatures?
crabbed spinsters and frigid old maids
or, when accorded a guarded measure
of respect, overeducated bluestockings.
But feminist scholars have labored val-
iantly to rescue these women from the
meager fates contemporaries thought
their due. Such historians as Carroll
Smith-Rosenberg, Nancy Cort, and
Martha Vicinus have successfully recast
wretched privation and loneliness into
blessed autonomy and sisterhood. At
their most daring, they have seen in
singlehood a rejection of men and an
embrace of women?a women?s culture
of loving solidarities that shaded over
into what twentieth-century observers,
alerted by Freud and a new 
condemned as lesbianism.

This feminist recasting of Victorian-
ism was heady stuff. The pinched,

 



 

narrow, and sexless woman?who em-
bodied all the nasty repressiveness that
later generations would castigate with
the epithet ?Victorian ??was dead, her
place taken by a purposeful and ex-
pansively sensual paragon of rehabili-
tated womanhood. No longer a woman
sadly bereft of a man, she was instead
one fortunate enough to have escaped
the con?nes of the servile?or, at its
best, ornamental?domesticity that was
the prescribed fate of the nineteenth-
century middle-class girl.

Locate this new Victorian woman in
the urban landscape of the early twen-
tieth century, however, and it quickly
becomes clear just how limited, how
class-bound, a construct she really
is. For then, a new, more amorphous
group of women?working women,
largely, drawn to the city to fill the
ranks of the new, pink-collar office
and sales occupations?became visible
in the public sphere. The focus of the
debate about woman?s nature shifted
from the middle-class to the working-
class woman. Historians have largely
missed this shift and have written as
if both the ?New Woman" and the
flapper? those icons, circa 1920, of mod-

ern womanhood?were but Victorians

without the repression: middle-class,
college-educated, de?antly indepen~
dent of men.

The Victorian paradigm of indepen-
dent womanhood could neither compre-
hend nor accommodate the desires and
practices of these new working women.

Middle-class and working women of-

ten found themselves at odds, the for-