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Biological determinism has for years struck me as a failure of intellectual nerve. So I don't mean to counter sexist theories along those lines with a mirror-image feminist version. We have as yet no truly value-free science, uninfluenced by masculinist prejudice. Consequently — although on certain bleak days I am sorely tempted to agreement with what we feminists have termed the "acute terminal testosterone-poisoning" theory of patriarchal history — I do not make the argument that women are inherently more peaceable, nurturing, or altruistic than men. Yet it is undeniable that history is a record of most women acting peaceably and of most men acting belligerently — to a point where the capacity for belligerence is regarded as an essential ingredient of manhood and the proclivity for conciliation is thought largely a quality of women. (en) |
