Thursday, January 13, 2011
Identifying Laqueur's main claim about sex
Before we discuss today’s readings as entire class, I would like you to take a few minutes to reflect on the first article we read, Thomas Laqueuer’s “The Discovery of the Sexes.” In your own words, what would you say is the most important point that he makes in this article? (For example, you might answer the question “What was discovered about the sexes in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?” Or, “What relationship was forged between cultural understanding between a woman’s ovaries and her sex/gender?”) Then, I’d like you to identify a brief passage that you think represents Laqueur’s main claim. Why do you think this point is so important for understanding the history of sex/gender?
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The main message that Laqueur’s passage addressed was that ignorance allowed normal ideologies of science to be socially constructed. Laqueur emphasizes that unawareness was a main cause of inaccurate social ideologies in the history of body. He explained the effect of not knowing the truth about the structure of the body, which consistently resulted in theories of the body that suited the society of the time. And women were defined by a those “truths.” Through ignorance in history women formed traditions of being secondary or less dominant. He explained, “the effect that ‘a woman can not conceive unless she doth consent.’” During that time people were not informed about pregnancy; society believed that a woman could not get pregnant if she had not consented to the sex- a phantom idea. He explained the significance of being aware of our ignorance and knowing that society sees the body only in relation to a cultural standpoint, because people tend to be more open-minded.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most intriguing points Laquere makes in “Discovery of the Sexes” was that women were not always differentiated from men as being a different sex but rather a lesser man. The language itself used to describe the female genitals was the same as that used to explain the genitals of men for some time. This inability to distinguish the difference between men and women physically is understandable in the words of Laquere due to the fact that both female and male genitalia come from the same embryonic tissue. When a difference was recognized, primarily through the value of the egg and he belief that the egg was the sole reason procreation was able to take place, women gained more power over men for a brief time, as shown by the following excerpt:
ReplyDelete“The vaginal secretions that had for millennia been taken to be a thin, cooler, less perfect version of the male ejaculate turned out to be something entirely different: “since the discovery of the egg...”
I think this is important to understanding the history of sex/gender because the evolution of understanding both the male and female bodies has shaped our perceptions and understanding today. For instance, one article noted that the anatomy of the female clitoris is still not fully understood. Therefore, this history is ongoing and necessary for our growth of how the models of sex have changed and are still undergoing change.
This passage seemed difficult for me to understand and relate to. What I found interesting/important was how sex was looked at during this time. So before there were two opposite sexes, the idea that women were inferior men intrigues me. This is something that I did not know and seeing the pictures today of the female reproductive system were also very interesting. The idea that women always had to have orgasms to conceive is also fascinating to me. Now it seems that most men are only engaged in sex to please themselves, when back then pleasing the women was the most important part. Seeing this makes me feel that it should have been the other way around. Again this text was hard for me to comprehend, but I found these points the most interesting.
ReplyDeleteThomas Laqueur discusses in this article the how society came to separate gender through sexual organs. He also makes a point to show the ideologies that existed about women’s bodies biologically, and to an extent emotionally as well. His article talks about the Victorians and how the differentiation in organs and understanding of sexual organs created the idea of gender. There were many points that identified this idea especially where he explains that a woman is lesser than a man because her organs are that of an internalized man. Still, the idea of the act of sex was thought to have been the same for both male in female. Which through research we have discovered that males and females experience sex very differently especially with orgasm. The idea of orgasm in the 1800’s was very misunderstood, the part that stuck out the most was when a man could not be charged with rape if the female conceived a baby because there was pleasure (orgasm) involved to create this conception.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most important points that Laqueur describes is the belief once held that women had to orgasm to become pregnant. And when they studied female bodies of virgins and saw signs of ovulation, they said it was due to masturbation and excitement. I think this is one of the most important ideas in the discussion of a female's role in sex and the sexual organs, because of the concept of rape. I thought it was interesting and terrible that if a woman was raped and conceived a child because of it, then she welcomed it and it wasn't a violating and intrusive act. "Whatever a woman might claim to have felt or whatever resistance she might have put up, conception in itself betrayed desire or at least sufficient measure of acquiescence for her to enjoy the venereal act." This is important for understanding the history of sex/gender because it plays such a huge part in the discussion of a woman's role in sex, how she is able to experience pleasure, and how ovulation and conception take place. This is important in showing the evolution of a woman's position and how far there is to go still.
ReplyDeleteMost of this article was very hard for me to process but one thing I did find to be very interesting and important to the chapter was the idea of women being a lesser man, rather than an entirely different sex organ and body type make up. It is astounding to me that the men who studied the anatomical make up did not even think that a woman could be anything more than a man with inverted genitals, therefore making them inferior. This was solidified in my mind today with the pictures from the slide show, making at least that part of the passage more understandable for me. Also, the parts of it referring to the misunderstandings of the female orgasm were fascinating. From what I understood of this article, this chapter dealt mainly with women's role in sex throughout history and still sort of applies to how women are treated during sex today.
ReplyDeleteLaqueur introduces the idea of differing epistemological and political explanation of the idea of the two modern sexes that was developed during the 19th century. He also points out the rising focus on using biology and science to create rational explanations to define and explain differences between the sexes. Improved discoveries about the female anatomy especially impacted this understanding but also further ideas about difference and otherness. All of these things were thought to be the "biological foundations of the moral order."
ReplyDeleteI found the most important paragraph of the Lacquer reading was at the bottom of page two, right side on BlackBoard. It discussed how Aristotle did not need facts of sexual difference to support the claim that woman was lesser than man. Simply because female anatomy was not as “efficient” as a man’s was a strong reason to support her being oppressed and looked down upon. I found it interesting that the more it seemed was learned about female structure, the more they had varying opinions about what it means for women in terms of desire and feeling. It was almost as if less was being known as scientists discovered more.
ReplyDeleteI honestly found this article very difficult. Since I am very new to this topic and this type of reading it was hard for me to grasp the real meaning of what he was trying to say. So while reading the whole thing I had like a big question mark look on my face because I understood nothing but after the class discussion. I think I kind of understood the meaning but still very hazy for me.
ReplyDeleteI felt that Laquer's argument was a demonstration of how far we, as a society, have come in understanding sex and anatomy. His argument held to the belief that women and men had the same anatomical construction, however the woman's was inverted and therefore men were superior. In modern times, it is almost difficult for us to even comprehend how that was an accepted scientific "fact".
ReplyDeleteGender difference are not merely societies construction. Our differences stem from the body's construction, and there is clearly much more for science to discover about how a person's anatomical make up and how their brain's connect to that body.
My understanding of this reading could be completely off, but these were some of the connects I made during class.
I believe that the main points of the article have to do with ignorance and growth. Back then, everyone had an understanding that women were just lesser men but were not a completely different sex (they differed in degree, not kind). This caused many problems because- as I learned from a speaker that came to DU last week, Julia Wood- scientists would only do tests on men and diagnose women according to the results. This was bad because, obviously, male female bodies do not process things the same. I believe one of the most interesting/ important parts of this article was when it was talking about rape and how if a woman gets pregnant she can't even consider it rape because she "must have orgasmed." This just shows us how little we knew back then about how the female body worked and how far we've come.
ReplyDeleteIn “Discovery of Sexes,” Laqueuer clearly marks how cultural assumptions directly influenced scientific research and ended up confirming the cultural views. With that said, it was believed that the ovary was the organ that made the women who she was. As a result of this assumption, the removal of healthy ovaries, known as bilateral ovariotomy, became a common practice and supposedly, “…became instant success to cure a wide variety of “behavioral pathologies”: hysteria, excessive sexual desires, and more mundane headaches and pains whose origins could not be shown to lie elsewhere.” Interesting enough, the removal of ovaries linked to how women were viewed has an ironic twist. She suddenly became more manlike by ceasing to menstruate yet more womanly because the removal of her ovaries signified the curing of, “…so-called failures of femininity.” However erroneous these views were, they provided valuable evidence to establish the real importance of the organ in the life of a woman.
ReplyDeleteAltogether, Lacqueur presents an interesting history of sexual differences that was mostly established by ignorant assumptions. The introduction focuses on the prevalent power that has been given to men since the beginning of history as women were identified as the “lesser man”. I thought it was interesting that this argument was presented even though there was great ambiguity between the male and female sexual anatomy, such as the vagina thought of as an inverted penis and the uncertainty between the clitoris and penis when a baby is born. Laqueur highlights on the discoveries and theories created about the female anatomy as if there must be an inevitable reason considering they were the lesser of the two sexes. For a lengthy time in history, doctors were extremely focused on the relationship between female orgasm, ovulation, and the ability to be impregnated. The fact that a large majority of this essay stresses the scientific focus of female orgasm is almost derisive of how little actual female pleasure matters in comparison to male pleasure during sex. Since men are the superior, they should automatically be granted this ability, but since women are the inferior, society needs to belittle this idea of female pleasure during sex by relating it to a further cause – reproduction. “The argument seems to be that only women have an orgasm – how else does the egg get out? – but do not feel it. They have this capacity, as I reconstruct the argument, because human sexual feelings are under “the intellectual and moral powers of the mind.” Civilization in all its political, economic, and religious manifestations mercifully leads mankind from “scenes and habits of disgusting obscenity among those barbarous people whose propensities are unrestrained by mental cultivation” to a state in which “the bodily appetites or passions, subject to reason, assume a milder, less selfish, and more elevated character. In the literature I have examined, women’s bodies in particular bear the marks of this civilizing process. The physiology of their bodies-in this instance, in many like it, and most powerfully in Freud – adapts to the demands of culture.
ReplyDeleteIn Thomas Laqueuer’s “The Discovery of the Sexes” he extensively covers the creation of “sexual differences”. What makes a woman different from a man was largely ignored for a brief time in history until the discovery of the ovaries marked the separation of genders. “Women were lesser than man”, he argues, and now centuries later, opposite sexes are exposed. Bodily parts were seen through cultural lenses. There was no knowledge of a woman’s orgasm. A shocking statement indicated that once a woman was raped, consequences did not exist for the man because during the intercourse the woman had an orgasm which she could have ignored.
ReplyDeleteThis particular statement was mind-boggling. How could anyone say such a thing with such determination yet little empirical research? Clearly, the scientific research done was influenced by cultural assumptions. “New knowledge about sex did not in any way entail the claim about sexual difference made in its name. No discovery or discoveries dictated the rise of a two-model, for precisely the same reasons that the anatomical discoveries of the Renaissance did not unseat the one-sex model: the nature of sexual difference is not susceptible to empirical testing.” This passage enforces Laqueuer’s main claim about women’s inferior states in society in comparison to men and the variables contributing to the worldwide belief in strong differences between women and men.
Furthermore, the pictures of female and women sex makeup were quite hysterical. Indeed, after one looks at the similarities between the two in today’s time, they would laugh. However, even back in the time these were popular, similarities were found but largely ignored. Which further makes me think that no matter what scientists found, they formed their own “truths”.
Laqueur's argued for a long time about the socially constructed feelings within the male and female bodies. A good portion of this was that the women’s genitals were just the inverted version of the preferred male body, and then went on to explain the complexities of thinking about if a woman felt anything at all during sex. The part of the piece I found interesting to this point was; “So, even if doctors in these and many similar texts did not directly address the question of whether women had sexual feelings or experiences orgasm, they considered these sensations as contingent to the order of things. No longer necessary for conception, they became something that women might or might not have, something to be doggedly and inconclusively debated rather than, as had been the case for so long, taken for granted.” I think that it was interesting that the men that were writing these books never thought to ask the women they were writing about what they felt and got an answer that way. I feel like it would have been easier but that wouldn’t have happened back then.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't sure exactly how to feel about this article and concept because i have never thought beyond our generation or questioned our ideas of what sex and gender are. I don’t understand the authors line of thinking about females gentiles being the inversion of males, and the way that the world revolved around male dominance so women must have the same sex organs as men. I found it important in this article when the author talks about anatomy not being pure fact, but unadulterated through convention, and complicated in its construction based on observation, variety of social and cultural constraints, science, and aesthetics of representation.
ReplyDeleteThis is important to the history of of sex and gender because basically nothing was black and white. Scientists and doctors, who were all men, even created models and drawings of their own interpretations of these organs, the only problems were, that they were completely incorrect in actuality. These models are the only history of sex and gender that are present from back in that time, and we can learn from the assumptions and conclusions that were made during that time period.
The most important point I understood from Laquer's paper was that people were beginning to understand that the male and female reproductive organs were not the same as they claimed in the beginning. That an orgasm is not needed to become pregnant. They learned new things about medical and scientific assumptions they made before were not indeed true.
ReplyDeleteThe most important part of the Laqueur article was the fact that they once thought female genitalia was basically a lesser version of male genitalia. But, no matter what, when women were supposed to be the same as men and when they figured out that women were actually completely different, women were always inferior either way. The part that stood out to me was the passage about women being able to have an orgasm. At a time when they did not really care about a woman's pleasure, it's bizarre to hear so much discussion of the importance of the woman having an orgasm. But, in actuality, they didn't care if she was getting any pleasure out of it (which she probably wasn't). The purpose of the orgasm was to get pregnant. It shows how little, from the beginning, was known about sex differences and women, in general.
ReplyDeleteThe Laqueur article was very difficult to understand, for multiple reasons. Not only was it arduous in the academic sense, but it was difficult for me to grasp the concepts given. For example, the idea of impregnation being linked to sexual pleasure seems baffling, as well as the belief that if impregnated from rape, it must have been consensual. Ideas such as these assisted women, but were detrimental as well. By forging a relationship between an orgasm and becoming pregnant, it gave women power sexually because men truly wanted to accomodate their partner in order to reproduce. But, on the other hand, this belief left pregnant rape victims helpless. The entire history of sexuality and women's rights seems to have many instances like this, of empowerment, yet inhibiting in many ways. Before this article I had never considered women's rights before the 1900s, and having such a long history of oppression revealed makes modern day circumstances much more understandable when discovering how things became so unjust.
ReplyDelete"In the world of reductionist explanation, what mattered was the flat, horizontal, imovable foundation of physical fact: sex." This quote found at the beginning of Laqueur's article was I think the most important point of summarizing the issues discussed. Laqueur talked a lot about how the history of sexuality changed from a single sex model to a binary system we have embraced today. This was fascinating to me because it really shows how the so-called grounded in fact two gender system is not as solid or inherent as most people believe it to be. It also shows the origins of the oppression of women being grounded in believing women to have inverted penises and literally being lesser men. Although it was largely an academic reading that took some extra thinking to comprehend I think it was essential for understanding gender, sex, and women.
ReplyDeleteLaqueuer's piece was very difficult for me to read in that it covered the differences in anatomy of sex and how those differences were applied in an unjust social way, very different to the way we see things in society. The physical parts of human bodies were discovered and the meanings that were changed or added or attatched to these parts meant something in the social world. The discovery of these different sexes did not imply an unbiased discovery of differences in reproductive biology, but more of a discovery of what people during times in history wanted each biological sex to represent. They were finally able to recognize the reproductive sex organs of a woman, but were unable to see them as different. Men continued to place women behind them in a category of men, only lesser than those with correct biological attributes. As different as the components are, men wanted to make them as similar as possible while still holding rank over women. I can't say that what i took from these readings are accurate, but this is my interpretation of Laqueuer.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most important points made in Laqueuer's article is the idea that organs and their "understanding" of them provided the basis for explanations of the differences for the nature of the social arrangements and status's of men and women. In other words, social sex was projected downward on biology, which was then reflected back onto society as providing evidence for naturalness of arrangements (gender differences became read as biological ones). I think one of the reasons why this is important for the history of sex/gender is because this idea of "naturalness" can often be helpful in the stalling of social change. A passage that express this is "When, for many reasons, a preexisting transcendental order or time-immemorial custom became a less and less plausible justification for social relations, the battleground of gender roles shifted to nature, to biological sex". A modern example that I think expresses this is the criticism Hillary Clinton faced when running for presidential election in the idea that she would be unreliable or unfit for the position because her emotions could cloud her reasonable judgment, through factors such as periods or menopause.
ReplyDeleteThe main point in "the Discovery of the Sexes" is that our current binary sex/gender system was created, and created quite recently, in the 18th century (1700s); three centuries later we see the sex/gender dicotamy as an integral part of society, however as Laqueur points out in his introduction, "Sometime in the eighteenth century, sex as we know it was invented. The reproductive organs went from being paradigmatic sites for displaying hierarchy, resonant throughout the cosmos, to being the foundation of incommensurable difference: 'women owe their manner of being to their organs of generation, and especially to the uterus,' as one eighteenth-century physician put it."
ReplyDeleteThis reading and class discussion was very hard for me. But I think the main point of this article is change of point of view of sex organ in women and men and female orgasm. The author mentioned that female organs were considered to be similar to male organs because female are created by male. And also the author says about female orgasm in the article, but I cannot get main point about this well. I understand that female orgasm is necessary or not to be pregnant in the beginning of article. This class was so hard for me, so I need to work on that to understand more.
ReplyDeleteFrom a more biological perspective, Thomas Laquer in his essay The Discovery of the Sexes discussed the inherent sexual barriers perceived in the 19th century. In direct clash with the desireless Victorian ideal, women had sexual desires that even challenged men. Laquer illustrates “the first systematic modern survey of normal women’s sexual feelings was one conducted….in 1882.” Of the womn in the study, “80 percent reported having orgasms, leading one historian to argue against the stereotype of the sexually frigid Victorian woman.” Even then one historian pointed out “most of the women also reported considerable reluctance to have sex and that would be happier left alone” (Laquer). Again women were presented as two-dimensional, they might have orgasms, but that was due to no agency of their own in sexual intercourse.
ReplyDeleteLaquer's "The Discovery of Sexes" reflects how much language and cultural norms affect how things are viewed. Prior to biology, men and women were not really thought to be all that different. However, by poking and prodding, language was created in order to acknowledge the perceived differences. Yet those perceived differences were treated as opposition to each other. For example, the vagina was drawn to look like an inverted penis. This shows that the focused language of what they knew hindered how they conceptualized things. It hindered them so much that they pretty much believed the vagina was a penis that was turned inside out and inside. Even the ovaries were considered to be the equivalent of the testicles. Yet because they belonged to a woman they were considered to be the threat against the testes. The article shows how language began to create ideas that men and women are in opposition of the each other.
ReplyDelete