Читать книгу The Invisible Woman - Joanne Belknap - Страница 32

Still others (not cited earlier) support BSET and/or using biology as a “cause” of crime, including gender-based abuses (e.g., Barber, 1995; Crawford & Johnston, 1999; Hines & Saudino, 2004; Wrangham & Peterson, 1996). Yet, the BSET explanation that gender-based abuses are biologically determined does not simply fly in the face of feminism but of science as well (e.g., Cahill, 2001; Fausto-Sterling, 2000; Small, 1993; T. Taylor, 1996). Evolution, Gender, and Rape, edited by C. B. Travis (2003), is an interdisciplinary book comprised solely of responses to Thornhill and Palmer (2000) and is unanimously critical of the “bad science” employed in A Natural History of Rape. Perhaps Cahill (2001) sums it up best when she poignantly argues in Rethinking Rape: “It is at least theoretically possible to understand the penis as other than a penetrating, violent tool, and indeed to rid it of such meaning entirely; and it is this theoretical possibility that affords room for hope” (p. 24).

A book edited by Björkqvist and Niemelä (1992), titled Of Mice and Women: Aspects of Female Aggression, reports studies by leading scholars regarding sex differences and similarities in aggressive behavior. One study concludes, “The majority of evidence indicates that in the general population differences in aggressiveness reflect the level of testosterone only to a limited extent, if at all. There is no reason to suggest that testosterone causes the behavior of males and females to differ markedly” (Benton, 1992, p. 46). Other studies reported in this book are convincing in their overview of scientific research, maintaining that “too much” is being made of biological differences between females and males in attempts to “explain away” cultural differences. Indeed, a chapter on “biology and male aggression” concludes, “Finally, we can look forward to the day when the myth that male animals are more aggressive than females can no longer be used by those who would argue that war is the product of biology rather than culture” (Adams, 1992, p. 24). Indeed, in the introductory chapter, the editors state, “There is no reason to believe that women overall should be less motivated to be aggressive than men” (Björkqvist & Niemelä, 1992, p. 14). Rather, they claim that gender differences in aggressive behavior depend on culture, age, and situations.

A study of the role of sexual frustration as a cause of rape compared white, college undergraduate, unmarried heterosexual male students, 71 who identified as (consistent with the definition of) date rapists and 227 who did not (Kanin, 1985). All of the rapists reported raping girlfriends with whom they had previously experienced consensual sex. Contrary to what the biosocial and other theories would suggest, these men appeared to rape not because they did not have access to consensual sex (i.e., they were sexually frustrated) but rather because it was part of their socialization. This study found that the rapists were sexual predators, using many tactics to try to gain sex: “Sexual exploitation of the female largely permeates their entire male-female approach” (Kanin, 1985, p. 224). Moreover, those young men with the most success at obtaining heterosexual outlets consensually were also the young men most likely to date rape. The self-identified date rapists were far more likely to report their sex-obsessed behaviors as beginning with their peer groups in high school and to feel entitled to frequent sexual encounters. Kanin (1985) concluded that date rapists have a different sexual socialization that results in “an inordinately high value on sexual accomplishment” and an “exaggerated sexual impulse” (p. 229).

A national study to determine whether boys and men’s’ lower levels of self-control (relative to that of girls and women) are due to genetic sex differences reported that genetic influences on self-control are the same regardless of one’s sex/gender (Boisvert, Wright, Knopik, & Vaske, 2013). A meta-analysis, drawing on data from more than 30 studies in eight countries, tested whether “natural selection shaped jealousy,” hypothesizing that men are primarily jealous over a mate’s sexual infidelity [cheating] and women over a mate’s emotional infidelity” (C. R. Harris, 2003, p. 102). In contrast to BSET, they found no gender differences regarding jealousy over infidelity. One large study found that gender inequality and IPA were positively related: the more inequality, the more IPA. Thus, the author concluded that we should shift our focus from violent people to the violent cultures that produce them (Handwerker, 1998, p. 206).

Significantly, BSETs are not only insulting to girls and women, viewing them as pathetic, needy competitors for male attention, but also insulting to boys and men, viewing them as incapable of controlling their biological urges or in a constant need of fertilizing eggs and creating children (see Belknap, 1997). Fanghanel and Lim (2017) argue that the “contemporary rape culture” is the root of the “contemporary antagonism in gendered safety discourse” for women and girls: the fine line of balancing their right to be “free” in public and their “obligation to be safe and ‘properly’ feminine” (p. 341).