Beyond nature versus nurture: Process and biology in the development of gender

Abstract

The origins of gender, like the origins of human nature, are sometimes said to lie in biological determination, sometimes in social construction. Feminist theory began with criticising biological determinism and its portrayal of women, and inevitably emphasised the social construction of gender. However, seeing gender or human nature as wholly or mainly socially constructed seems to deny the biological processes which comprise our physical experiences of ourselves, and it is this omission which has recently led some writers (both feminist and antifeminist) to lay stress on the significance of biology in human behaviour and its development. These two opposing views of the origin of behaviour are still dominant, despite various attempts to emphasise how biology and social context might interact to produce, say, gender differences: this continued dominance of the nature/nurture duality has considerable political relevance to feminism, and has contributed to the rise of the New Right ideology concerning, for example, the natural role of women and the family. In this paper, we stress the relevance of the nature/nurture duality for this political shift, and attempt to formulate a way out of the impasse. Attempts have sometimes been made to avoid the duality by emphasising the interaction of nature and nurture. However, in most academic writing, the “interaction” proposed fails to avoid the dichotomy completely, and relies on a view of individual development as unfolding towards a goal or plan. The latter is how gender development is typically portrayed, emerging from an unfolding of biological potential (giving rise to “sex” differences), and subsequently from socialisation. It is important for feminism to emphasise the alternative view of biological development, which lays stress on developmental process, of which “biology” is but a part, rather than viewing individuals as maturing or unfolding towards some “goal.” By this change of emphasis, feminist theory may begin to avoid the double pitfall of biological determinism on the one hand; and of constructing “gender” in a world devoid of human bodies, and biological processes, on the other.