The Riddle of Gender - Deborah Rudacille [172]
At the same time, I see very clearly the dangers of attributing too much emphasis to biology, of using biological determinism to undermine efforts to keep chipping away at the social and cultural factors that prevent girls and women from pursuing, and succeeding in, careers in science and engineering. Black and Latino men too, are under-represented in science and engineering. I have seen no evidence that they are biologically unsuited to the practice of these disciplines. In fact, it seems self-evident that individuals from various minority groups have the ability to succeed in science, but often lack the educational opportunities to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to pursue a career in science and engineering in the first place. To paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir, scientists and engineers are made, not born. It’s no secret that we are making too few scientists and engineers in the United States these days. Indeed, our long dominance in those fields may be rapidly coming to an end as (among other factors) the supply of foreign-born scientists and engineers dries up in the wake of post—9/11 crackdowns on foreign-born scholars. Our precollegiate educational system is simply not providing American students with the necessary coursework to enable them to succeed in undergraduate and graduate scientific studies. Doesn’t it make more sense at this point to focus on education, rather than biology, as a fix for the problem— and to seek to expand opportunity rather than to limit it to those with a “biological” predisposition for such studies?
I found the Summers controversy frustrating for another, more personal, reason. When this book was published in February 2005, it was almost universally ignored by reviewers and the media—a common complaint of authors. But I felt that part of the reticence in dealing with the book was related to its topic, and that as its author I was in a very real sense cloaked in the same invisibility that continues to blanket its subjects. The experiences of the transgendered and transsexual people who were the sources for this book directly impinge on the issues generated by the Summers controversy—but no one thought to interview a trans neuroscientist like Ben Barres, for instance, for his unique perspective on this subject. No one considered that transgendered, intersex, and/or transsexual people have anything to contribute to the very heated debate that raged for months in the pages of newspapers and magazines. This astonishes me. But it is part and parcel of the dedicated ignorance that continues to characterize the media and public approach to trans people.
The past two years have also been notable for the degree to which homophobia (and its close cousin transphobia) has crept from its dank closet and begun fulminating in the public square. When I began the research for this book in 2001, gay-bashing had begun to seem as embarrassingly antiquated as overt racism and anti-gay bigots were becoming a (thankfully) endangered species. No more! One of the unfortunate effects of 9/11 seems to have been a sudden ratcheting up of public mistrust and loathing for the Other—and gay others have borne the brunt of the hatred and fear. Unscrupulous politicians and preachers have played on free-floating anxiety about difference and have scapegoated gays as exemplars of decadence and the decline of “American” values. What hogwash! I’ve always felt that the value held dearest by most Americans was the right to be left alone. To deny that right to others while claiming it for oneself is the rankest hypocrisy.
I’ve found that the most valuable insight that I’ve taken away from the research and writing of this book is the certain knowledge that when one group’s rights are violated or denied, the rights of all are threatened. For that reason, that struggle