by which they mean how fMRI research locates subjectivity and personal identity in the brain. They say, “In this sense the brain is used as a shortcut for the more global concepts such as the person, the individual or the self” (p. 160). It is not hard to find articles in the press with titles such as “How provocative clothes affect the brain” (The Guardian 2018) or books with titles like The Brain: The Story of You (Eagleman 2016). Raeme et al. also comment on how common it is for scientists and science writers to “provide the audience with the news that is easiest to assimilate.” Studies have shown that if reports of new scientific studies are accompanied by colored images of the inner workings of the brain they are found to be more credible than when accompanied by graphs or tables, especially if readers do not see themselves as experts in the topic (McCabe and Castel 2008).
According to O'Connor and Joffe (2014) the general public has, for the most part, a tendency to assimilate scientific data to fit their existing conceptions of how society works. They say,
Research shows that humans have a deep‐seated motivation to justify the social system in which they live, and their cognition is moulded by the desire to construe that system as good, just and legitimate. This orientation shapes public reception of scientific information, which is often absorbed into efforts to preserve existing group hierarchies (2014, p. 2).
These authors have a somewhat pessimistic and maybe patronizing view of the ability of the general public to understand scientific information. However, the persistence of sexual dimorphism in society and the perpetual emergence of new theories about its biological justification – for the most part happily received by the media and the populace – lend weight to their point of view.
We can see the evidence of the resurgence of biological determinism, sexism, and sex‐role differentiation all around us, in the shops and on the media and in daily practices, public and private. Even in this age when gender fluidity is a topic of interest and discussion and despite the pleas of second‐wave feminists for a less gendered treatment of boys and girls, the market continues to brand their clothes and toys as pink or blue. As England notes, the gender revolution is uneven and, in some regards, stalled (2010). Men earn more and occupy more positions with power. Women are demeaned and abused across the globe. The OECD's 2014 report on the position of girls and women in 160 states concludes that “across the globe every day women and girls experience some form of discrimination solely because they were born female” (Social Institutions and Gender Index [SIGI] 2014, p. 6).
The fact that people cling to the status quo and prefer simple theories to complex ones is part of reality. It is also part of current reality that we live in society where old forms of patriarchy are being threatened and where a defensive reassertion of the inevitability and fixity of sex and gender roles serves the agenda of the white, male ruling class and its favored political ideologies.
In the 1980s, Lewontin wrote a paper called “Biological determinism.” Among other things he said,
If we want to understand where these biological determinist theories of human life come from and what gives them their perpetual appeal, we must look not in the annals of biological science, but in the social and political realities that surround us, and in the social and political myths that constitute the ideology of our society. (1982, p. 152)
His warning is as relevant today as when it was written.
Conclusion
Biological determinism has a long history and is deeply embedded in Western scholarship. Both biological determinism and essentialism have taken many different forms over the centuries. While extreme biological determinism is rarely advocated by scholars today, theories that promote biology as offering the strongest explanation for sex and gender differences and differences in sexuality are still popular and widely accepted in academia and in the media. Current theories centering on genes, hormones, and brains have been critiqued by feminist scholars and others, who question the quality of the science behind the assertions that are made. Questions arise, also, about the narrow conception of humanity and human life that a theory focused primarily on genes, hormones, or brains can offer. Such theories fail to capture the reality that humans are not only biological but also social and psychological beings, enmeshed in complex and ongoing exchanges with their human and nonhuman contexts. It is thus unhelpful to ignore the social nature of human biology as much as it is to ignore the biological nature of all humans.
Essentialism is often found hand in hand with biological determinism although the perceived roots of difference may be social as well as biological. Seeing males and females, homosexuals and heterosexuals as different “types,” with fixed and enduring essences is questionable given the evidence of a degree of life‐course fluidity within individuals and the varied and overlapping nature of sex, gender, and sexual expression across individuals.
Combating essentialism and biological determinism and reductionism may be a difficult and ongoing struggle. However, it is high time to leave the old and fallacious certainties of essentialism and biological determinism behind and embrace the challenge of a nonessentialist, nondualist future, one that fully embraces the dynamic complexity, potentialities, and constraints of human life. Theories such as developmental dynamic systems theories are attempting to capture this complexity. In feminist theory we need to take account of the material and the biological. The “new materialism” and the “new biology” converge on similar visions and together provide a more adequate base for theorizing human ontology and potential and – critically – they provide a better foundation for feminist theory and action.
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