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DIFFERENCE AND GENDER IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY: A FEMINIST RFIETORIC OF SCIENCE
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By Cristina S. Lopez, M.A., B.S.
*****
The Ohio State University 2000
Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Susan Kline, Adviser
Professor Mary Garrett Adviser Professor David Horn Communication Graduate Program ABSTRACT
In the rhetoric of science, there a striking absence: there is no feminist perspective expressed in the project. Currently there is very little published work on women in science or gender in science within this project. Moreover, feminist critiques of science, an interdisciplinary project that constitutes a substantial body of work, does not seem to have had an influence on rhetoric of science. This dissertation is an attempt to address this absence by creating a space for feminist criticism within rhetoric of science. This involves a reorientation in practices of rhetorical criticism and the development of an approach to criticism grounded in a theory, method and politics of articulation. The starting point of inquiry is the problem of biological determinism, a reductive perspective that explains sexual difference in terms of biology. Biological determinism naturalizes and justifies systems of sexual difference in which men and women are positioned in relations of hierarchy and antagonism. In this project rhetorical criticism involves the disassembling of biological determinism. The three analysis chapters involve a feminist critique of three contemporary evolutionary biologists: Margie Profet, Robin Baker, and Lynn Marguhs. All three scientists have written about sexuality from the perspective of evolutionary theory. The analysis treats their scientific narratives as sites of struggle over meaning, in this case over the production of sexual difference and representations of male and female bodies. The analysis considers the ways in which some scientific narratives on evolution and sex reinforce dominant
ii perspectives on gender and sexuality, while others reconceptualize sexual difference and sexuality from within evolutionary biology.
Ill For Tom, m y symbiote
IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project was formulated during a time I traveled back and forth between my rhetoric classes and my classes in Comparative Studies. This dissertation is the product of m y interdisciplinary wanderings, and I have faculty in both departments to thank, particularly the members of my committee. First I would like to thank my advisor, Mary Garrett, for her acumen, her considerable patience and support and her good humor. David Horn's classes on comparative studies of science were an inspiration to me, and I am grateful that I wandered into them. I am touched by Susan Kline's tremendous support and enthusiasm, and greatly appreciate the conversations we have had, especially over the past few weeks. I would also like to thank K. Viswanath for his encouragement and su p p o rt This project would not have been possible without my fellow graduate students in Communication at Ohio State. I am very grateful for the friendships I have made here. In particular I would like to thank Kellie Hay, Marie Garland, Ted Matula and Jeff Sens. Pam Tracy has been so supportive in so many ways, and I treasure our conversations. I only hope that I can reciprocate her support as she continues with her own work. I am particular indebted to Laura Sells for thirteen years of conversations and cannot imagine having carried out this project without her. My family has been tremendously supportive throughout this process. I would Hke to thank my parents, BasUio and Use Lopez, for their generosity and for instilling in me a love of reading. My sisters, Silvia Lopez-Jensen and Patricia Lopez, are also my closest friends and I especially appreciate their sharp senses of humor. In that sense, my brother-in-law, Michael Lopez-Jensen fits right in with the family and I am glad he is part of it- Finally, I would like to thank Tom Schumacher, for his typing and editing and so much more. I could not have done this without him.
VI VTTA
20 August 1962 ...... Bom - St. Jolm% Newfoundland, C anada
1984 ...... B.S. C om m unication Studies, Northwestern University
1990...... M. A. Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison
1987-1989,1990-1991...... Instructor, Teaching Assistant, University of Wisconsin, Madison
1997...... Instructor, Denison University
1993-1999...... Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University
FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Communication
vu TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page A bstract ...... ii
D edication...... iv
Acknowledgments...... v
Vita...... vii
Chapters:
1. Litroduction: Rhetoric of Science and the Practice of Rhetorical Criticism.... 1
Introduction ...... 1 A Brief History of Rhetoric of Science ...... 3 Critical Pluralism and the Effects of Disdphnarity ...... 11 "Signature" Rhetorical Critidsm and Strategic Consdousness ...... 20 Condusion and Project Overview ...... 26
2. A Rhetoric of Laughter: Rhetorical Critidsm and the Politics of Articulation ...... 33
Introduction ...... 33 Theories of Articulation...... 36 A Rhetoric of Laughter ...... 38 The Critical Object ...... 42 Points of Articulation: Author and Critic ...... 49 C ondusion...... 51
3. Margie Profet's Maverick Sdence: Menstruation and Metaphor in Evolutionary Biology...... 53
Introduction ...... 53 What is a Maverick Sdentist? ...... 55 The Role of Metaphor ...... 59 Menstrual Mechanisms ...... 64
viii NOTE TO USERS
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UMT Immunology and Menstruation...... 70 Conclusion ...... 74
4. The Production of Sexual Difference in Sperm Competition Theory ...... 76
Introduction...... 76 Scientific Ethos and the Naturalization Process ...... 78 A Reorientation of the Narrative Paradigm ...... 83 Narrative Structure in Sperm Wars...... 87 Metaphor and Sexual Difference in Sperm Wars...... 94 Conclusion ...... 101
5. Difference and Gender in the New Biology ...... 103
Introduction ...... 103 W hy M ust o u r Bodies E nd a t the Skin?...... 108 Three Sexual Systems, Fifty Thousand Genders: Gender and Sex Redefined...... 116 Sperm and Egg Reconsidered ...... 127
6. C onclusion...... 129
Bibliography ...... 140
XI CHAPTER 1
RHETORIC OF SCIENCE AND THE PRACTICE OF RHETORICAL CRIHCISM
Introduction In the field of speech communication, Edwin Black'^s Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method^ is widely regarded as one of the most influential works on this subject. Black's contribution to rhetorical criticism is not that he proposed a new method for critics, or staked out some heretofore unexplored territory in the form of critical objects, but that he pointed out the limitations of neo-Aristotelianism, the then-dominant mode of rhetorical criticism. In his work Black argues that neo-Aristotelianism was little more than the mechanistic application of Aristotle's rhetorical lexicon to the object of criticism, the results of which did a disservice both to the object of criticism and Aristotle's theory. In other words, when Black wrote this work in the early 1960s, he made an intervention into the practice of rhetorical criticism at a particular juncture. For this reason. Black's contribution is especially noteworthy. This project represents my own efforts to make a similar intervention. This dissertation developed at a time in which there were debates about the state of the rhetoric of science project, which were as much about the state of rhetorical criticism as about the project itself. There is a striking absence in the rhetoric of science literature, including the debates: there is no feminist perspective
1 Edwin Black, Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method (1965, Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1978).
1 expressed in the rhetoric of science project. Apart from the occasional article or conference paper, there is very little published rhetorical criticism on either the "woman in science" or "gender in science" questions. Moreover, rhetoric scholars working on this project do not seem to be influenced by what is a substantial and interdisciplinary body of literature; feminist studies of science. My own project is motivated by a dual commitment to academic feminist work and the desire to contribute to conversations in my own discipline. However, as I shall explain in this chapter, critics who do feminist and other politically motivated scholarship must deal with particular exigencies.^ One issue I will discuss is that our disciplinary politics make it difficult simply to identify a gap in the research and develop a feminist "method" that fills the gap, given our discipline's tendencies to either marginalize or mute politically motivated scholarship. I think more in terms of creating a space for a feminist rhetoric of science, which involves a critique of practices of rhetorical criticism as well as attention to disciplinary politics. In the interest of creating a space for a feminist rhetoric of science I will discuss rhetoric of science in light of the exigencies it presents for feminist critics. First I will provide brief account of the development of rhetoric of science, which recently has turned toward a self-reflexive debate about the state of rhetorical criticism within the project. The purpose of the discussion is to outline some of the central issues that have arisen in this debate. A key issue in the rhetoric of science debates has been disciplinarity and its effects on the practice of rhetorical criticism. In other words, criticism is not just shaped by theory, but also by an unspoken set of assumptions that govern our critical practices. Once I have outlined the issues in the rhetoric of science debate, I elaborate further on the
2 "Any exigence is ein imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be." Lloyd Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation," Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 6. issue of disciplinary politics in an order to account for the marginalization of feminist and other politically motivated criticism. The discussion about disciplinary politics provides a context for my further discussion of the rhetoric of science debates. In the section that follows I return to the discussion about rhetorical criticism within rhetoric of science in consideration of the ways in which critical practices preclude politically motivated criticism.
A Brief History of Rhetoric of Science The Edwin Black of 1965 could not have imagined rhetoric of science as an area of study because by definition science operates outside the scope of rhetoric. Like most rhetoric scholars. Black made a firm distinction between the realms that are occupied by science and rhetoric. In fact in the opening chapter of his book Black defines rhetorical criticism by negation—he contrasts the work of rhetorical critics to that of scientists. Black concludes that one of the chief differences between scientists and rhetorical critics is their object of study. The scientist is in the business of studying nature, while the critic is preoccupied with human affairs. It is this divide that makes rhetoric of science an impossibility for many traditional critics. As Dilip Gaonkar remarks at the end of his critique of rhetoric of science. Rhetoric is more or less irrelevant in the discourse on nature, even if nature turns out to be scripted like a book, and thus the traditionalists find the very idea of RS [rhetoric of science] implausible (at least when it comes to talking about the constitution of scientific knowledge itself). This is mostly an a priori assumption based on the authority of Aristotle and what they take to be the dictates of common sense.3
An unscientific survey of rhetorical criticism textbooks reveals that this indeed is a common sensical notion in our field; in the introduction to at least two of the
3 Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, "The Idea of Rhetoric in the Rhetoric of Science," Gross and Keith 76. more widely used criticism textbooks, the authors comment that the object of
rhetorical criticism is human affairs and not n a t u r e .4 Despite the objections of traditionalists, there emerged a successful rhetoric of science project. However, it took some time for this subarea to take shape. Although a few articles "towards a rhetoric of science" were published in the 1970s, rhetoric of science did not take off until the mid-1980s.5 At that time, rhetoric of science was part of the larger rhetoric of inquiry project. In his Preface to the collection of essays The Rhetorical Turn: Invention and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry, Simons explains the purpose of rhetoric of inquiry: Initially conceived by the ancient Greeks as an art of persuasion by which ordinary citizens could exercise their responsibilities in civic affairs, rhetorical theory is increasingly being brought to bear upon expert and scholarly discourses. What John Nelson dubbed rhetoric of inquiry provides a disciplined way to address issues within and across the disciplines, ranging in this volume from evolutionary biology to conversation analysis, and from Machiavelli to MOVE ... many contributors to this volume advance the position that the discipline of rhetoric can provide the tools, not just for deconstructions of objectivist pretensions, but also for much-needed, much sought-after reconstructions of inquiry in the wake of these debunkings. They do so, not simply by affirining in unison the wonders of rhetoric, but rather, by getting down to cases and addressing specific issues .6
In its early stages, rhetoric of inquiry was imagined as an interdisciplinary project in terms of its objects of inquiry and its alliances. Although rhetoric's traditional institutional location is in departments of Speech Communication or
4 For excunples, see Sonja Foss, "The Nature o f Rhetorical Criticism "Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1989); and Bernard L. Brock, Robert L. Scott, and James W. Chesboro. "An Introduction to Rhetorical Criticism," Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Tiventieth-Centiiry Perspective, 3rd ed. (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1980).
5 For examples, see M.A. Overington, "The Scientific Community as Audience: Towards a Rhetorical Analysis of Science," Philosophy and Rhetoric 10 (1977): 143-164; W. B. Weimer, "Science as Rhetorical Transaction: Towards a Non-Justificationcil Conception of Rhetoric," Philosophy and Rhetoric 10 (1977): 1-29; and Phillip C. Wander, "The Rhetoric of Science," Western Journal of Speech Communication 40 (1976): 226-235.
6 Herbert W. Simons, preface. The Rhetorical Turn: Invention and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry, ed. Simons (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990) vii. English, rhetoric of inquiry scholars discussed the possibilities of working in departments across the academy, or that faculty across the academy would take up rhetoric in the interest of becoming more self-reflexive about their research. Rhetoric of inquiry also was an interdisciplinary project in the sense that it was ahgned with other modes of inquiry that provided critiques of objectivism and focused on language and discourse. In terms of its objects of study, rhetoric of inquiry includes economics, history, psychology, sociology, mathematics as well as biology and physics.^ A distinctive rhetoric of science project took shape in this context and it is rhetoric of science specifically that is the subject of debate currently. Rhetoric of inquiry certainly still is a viable project, and many rhetoric scholars whose topic area is the sciences may characterize their project as "rhetoric of inquiry." However, I beHeve there are some significant differences between rhetoric of inquiry and rhetoric of science. First, as the name suggests rhetoric of science is defined in terms of its object of study rather than in terms of a commitment to provide critiques of objectivism. Second, with the current debates rhetoric of science has turned inward. In other words, in the discussions surrounding rhetoric of science there has been a shift from utopian visions of interdisciplinarity and the centrality of rhetoric to a focus on disciplinary anxieties and the limits of rhetorical criticism. The publication of Dilip Gaonkar's "The Idea of Rhetoric in Rhetoric of Science" represents a significant shift from rhetoric of inquiry to rhetoric of science. First presented as a conference paper, this essay became the focus of a special issue of the Southern Journal of Communication which in turn resulted in 7 For examples, see Simons, ed.. The Rhetorical Turn; and John S. Nelson, Allan Megill, and Donald N. McCIoskey, eds.. The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1987).
8 Gaonkar, "The Idea of Rhetoric in the Rhetoric of Science," Southern Communication Journal 58 (1993): 258-295. Rpt. in Gross and Keith 25-85. more conference papers. More recently^ Gaonkar^s essay and so»me of the responses were published as a book entitled Rhetorical Hermeneuitics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science.'^ As Herb Simons points out ini his review of the book, Gaonkar's essay calls into question the very idea of rhetorical criticism of science (though not on traditionalist grounds).io The consensms seems to be that the controversy surrounding this essay is as important as th.e publication of Black's Rhetorical Criticism or Black and Bitzer's The Prospect o f Rihetoric.^t The focus of discussion surrounding Gaonkar's intervention, both in terms of method and location, was no longer on rhetoric of inquiry as an interdisciplinary project. Instead, Gaonkar's essay shaped the debate with its focus on the effects of disciplinarity on rhetoric and rhetorical criticism. Whether they praise or blame him, Gaonkar's respondents have replied by engaging in an anirmated and interesting conversation about the state of rhetorical criticism an«d rhetoric of science. However, not everyone picked up on the subtleties of Gaonkar's discussion of disciplinarity in rhetorical studies. One of the comrmon criticisms of Gaonkar is that in his essay he was overly selective about his discussion of work in rhetoric of science. For example, in a polemic that was perceived by some to violate scholarly codes of civility, McCIoskey takes G aonkar to task for ignoring the fine work in rhetoric of science that is conducted borih inside and outside of speech communication. According to McCIoskey, Gaonkar's literature review could have included examples from sociology of scientifioc knowledge.
9 Citations to Gaonkar's essay hereeifter refer to the Gross and Keith collectiom. to Herbert Simons, "Rhetorical Hermeneutics and the Project of Globalization ," rev. of Gross and Keith, Quarterly Journal of Speech 85 (1999): 86-109. tt Edwin Black and Lloyd Bitzer, eds.. The Prospect of Rhetoric: Report of the Naitional Deivlopinent Project (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971). "rhetoric of science by another name/'^^ However, Gaonkar's move to look at such a small selection of rhetoric of science scholarship is strategic, but not in the. sense that he is stacking the deck. He says specifically that he chose essays from the discipline of speech communication Gaonkar explains that he is interested in "understanding what happens to our understanding of rhetoric when it is place in a contested interpretive relation to a cultural/material/discursive formation such as 'science'... I thus begin by thematizing the ways in which rhetoric is deployed and positioned in RS literature."i3 By focusing on rhetoric of science work within speech communication, Gaonkar was able to look at rhetoric of science in its "embattled relationship" with two traditions of scholarship, rhetorical studies and science studies. As he explains it, looking at rhetoric of science on the one hand in relation to rhetorical scholarship enables him to discuss in project in light of larger disciplinary anxieties. By looking at rhetoric of science on the other hand in relation to science studies, Gaonkar is able to discuss another set of anxieties that stem from being a "latecomer" to an already established interdisciplinary intellectual tradition. By selecting work from scholars who either are in communication departments or publish in communication journals, Gaonkar was able to situate the practice of rhetorical criticism. So what did he say that resulted in so much controversy? Although many have commented already that his essay defies summary, I will attempt to do so here. The essay is a review of the literature in rhetoric of science in which Gaonkar examines closely the work of three prominent critics who have published their work in speech communication journals. Gaonkar begins his 12 Deirdre McCIoskey, "Big Rhetoric, Little Rhetoric: Gaonkar on the Rhetoric of Science," Gross and Keith 102. In his review of Rhetorical Hermeneutics, Herb Simons remarks that "the style of McCIoskey's critique is so off-putting that it has gone Icirgely unappreciated," but he believes McCIoskey makes a valid point. See Simons, "Rhetorical Hermeneutics," 86-109.
13 Gaonkar, "The Idea," 37. essay by situating the critics' work in relation the contemporary practice of rhetorical criticism. According to Gaonkar, there are two significant differences between contemporary rhetoric and the classical rhetorical tradition (as practiced in ancient Greece and Rome). The first significant difference between classical and contemporary rhetoric is that contemporary rhetoric scholars have expanded the boundaries of rhetoric to include all kinds of discourse, including science, within its purview (as I discussed above). The second significant difference is that contemporary rhetoric scholars have transformed rhetoric from a cultural practice into an interpretive theory. In other words, rather than making use of rhetoric to produce discourse (such as speeches and other forms of argument), contemporary rhetoric scholars make use of the rhetorical lexicon to interpret texts. This move fromrhetorica iitens to rhetorica docens, according to Gaonkar, has serious implications. First, the move from cultural practice to interpretation has the effect of globalizing rhetoric, of making it universal. First, what is rhetorical in any given case is invariably an effect of one's reading rather than a quality intrinsic to the object being read. Second, ifzohat is rhetorical is an effect of one's reading, then a master reader can produce such an effect in relation to virtually any object. Hence the range o f rhetoric is potentially universal. Thus, it turns out that the interpretive turn in rhetoric is inextricably linked to an impulse to universalize rhetoric. They are two aspects of the same tendency in contemporary rhetorical studies.i4
One could argue that no matter what the object of interpretation, this globalizing impulse is at work. However, in the case of rhetoric of science, universalization takes on particular significance. Ever since Plato dismissed rhetoric as a sham art there has been a long-standing quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric. With the rise of science, the very existence of rhetoric was threatened.45 Elsewhere
44 Gaonkar, "The Idea," 29.
45 The marginalization of rhetoric is a prominent theme in historical narratives about our field. For a representative version of our discipline's narrative on the rhetorical tradition, see John S. Nelson and Allan Megill, "Rhetoric of Inquiry; Projects and Prospects," Qiiarterlxf lottmal of Speech 72 (1986): 20-37.
8 Gaonkar argues that rhetoric scholars today respond to this marginalized status with a ... double movement which regulates, shapes and determines the self- image of rhetoric ... rhetoric moves diachronically to discover for itself an alternative historical tradition that will free it from its supplementary status, and it moves synchronically to find itself in the discursive body (textuality) of other disciplines that will confirm its "presence."^6
Gaonkar further points out that critics have made the synchronic move — the purpose of rhetoric of science is to demonstrate the presence of rhetoric in scientific discourse. As he puts it, "If science is not free of rhetoric, nothing is."i7 But, an effect of globalization is that rhetoric of science scholars are engaged in a project in which they attempt to achieve hegemony over science. In the essay on rhetoric of science, the issue of rhetoric's status is central to Gaonkar's argument. Because rhetoric is always being repressed, its advocates must bring it to light again. Therefore, rhetoric is always caught up in a politics of recognition, and this is the context in which the rhetoric of science has developed. A second criticism that Gaonkar makes about rhetoric as an interpretive metadiscourse is that it is thin. In other words, although we have a lexicon of terms to describe rhetorical activity, there is no social or cultural theory that enriches those terms. A rhetorical term is treated as if it were an abbreviation for a discourse process that can be described, albeit inefficiently, in everyday language. Thus, the interpretive power of rhetorical terminology, if it has any, is constantly eroded by presenting it exclusively in descriptive terms. Deprived of an interpretive function, rhetorical terminology tends towards a taxonomic pole, and becomes a translation machine. [This] critical exegesis, forced to conform to a preconceived method, gets caught in a relentless, taxonomic redescription that yields results that are mechanical and imexciting.is Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, "Rhetoric and its Double; Reflections on the Rhetorical Turn in the Human Sciences," Simons 343.
17 Gaonkar, "The Idea," 37.
18 Gaonkar, "The Idea," 51, 50. It is worth noting that Black made a similar criticism of neo-Aristotelianism, that Gaonkar's essay suggests rhetorical criticism has not yet escaped the legacy of neo-Aristotelianism, and that the field in general still is dominated by Aristotle. These are two serious charges against rhetoric and criticism, but the third has provoked the most discussion. Gaonkar argues that rhetoric of science and rhetorical criticism is agent-centered; in other words, critics assume that texts are the product of the strategic consciousness of the author. One can do away with the entire rhetorical lexicon and still write criticism that bears a rhetorical signature so long as one reads a given discourse (or - rhetorical text) as a manifestation of the rhetor's strategic consciousness. This means that humanist rhetoric is more deeply implicated m the modernist project of subject-centered reasoning that is generally acknowledged. Strategic thinking is very much an affair of the consciousness: it marginalizes structures that govern human agency: language, the unconscious, capital.i9
Later in the chapter I will return to Gaonkar's claims about "signature" rhetorical criticism, strategic consciousness and an ideology of agency. For the moment I would hke to focus on the debate about the rhetoric of science and the practice of rhetorical criticism provoked by Gaonkar's essay. Many of the respondents argued that some of Gaonkar's claims are exaggerated or that some of his dichotomies are too sharp. On this I would agree — for example, considering rhetoric of science's institutional success, it is hard to beheve the project has "stalled." On the other hand one could argue that Gaonkar's carefully crafted intervention has reinvigorated the very project he claims has stalled. What I find interesting about the article and the responses are not whether the claims that participants make are true or false, but that the claims have led to productive and interesting deliberation. From a rhetorical standpoint one could not ask for a more effective piece of scholarship.
19 Gaonkar, "The Idea," 51.
10 Critical Pluralism and the Effects of Disciplinarity In its current state rhetorical criticism is governed by an attitude of critical pluralism, or the idea that rhetorical criticism consists of many different yet equally valid methods. As Gaonkar explains in his essay on the dialectic between object and method in rhetorical criticism, the attitude of critical pluralism emerged after the publication of Black's Rhetorical Criticism: By freeing the critic from the domination of the object. Black set the stage for the ensuing pluralist hiatus that persists to this day. Ironically, critical pluralism was to find its rationale in the apotheosis of the critical object. It was now seen as something so immensely rich and complex and co extensive with humanity itself that only a flexible system of theoretical perspectives and critical procedures employed on an ad hoc basis could do justice to it ... only such a stance, it was held, could generate the requisite conceptual innovation equal to the task of mastering and making intelligible the bewildering variety of objects that constitute rhetoric .20
Critical pluralism presents both opportunities and problems. On one hand, because of rhetoric scholars' attitudes of critical pluralism and the apotheosis of science as an object of study, it is possible to create a space for feminist and critical perspectives. On the other hand, given some of our previous debates about so-called "ideological criticism," there is always the possibility these perspectives will become ideologically incorporated. At this point in the discussion I am putting into play two opposing terms, disciplinarity on the one hand and critical pluralism on the other. Although I find discussions about disciplinarity useful I also recognize that for many, "disciplinarity" is a devil term. In his essay "Diversity and Disciplinarity as Cultural Artifacts," Appadurai reminds us that the term "disciplinarity" has connotations of "scarcity, rationing and policing," while "diversity" suggests
20 Gaonkar, "Rhetoric and its Double," 303.
11 "plenitude, an infinity of possibilities, and limitless variation."2i As he further explains. Diversity is a word that contains all the force, all the contradictions, and all the anxieties of a specifically American utopianism. Let us call this utopianism of the plural... diversity as a slogan encompasses the strong fascination with the plural, and the even stranger idea that plurality and equality are deeply intertwined in a democratic society .22
For rhetoric scholars this specifically American utopian ideal has a special appeal, for our disciplinary ethos is heavily invested in the connection between rhetoric and democracy. Narratives about the rhetorical tradition link the beginnings of rhetoric with the emergence of democracy in ancient Greece. Rhetoric is defined not only as an art of persuasion; most general definitions of rhetoric are grounded in the idea that rhetoric is a necessary practice in democratic societies and that democracy is a necessary condition of rhetoric. Perhaps as part of the move firom rhetorica utens to rhetorica docens, rhetorical critics espouse an attitude of critical pluralism. In other words the virtues of tolerance and civility govern our scholarly practices, though perhaps a sense of decorum may inhibit us from going so far as to celebrate our differences.23 Through my discussion of disciplinarity and critical pluralism, I will argue that despite diversity in our critical methods, rhetorical criticism has not achieved "limitless variation." As Appadurai points out diversity is never "just plurality, or variety, or difference. Diversity is a particular organization of difference."24 My aim here is to consider the ways in which a diversity of methods is organized 21 Aijun Appadurai, "Diversity and Disciplinarity as Cultural Artifacts," Disciplinarity and Dissent in Cultural Studies, eds. Cary Nelson and Dilip Parameshweu: GaonkcU’ (New York: Routledge, 1996): 23.
22 Appadurai, 24.
23 For an insightful discussion of civility and tolerance in rhetorical criticism, see Laura Sells, "Toward a Feminist Critical Rhetoric: Subjectivity, Performance, and the Body in Feminist Public Address," diss.. University of South Florida, 1997.
24 Appadurai, 25.
12 in our discipline by considering two cases. First, I will turn to the discussions surrounding the publication of Phillip Wander's articles "The Ideological Turn in Rhetorical Criticism," and "The Third Persona." Both the articles themselves and the reactions to them are instructive in understanding how critical methods are positioned in relation to each other.25 Second, I will consider the ways in which the terms "rhetoric" and "rhetorical criticism" are deployed and positioned in Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science. Wander's essays, "The Ideological Turn in Modem Criticism" and "The Third Persona; An Ideological Turn in Rhetorical Theory," functioned as an intervention.26 Wander called for a turn away from rhetorical criticism that was 25 I have selected Wander's work because this example also enables me to comment specifically on how to approach "ideologiced criticism" or critiques of ideology in the context of rhetorical studies. There are numerous examples of debates that have taken place over the years that are instructive in terms of how the boundaries of rhetoric are policed and what are the implications. Examples include the Wingspread and Pheasant Run conferences, widely considered to be a landmark in the field. The conferences that resulted in the publication of The Prospect of Rhetoric took place in 1969. At that time rhetoric scholars, who traditionally cu-e committed to the eloquence and civility, were confronted with some very uncivil and uneloquent forms of protest, much of which was taking place on their own campuses. So at the time there was some serious reconsideration of the function and scope of rhetoric. See Black and Bitzer, eds.. The Prospects of Rhetoric, and on the ensuing controversies, the papers collected in Theresa Enos, et al., eds.. Making and Unmaking the Prospects For Rhetoric (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1997), particularly the pieces by Bitzer, "Rhetoric's Prospects: Past and Future," and Black, "The Prospect of Rhetoric: Twenty-Five Years Later." Also interesting was the exchange that followed the publication of Forbes Hill's analysis of Nixon's 1968 address on the Vietnam war. In his analysis, Flill expressed a preference for analysis of the formal properties of the speech, and that a politically motivated assessment of Nixon's speech was "not rhetoriccil criticism. ' This led to a heated exchange with Karlyn Campbell about the role of political activism in criticism. Wander discusses this exchange further in "The Ideological Turn in M odem Criticism," Central States Speech journal 34 (Spring 1983): 7. See Forbes I. Hill, "Conventional Wisdom — Traditional Form: The President's Message of November 3,1969," Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972): 373-386; Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, "Conventional Wisdom — Traditional Form: A Rejoinder," Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972): 451-454; and Forbes I. Hill, "Reply to Professor Campbell," Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972): 454-460. A more recent example is the uproar over the publication of "Sextexts" in Text and Performance Quarterly, a fictional auto-ethnography on gay pornography. Responses to this article did not take the form of polite rebuttals published in the journal — they took the form of vehement responses in National Communication Association publications such as CRTNET (the electronic list sponsored by NCA) emd letters to Spectra (NCA's monthly newsletter). Instead of engaging this article in terms of its critical and theoretical merits, many simply dismissed it on moral grounds, thus situating the article outside the scope of "proper" communication studies.
26 Phillip Wzmder, "The Ideological Turn;" "The Third Persona: An Ideological Turn in Rhetorical Theory," Central States Speech Journal 35 (1984): 197-216.
13 only interested in assessing the effectiveness of speeches towards the "ideological turn"; "Criticism takes an ideological turn when it recognizes the existence of powerful vested interests benefiting from and consistently urging policies and technology that threaten life on this planet, when it realizes that we
search for alternatives."27 I turn to W ander's work and some of the discussion that surrounded it because the case offers some instructive examples on the dangers of incorporation, or bringing disruptive elements "in line." Wander discusses the risk of incorporation in "The Ideological Turn." For example, in his "ideological view" of Burke, W ander notes that even though Burke's politics and writings were subversive, by the time Burkeanism had become integrated into speech and communication studies Burke's politics had lost some of its bite: In the field of speech, however, Burkeanism rarely carried with it the emancipatory sociopolitical critique that made it an intellectual force in the social sciences. Among speech and rhetorical critics, Burkeanism, refracted through a pentagonal prism, became an alternative to the prevailing but intellectually embarrassing schematic known as "neo- Aristotelianism."28
What I'd like to focus on here is the process through which politically motivated scholarship is rendered harmless. Ideological incorporation can work in two different ways: a threat to a particular order can be "trivialized, naturalized, domesticated. Here, difference is simply denied — Alternatively, the Other can be transformed into meaningless exotica, a spectacle, a clown. In this case the
difference is consigned to a spectacle beyond analysis."29 As Crowley has already pointed out, the second form of ideological incorporation was deployed in the responses to Wander's "Ideological Turn" article: through hierarchical
27 Wander, "The Ideological Turn," 18.
28 Wander, "The Ideological Turn," 6. For an interesting discussion of Kenneth Burke's political activism, see Michael Denning, "Culture and the Crisis: The Political and Intellectual Origins of Cultural Studies and the United States," N elson and Gaonkar 265-286.
29 Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979, New York: Routledge, 1989) 97.
14 dichotomies such as rhetoric and history, rhetoric and politics, impartiality and passion, "this discursive sleight of hand transforms essentialist rhetorical critics into philosophers at the same time as it characterizes ideological critics as 'mere' rhetoricians."30 Anyone who engaged in ideological criticism was no longer doing rhetoric, and thus ideological criticism was "consigned to a spectacle beyond analysis." Wander also talks about how critical pluralism — or a multiplicity of methods — functions in such a way that ideological criticism is situated outside the scope of "proper" rhetoric. Wander argues that since the apotheosis of m ethod, Techne has become an end in itself. It is no longer related to a product... what is now called 'criticism' is the result of an established order willing to tolerate work which is morally, socially and politically meaningless so long as it reproduces forms associated with technical reason. It is the product of a system which asks not why this subject is important, what is its emancipatory potential, but committed to technocratic solutions ... above all, what method or methods are going to be employed?
In other words, in rhetorical criticism there is "ideological pressure to reproduce the familiar." Perhaps in response to these conditions. Wander resists categorizing ideological criticism as either a method or a stance: ideological criticism is "little more than robust common sense — skepticism not as a way of life, but as a leavening making its way among high sounding ideals, innocence, and hype."32 At the time Wander's essays were published, the response to the disruptive potential of ideological criticism was to situate it outside the purview of rhetorical criticism. In the responses to Wander, prominent critics such as Allcm Megill, Lawrence Rosenfield, and Forbes Hill argue that biased ideological
30 Sharon Crowley, "Reflections on an Argument That Won't Go Away: Or, a Turn of the Ideological Screw," Quarterly Journal of Speech 78 (1992): 456.
31 Wander, "Third Persona," 204.
32 Wander, "The Ideological Turn," 1.
15 critidsm produces "misreadings" and "distortions."33 Crowley also offers insight into how critical pluralism functions in this fashion. She argues that critical pluralism produces "docile readers" and "some readers simply cannot become docile readers of some texts."34 Furthermore, "pluralism does not know how to account for readers who refuse this constitution of themselves, except by excluding them from the pluralist conversation because they do not speak the language."35
Despite Wander's assertion that ideological criticism is not a method as such, it appears that ideological criticism has become just another choice among many methodological choices. Such are the effects of critical pluralism, for critical pluralism produces discrete categories of methods. One of the implications of the creation of such categories is that any efforts to critique our own reading, writing and professional practices are muted. As Sells puts it, traveling under the guise of "healthy tolerance" or scholarly civility, the methodological pluralism of the field shuts down the self-reflexivity of inquiry. Paradigm debates, which interrogate the theories and politics of reading rhetorical texts, supposedly distract from the "real" work of doing rhetorical criticism. Such healthy tolerance reduces radical critique to just another methodological dish offered on the pluralist buffet.36
33 See the Special Reports: Responses to Wander, Central States Speech journal 34 (1983): 114-127, including essays by Megill, Rosenfield, Hill, and Karlyn Campbell; and in Central States Speech journal 35 (1984): 43-56, with essays by McGee, Francesconi, cmd Corcoran.
34 Crowley, 459.
35 Crowley, 460.
36 Sells, 21.
16 Critiques of ideology—in the form of an "ideological turn" or critical rhetoric, become "just another method" in rhetorical criticism .37 Finally, critical pluralism not only produces categories of methods, but also categories of critics. For example, in a recent essay on the role of the critic,38 Wamick identifies four roles of critics: the critic as artist, the critic as analyst, the critic as audience, and the critic as advocate. For purposes of my argument, it is not important to reiterate the distinctions she makes between each type of critic — suffice it to say that the difference between "the critic as advocate" and these other categories is that the "critic as advocate" is by definition politically motivated, while the others are not.39 Wamick is not the only one to make such a distinction. The difference between ideological critics and other critics, according to Crowley, is that "ideological critics ground their critical investigations with motivational warrants while traditional critics begin from a set of substantive warrants grounded in Enlightenment assumptions about the nature of inquiry."40 Now, I should point out that neither Crowley nor Wamick
37 To reinforce this assertion I would like to call attention to one of Wander's rhetorical strategies in "The Ideological Turn" and "The Third Persona." Wander discusses prominent critics — jmd one philosopher — in relation to some of the political struggles that were going on at the time they were engaged in scholarship. In other words. Wander provides an historical context for rhetorical criticism. Thus Wander situates Wichelns in relation to the Palmer raids, Burke in relation to his political activism and the McCarthy era, Forbes Hill in relation to Viet Nam, and Heidegger in relation to Nazi ideology. No wonder the responses to Wander were so angry — in effect Wander was saying that critics were obsessing about the technical aspects of speeches while the world was burning. And this about a discipline that by definition is concerned with politics. Nevertheless, Wander's rhetorical strategy raises an interesting issue: as students, we are socialized to read rhetorical criticism and theory for their contributions to the rhetorical tradition, not for their politics.
38 Barbara Wamick, "Leff in Context: What is the Critic's Role?" Quarterly Journal of Speech 78 (1992): 232-237.
39 I am not trying to imply that Wamick is the only rhetorical scholar who produces tliese categories, which, as I wiU discuss shortly, are problematic. What interests me more is that within our discipline, it is easy to produce such categories — the production of such categories is tciken for granted.
40 Crowley, 450.
17 lets the traditional critic off the hook — their characterizations of traditional critics make it clear that ideological critics are not the only ones who are politically motivated. However, as these categories circulate, the idea that all criticism is political drops away, and what remains is the idea that only ideological criticism is political. Since the publication of Wander's essays the critical rhetoric project (which is defined in terms of "critiques of freedom" and "critiques of domination") has become more or less comfortably situated within our discipline, as has feminist rhetorical studies. Or at least these two areas have achieved some institutional success in the form of divisions in the National Communication Association and a substantially sized community of scholars with similar interests. However, I would argue that disciplinary mechanisms similar to the ones I have just described are still at work, and do not always take the form of polite conversation in the pages of our journals. For example, in 1994 Carole Blair, Julie Brown, and Leslie Baxter published "Disciplining the Feminine," an essay that calls attention to the politics involved in the peer review process.4i Originally the article was submitted to another journal as a feminist critique of Hickson, Stacks and Ambary's report on "Active Prolific Female Scholars in Communication."42 In the first version of the article, the authors called into question the imposition of a male paradigm in Hickson, et al.'s evaluation of the productivity of prominent female scholars. Blair, Brown, and Baxter argue the Hickson, et al. report is the academic equivalent of a beauty pageant in which female communication scholars are put on display, measured, and rank ordered. When the article was rejected from the first journal, the 41 Ccurole Blair, Julie R. Brown, and Leslie A. Baxter, "Disciplining the Feminine," Quarterly Journal of Speech 80 (1994): 383-409.
42 Hickson, Mark, EH, Don W. Stacks, and Jonathem H Amsbary, "Active Prolific Female Scholars in Communication: An Analysis of Research Productivity, II." Communication Education 40 (1992): 350-356.
18 authors published a revised version of the article in the Quarterly Journal o f Speech that included a discussion about the peer review process as well as the original critique of the Hickson, et. al. report. According to Blair, Baxter and Brown the anonymous reviewers responded to their critique of Hickson et. al with ad feminam attacks, calling the authors '^unprofessional," "disrespectful," and "extremist." My own discussion about disciplinary politics is confined to a textual analysis of work published in books and journals, but it is worth keeping in mind that disciplinary politics are played out in scholarly practices and not just in texts. Also worth keeping in mind is Blair, Baxter, and Brown's reminder that doing feminist critique, which is inherently political, is often at odds with disciplinary standards of professionalism, civility, and tolerance. Finally, although such hostility towards feminist scholarship might come from a few individuals (or at least one hopes) there exists a set of disciplinary mechanisms that can be mobilized to shut down or mute feminist critiques. Hostility towards feminism and other politically motivated scholarship is not merely a question of individual bias. The point of this discussion about the marginalization of feminism and other politically motivated critique is not to suggest that critics involved in rhetoric of science have expressed hostility towards feminist critique. Rather, the point of the discussion about critical pluralism and processes of ideological incorporation is to demonstrate the range of disciplinary mechanisms that function to mute politically motivated criticism. Such criticism can be dismissed outright as "biased" or "unprofessional," or its political dimension can be more subtly muted. A second important point of this discussion is that our discipline tends to be generally resistant to politically motivated criticism. The examples I have cited here are meant to suggest a chronology of debates over ideological criticism—from Burke in the 1950s to W ander in the 1980s to Blair, Baxter and
19 Brown in the 1990s. Such are the exigencies faced by feminist and other "ideological" critics.
"Signature" Rhetorical Criticism and Strategic Consciousness The previous discussion was meant to provide a context for further discussion of the book Rhetorical Hermeneutics . In this section I turn to a more specific discussion of the effects of disciplinarity on critical practices. As I noted earlier, the absence of feminist and other politically motivated criticism in this book, and indeed in rhetoric of science generally, is quite striking. From the perspective of what could be characterized as "feminist science studies" the rhetoric of science project looks homogeneous in terms of its subject matter and myopic in terms of its perspective. Also seen from this perspective, the intervention I attempt here — to create a space for a feminist rhetoric of science — seems quite modest. In any case, at this point I return to the debates in the Rhetorical Hermejteutics book. This is not a summary — I could not do justice to all the contributor's exchanges about rhetoric of science cind the state of rhetorical criticism. Instead, I am reading what has been widely acknowledged as an important statement about rhetoric of science and rhetorical criticism for strategies for reconceptualizing rhetorical criticism along feminist Lines. The debates in Rhetorical Hermeneutics at times enable and at other times foreclose such reconceptualizations. To start 1 would like to return to Gaonkar's comment that "one can do away with the entire rhetorical lexicon and still write criticism that bears a rhetorical signature so long as one reads a given discourse (or rhetorical text) as a manifestation of the rhetor's strategic consciousness."43 There are two ideas here that I find intriguing. First, there is the idea of a "signature rhetorical criticism,"
43 Gaonkar, "The Idea," 51.
20 or the kind of academic writing that can be identified as rhetorical criticism without the presence of a particular terminology or method. Perhaps it is the idea of a "signature" rhetorical criticism that enables rhetoric scholars to identify and appropriate work as "rhetoric of science by another name" from other disciplines such as sociology or philosophy. In my view, the idea of a signature rhetorical criticism does not contradict the ideal of critical pluralism, but rather suggests that diversity (in this case a diversity of methods) involves a particular organization of difference. In other words, perhaps "signature" rhetorical criticism provides a point of reference against which other forms of criticism are evaluated. Instead of producing new and different methods of rhetorical criticism, the disciplinary mechanisms of our field have a tendency to encourage critics to keep reproducing the same (or risk being "consigned to a spectacle beyond analysis"). Elsewhere in the discussion, Gaonkar makes the claim that "signature rhetorical criticism and the emphasis on strategic consciousness is implicated in an "ideology of agency" or a view of the speaker as a seat of origin rather than a point of articulation, a view of strategy as identifiable under an intentional description, a view of discourse as constitutive of character, a view of audience situated simultaneously as "spectator" and "participant," and finally, a view of "ends" that binds speaker, strategy, discourse, and audience in a web or purposive actions.44
Here Gaonkar lists what are considered to be the basic elements of rhetorical criticism: speaker (or rhetor), discourse, and audience. In anthologies of rhetorical criticism that are meant to serve as textbooks for critics-in-training, one approach to explaining this area is to begin with a general discussion of these elements and proceed to further elaboration of particular methods and
44 Gaonkar, "The Idea," 32-33.
21 discussion of different ends of criticism.45 However, as Gaonkar points out, to assume strategic consciousness "deeply implicates" rhetorical criticism in modernism. What is often treated as a general set of descriptive terms turns out to be highly specific. As it turns out, rhetorical criticism is not grounded in a tradition that transcends time (i.e., the classical tradition) but instead is historically specific. A second implication of this claim is that the burden has shifted — instead of locating ideology in so-called ideological critics, ideology is now located in the most generic kind of criticism. "Signature" rhetorical criticism, described in terms of relationships between elements and not generally thought to promote any particular point of view, turns out to promote a highly specific and partial perspective. My reading of Gaonkar's essay is informed by a perspective that understands "ideology," "articulation," "point of origin" and "point of articulation" as embedded in a body of literature that concerns itself with relations of power. In "The Idea of Rhetoric in Rhetoric of Science," references to this body of literature are oblique, so at the very least I cannot read this essay assuming the strategic consciousness of the author.46 Nevertheless, this perspective is present enough that I can use Gaonkar's essay as a starting point to think through a reconceptualization of rhetoric of science, one that will produce feminist and radical critique. Interestingly, in the responses to Gaonkar, there is a tendency to use "point of articulation," "point of origin" and
45 See Foss; Brock, et al.; and Barry Brummett, Rhetoric in Popular Culture (New York: St. Martin's, 1994).
46 Gaonkar makes a more emphatic point in "Close Readings of the Third Kind: A Reply to My Critics," Gross and Keith 330-356. "CRTK [Close Readings of the Third Kind], like all readings, is caught up in in a dialectic between object and method. Its claim to proffer a cultural critique is rooted in the way it prefigures the objective field. CRTK engages the public text a a cultural artifact rather than as a manifestation of a rhetor's strategic consciousness. It seeks to map out the articulatory practices of a cultural conjuncture and not that of authorial cunning. — Hence, CRTK searches the public text not to ascertain the authorial signature, but to map out the condition of its existence, the mode of its dissemination, and the force of its articulation" (352). 22 "ideology" as descriptive terms rather than as theoretical terms. Interestingly, in some of the responses to Gaonkar there is a tendency to address the question of "ideology of agency" in terms of true or false, harmful or beneficial. Over the course of the conversation there is a tendency to equate "point of articulation" with "lack of agency." As Carolyn Miller puts it, the choice is between a "humanist ideology of agency" or a "postmodern ideology of ventriloquism."^^ This dichotomy is much too sharp—as I shall discuss in the next chapter, to treat a rhetor as a point of articulation is not to assume a lack of agency. I am not making an argument for authoritative definitions of terms such as ideology or articulation. Instead, I am arguing that resituating this as a theoretical discussion raises some important questions about the practice of rhetorical criticism and rhetoric of science. Next I will focus on some of the comments made about "strategic consciousness" and "ideology of agency" in order to raise some issues about rhetoric of science. Some of Gaonkar's respondents were not insulted by his claims about rhetorical criticism's modernist tendencies. Such responses took up a defense of agent-centered criticism and strategic consciousness. For example, both Campbell and Gross dismiss the idea of treating authors as points of articulation, Campbell on the grounds that the idea was "nonsensical," Gross on the grounds that the idea was "unrhetorical." For Campbell it is impossible to imagine a politics without strategic consciousness. Deny agency and the very idea of practical, political or ethical reason becomes a non sequitur. Deny community, with all its complex ties to discourse conventions, and what sense is there in someone trying to plan a political campaign, or crafting a new course proposal [say, "the Ideology
47 Carolyn R. Miller, "Classical Rhetoric without Nostalgia: A Response to Gaonkar," Gross and Keith 159.
23 of Agency 101"] that will get through departmental review, let alone pass muster with the college curriculum committee?48
Although I share Campbell's commitment to community and politics, I think the reasoning here is circular. The kind of of politics Campbell refers to here is defined in terms of strategic consciousness and is agent-centered. If this is the basis of the definition, then of course politics without strategic consciousness would be nonsensical. This and other defenses of agent-centered criticism and strategic consciousness raise the question: how deeply invested is our field in an ideology of agency? What is the relationship between rhetoric and politics, and what does this have to do with science? Gross' defense of strategic consciousness is carried out via a criticism of Bruno Latour: "I reject explanations like Latour's in Science in Action because they are so unrhetorical as to refuse to distinguish as a matter of principle between human actors and their instruments."49 However, Gross' critique of Latour raises an importemt question: whose agency is being defended in these debates? An important point Latour makes in his work is that many people (and instruments and non-human actors) are involved in the making of science. Latour's perspective, which has been appropriated by some as rhetorical, assumes persuasion to be at work in the process of making science. However, because so many people are involved in the making of science it would be impossible to assume that the production of scientific knowledge springs from the head of a scientist who functions as a point of origin. Furthermore Latour's work focuses on science-in-the-making in an everyday sense. The goal of persuasion is not to convince a skeptical scientific community to accept
John Angus Campbell, "Strategic Reading: Rhetoric, Intention, and Interpretation," Gross and Keith 122.
49 Alan G. Gross, "What if We're Not Producing Knowledge? Critical Reflections on the Rhetorical Criticism of Science," Gross emd Keith 145. See Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987).
24 revolutionary ideas, but to solicit the participation of various people in scientific projects. There are no "rhetorical superstars" in Science in Action. Gross' critique of Latour is presented in almost an offhand manner. But the spirited defense of agent-centered criticism and strategic consciousness, read against Latour, does raise some important questions. There is work in rhetoric of science that focuses on "case studies" and the everyday production of scientific knowledge. However, there is a tendency in this subarea to reproduce the "great speaker" paradigm that comes from the study of public address, which is a point I shall return to later. Politics aside, the emphasis on scientists as agents raises the question of how exactly agent-centered criticism shapes the ways in which rhetoric of science scholars imagine the production of scientific knowledge. I have already addressed the first question to some extent. For me, the discussion about agent-centered criticism raises some serious questions about "signature" rhetorical criticism's view of politics and science. In this final point I would like to return to an exchange about the uses of the classical tradition. In her reply to Gaonkar, Miller doubts whether classical rhetoric can promote any particular ideology since the ideology of agency is more a product of modernism (an historically specific phenomenon) and the classical tradition is hardly monolithic.50 Leff makes a similar argument, pointing out that "the appropriation of classical rhetoric by modem critics was not the result of an unmediated encounter with the classical sources."5i Leff attributes the lack of "critical energy" in rhetorical criticism to modernist tendencies rather than to the limitations of the classical tradition and further proposes some intriguing possibilities for rethinking rhetorical criticism. For example he reminds us that the tendency to think of rhetoric as a lexicon is a contemporary one and classical 50 Miller, 156-171.
51 Michael Leff, "The Idea of Rhetoric as Interpretive Practice: A Humanist's Response to Gaonkar," Gross cind Keith 96.
25 rhetoric involved a "larger and more flexible program of language studies."52 He also brings up the idea of reviving the practice of imitatio, a practice that has been neglected (as he suggests) because of during the Romantic period "imitation" acquired the pejorative cormotation of mechanistic thinking. In contrast, "within the larger program of rhetorical education, imitatio allowed interpretation to play a vital role in the formation of rhetorical judgment."53 It seems that Leff is advocating a renewed interest in imitatio in the interest of transforming a "practical art" into critical practice. Imitatio brings back idea of a better critical judgment, one in which neither the rhetorical lexicon or the critical object has primacy over the critic. Both Leff and Miller's commentary interests me because of its potentially destabilizing effect. If rhetorical critics are self reflexive about the modernist overlay on a classical tradition and furthermore think of this classical tradition as multivocal rather than univocal, we are not so heavily indebted to a fictional rhetorical tradition that must be preserved and defended. Although the "classical tradition" is not univocal, neither is it especially diverse in terms of the perspectives it represents. Whenever I read about the uses of the rhetorical tradition, this reading is informed by feminist critiques of rhetorical scholarship that call attention to the ways in which rhetorical theories and the practice of rhetorical criticism produces gendered subject positions. If we are going to turn to the past we should proceed with caution.
Conclusion and Project Overview This chapter had two related goals. The first goal was to contribute to a conversation within my discipline about the state of rhetorical criticism within
52 Leff, "The Idea," 96.
53 Leff, "The Idea," 97.
26 the rhetoric of science project. The second goal was to work towards creating a space for feminist and other forms of political criticism within the rhetoric of science project. Noting an absence of feminist perspectives in rhetoric of science, I set out to determine why this is the case. I argued that out discipline has a tendency to marginalize politically motivated criticism through an attitude of critical pluralism, a process of ideological incorporation, and by reinforcing the centrality of a "signature" rhetorical criticism that precludes ideology critique. Addressing this problem is not merely a question of identifying a gap in the research and then formulating a method or area of study that would fill the gap, given a disciplinary politics that marginalizes feminist and other politically motivated criticism. Introducing feminist and other politically motivated criticism requires an understanding of the exigencies involved, the better to fashion a more effective response to the situation. The debates on rhetoric of science, contextualized in terms of disciplinary politics, raises questions for those of us who wish to create a space for feminist and other politically motivated criticism. First, the emergence of a distinctive rhetoric of science project involved significant shifts that shaped its defining characteristics. While rhetoric of inquiry was defined in terms of self-reflexivity about knowledge production and interdisciplinary alliances, rhetoric of science seems to be defined in terms of a topic area with science as its object of study. This is within the context of a discipline that from a traditionalist perspective defines rhetoric in terms of its scope. Although from withm this perspective science lies outside tlie scope of rhetoric, the rearticulation of object and method in rhetorical criticism may have created a space for rhetoric of science because after rhetorical criticism's recent turn to interpretation, virtually any object or text can be read as rhetorical. However, given the historical narratives about our discipline in which rhetoric is
27 marginalized, first by philosophy and then by science, one could raise questions about disciplinary motivations for a rhetoric of science project. To make the claim that rhetoric is trying to achieve hegemony over science may be an overstatement, but at the very least we ought to think through how we define "object" in rhetorical criticism. Thinking of rhetoric and science in terms of scope does suggest the possibility of a project motivated in part by territorial disputes, which is neither interesting nor productive. The rearticulation of object and method should have created space for feminist and other politically motivated criticism. As the critical object became so complex, only a diversity of methods could do justice to it. An effect of this rearticulation is an attitude of critical pluralism, which not only implies a diversity of methods but also a set of democratic values. Ironically, an attitude of critical pluralism can be mobilized to marginalize politically motivated criticism that doesn't meet scholarly standards of professionalism, tolerance, and civility. Controversies about so-called "ideological criticism" demonstrate the ways in which such criticism is either muted or consigned outside the scope of "proper" rhetorical criticism. This raises the question: what is "proper" rhetorical criticism? Gaonkar suggests there is a "signature" rhetorical criticism that is identifiably rhetorical even in the absence of a rhetorical lexicon. However, it turns out that "signature" rhetorical criticism, generally defined in terms of key elements and the relationships between them, is deeply implicated in modernism and operates from a partial perspective. "Signature" rhetorical criticism is shaped by an "ideology of agency" that assumes the rhetor's strategic consciousness. The responses from Campbell and Gross suggest that strategic consciousness not only shapes relationships between elements of rhetorical criticism, but also produces a "rhetorical" view of politics and science. And
28 again, this raises the question of how rhetorical critics define their objects of study. Leff's and Miller's comments on the uses of classical rhetoric are intriguing for they indicate that problems in rhetorical criticism arise not from the classical tradition itself but from our modernist appropriations of the tradition. Leff further suggests some interesting possibilities for producing better and richer criticism via a disarticulation of modernist perspectives and the classical tradition. His discussion of imitatio is interesting, therefore, because it suggests a view of criticism that privileges neither method nor object but the judgment of a critic who is trained in "a larger and more flexible program of language studies ."54 a reconsideration of imitatio m ay address the problem of unexciting and mechanistic rhetorical criticism; however, 1 would add that no encounter with the classical tradition in rhetoric is unmediated, and one should proceed with caution, especially in light of a tradition that tends to produce masculine subject positions for both rhetors and critics. Perhaps the answer is not merely to turn back.55 Nevertheless, Leff's and Miller's comments suggest interesting possibilities for rethinking rhetorical criticism. At the very least, their essays raise the question: W hat modes of criticism would be enabled by a disarticulation from strategic consciousness and ideologies of agency? In the next chapter I discuss the possibility of reorienting rhetorical criticism by grounding it in a politics of articulation.
54 Leff, "The Idea," 96.
55 Regarding the uses of, and perpetual returns to, classical rhetoric, the oft-quoted passage from Marx seems here à propos: "The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living." But it is perhaps what follows that is even more pertinent: "And just when they seem engaged in revolutionizing themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and this borrowed language." The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York: International, 1963) 15. Thcinks to Tom Schumacher for sharing w ith me the humor in this.
29 The purpose of Chapter 2 of this project is to find, an approach to rhetorical criticism that is motivated by a desire to participate in conversations within my discipline and a commitment to feminist politics and academic work. In this chapter I outline an approach to criticism grounded in a politics of articulation. Articulation addresses politics, theory, method, and strategy. In this chapter, I discuss the ways in which a politics of articulation provides a way to think through a problem raised in feminist politics, biological determinism. Theory and method in articulation enables me to develop an approach to criticism that is able to account for the production of gender in science as well as transform key elements in rhetorical criticism and the relationships between them. Articulation enables me to fulfill the dual responsibility of academic feminists by enabling me to both address problems in feminist politics and discuss methodological issues within my own discipline. In the second half of the dissertation I mobilize the critical approach outlined in chapter 2 to look at the work of three evolutionary biologists whose work focuses on evolution, reproduction and sexuality. My analysis does not merely focus on identifying representations of gender and their implications, but also on the ways in which they are produced. I am especially interested in what are the conditions that make possible particular representations of gender, and what conditions are necessary to reconceptualize gender. In other words, I am interested in the ways in which discursive elements cohere to produce represenations of gender and in the ways in which dominant representations are contested and negotiated. In Chapter 3 I examine the work of Margie Profet, an evolutionary biologist who published a controversial article outlining a new theory of menstruation. The article was controversial not only for the theory it proposed, but for its unconventional representations of the female body. While medical
30 and popular discourses represent the menstruating body as hysterical and out of control, Profet's theory represents the menstruating body as purposeful and efficient. In this chapter I examine closely the rearticulations of metaphor, narratives and discourses that made this reconceptualization of the female body possible. I also conclude that these images were not so much the product of a maverick scientist's thinking but of the discourse of evolutionary biology. In Chapter 4 1 elaborate on some of the themes I address in Chapter 3. This chapter focuses on the work of Robin Baker, another evolutionary biologist who has popularized his work but who is not perceived to be controversial. Working within the same narrative and metaphoric framework as Profet, Baker produces similar representations of both male and female bodies. My analysis of this elaborate and extended narrative, reinforces a claim I made in the previous chapter: Profet's representations of the female body in her theory of menstruation were not the product of maverick thinking, but the product of everyday thinking in evolutionary biology. Although Baker minimizes sexual difference, this text presents its own set of problems. In my analysis I also discuss the implications of Baker's optimization of the body as well as the book's tendency to reinforce the centrality of procreative heterosexuality. The subsequent chapter represents a significant shift both in terms of my approach to criticism as well as its representations of the body, gender and sexuality. In Chapter 5 1 turn to the work of Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, proponents of a new biology grounded in symbiosis rather than evolution, cooperation rather than competition, and a system of classification that ousts human beings from the center and endpoint of traditional evolutionary narratives. The paradigm shift from neo-Darwinianism to the new biology makes possible a "mutated" evolutionary narrative that calls into question the idea of the individual and radically reconceptualizes gender.
31 In Chapter 6 1 review the framework that structures this project, and reflect on the themes that emerge over the course of five chapters. In this chapter I address the implications of feminist interventions in rhetoric of science and in evolutionary biology.
32 CHAPTER 2
A RHETORIC OF LAUGHTER: RHETORICAL CRITICISM AND THE POLTHCS OF ARHCULAHON
Introduction The previous chapter was a description of a rhetorical situation and its exigences. The absence of feminism in rhetoric of science is striking; there is very little published work in this subarea on women in the sciences or on science' production of sexual difference. My response to this absence is shaped by a desire to participate in conversations within my discipline and a commitment to feminist politics and academic work. As part of my effort to contribute to recent conversations about rhetoric of science and rhetorical criticism I first took into consideration the exigences faced by feminist rhetorical critics. A context for rhetoric of science is a discipline that espouses critical pluralism but creates ideological pressure to reproduce the familiar. Our diversity of methods is organized in a way that marginalizes feminist and other politically motivated criticism. At the center is an approach to criticism that turns out to operate from a partial perspective. "Signature criticism" shapes relationships between some basic elements of criticism — speaker, text, context and audience — and is grounded in strategic consciousness. Furthermore, politically motivated or so- called ideological criticism is tolerated in the name of critical pluralism but in moments of crisis is relegated outside the scope of "proper" rhetorical criticism. In the alternative its political dimension is muted.
33 In short, feminist critics face a dilemma: if we produce "proper" rhetorical criticism we are constrained. On the other hand, there is the risk of producing feminist work that is dismissed on the grounds that it violates disciplinary standards of professionalism and civility. My own approach to rhetorical criticism reflects ambivalence about our critical practices and about rhetoric generally. The idea of rhetoric as an art of exercising judgment followed by action is appealing. 1 also feel indebted to rhetorical criticism because it has made me a more sensitive reader and my socialization as a critic has shaped me. in ways of which 1 probably am not aware. In part, my reason for negotiating rhetorical criticism rather than rejecting it entirely is motivated by an appreciation for my own discipline. At the same time the negotiation process encourages self-reflexivity about what may have become internalized disciplinary practices. What I propose is a rhetorical criticism that is grounded in a politics of articulation. As 1 shall explain in this chapter, criticism grounded in a politics of articulation is able to address science's production of sexual difference. Rhetorical criticism grounded in a politics of articulation also has a transformative effect on some of the key elements of rhetorical criticism and the relationships between them. A reconceptualization of key elements in rhetorical criticism is a way of responding to some of the issues raised in the rhetoric of science debates. First 1 will discuss w hat is "politics of articulation," and then turn to a discussion of key elements of criticism: critical object, author and critic.
Theories of Articulation At this point I return to the rhetoric of science debates, in which the issue of whether rhetors are "points of origin" or "points of articulation" was so hotly contested. 1 would argue that the absences in this debate were significant, even more so than what was actually said. Respondents to Gaonkar tended to talk
34 about "points of articulation," "points of origin," and "ideology" as if th^ey were descriptive terms rather than terminology that is embedded in a particular body of literature. In other words, I found the use of these terms in the rhetordc of science debates to be reductive. Articulation is not just a descriptive term , but works at the level of the theoretical, the epistemological, the political, anid the strategic. First and foremost, theories of articulation involve a political perspective and a way of "foregrounding the structure and play of pow er that entail in relations of domination and subordination. Strategically, articulation provides a mechanism for shaping intervention within a particular sociad. formation, conjuncture or context."56 It is important to keep in mind tha*t the development of theories of articulation was itself an intervention, an effcort to correct reductionist or essentialist perspectives on the problem of ideology in Marxist thought.57 To be sure, theories of articulation offer insights in methodology; as I shall explain later, articulation transforms the practice of rhetorical criticism. But as Ian Angus explains, politics and methodology are tightly linked in theories of articulation: In articulation theory the significance of the realm of contingent hegemonic relations is radically reinterpreted so as to undermine fthe background of the logic of historical development against which it* emerged. A figure/ground shift has taken place: articulation thecwry is the form that hegemony takes when it has closed to become the thematic concern against a presupposed background of historical logic and has itself become the background against which any historical figures emerge ... As developed later, this figure/ground shift is not only a necessary condition of the emergence of the concept of articulation, but also : needs to ______be understood as a key com ponent of the concept itself.58 56 Jennifer Daryl Slack, "The Theory and Method of Articulation in Cultural Studies," S^tiiart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, eds. David Morley cind Kuan-Hsing Chen (New Yo*rk: Routledge, 1996) 112.
57 See Stuart Hall, "Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominzmce." Black B ritish Cultural Studies, eds. Houston A. Baker, Jr., Manthia Diawara, and Ruth H. Lindeborg (Chicago; U of Chicago P, 1996) 16-60; and Ian Angus, "The Politics of Conunon Sense: Articulatiaon Theory and Critical Conununicadon Studies," Communication Yearbook 15 (1992): 535-570.
58 Angus, "The Politics of Common Sense," 537.
35 Given my earlier discussion about processes of ideological incorporation in the practice of rhetorical criticism, I believe it is significant that articulation has been stripped of its politics in the rhetoric of science debates. As I discussed in the previous chapter, our discipline has a tendency to mute politically motivated criticism. This is not speculation about the strategic consciousness of the participants; I think of it more in terms of ideological pressure to reproduce the familiar. My own project is to create a space for politically motivated criticism in rhetoric of science, in this case feminist criticism. First I will discuss articulation in terms of its politics, then in terms of methodology.
The starting point for theorizing articulation is the problem of i d e o l o g y .59 In this context, ideology is not merely a collection of ideas, or a worldview, or a 'T?iased" political orientation. Ideology consists of "the mental frameworks — the languages, concepts, categories, imageries of thought, and the systems of representation — which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, define, figure out and render intelligible the way society w o r k s . "60 Ideology is not the product of our individualized strategic consciousness, but consists of socially produced ideas and practices that "come to dominate the social thinking of a historical bloc, in Gramsci's sense, and thus helps to unite such a block from the inside, and maintain it dominance and leadership over society as a w h o l e . " 6 t There are three important chacteristics of ideology: First, ideologies do not consist of isolated and separate concepts, but in the articulation of different elements into a distinctive set or chain of meanings ... Second, ideological statements are made by individuals, but ideologies are not the product of individual consciousness or intention. Rather we formulate our intentions within ideology. They pre-date
59 Stuart Hall, "The Problem of Ideology: Marxism Without Guarantees," Morley and Chen 26.
60 Hall, "The Problem," 26.
61 Hall, "The Problem," 26
36 individuals, and form part of the determinate social formations and conditions in which individuals are bom ... Third, ideologies "work" by constructing for their subjects (individual and collective) positions of identification and knowledge which allow them to utter ideological truths as if they were authentic authors .62
The problem of ideology, as Hall explains, is to "give an account of how these social ideas arise," and to explain how they do their work. Ideas and practices achieve their "ideological moment" when they work unconsciously and are taken completely taken for granted. In other words, ideas function ideologically when they become "common sense" and appear to be natural and transparent. The problem of ideology itself was not raised in articulation theory, but rather led to its development. Articulation examines the ways in which ideological elements cohere and are expressed through language. As Hall explains, the word "articulation" has a double meaning: to "utter, to speak forth, to be articulate," as well as suggesting linkages or connections. In a widely quoted passage. Hall further explains how articulations work: An articulation is the form of the connection that can make a unity of two different elements, under certain conditions. It is a linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute and essential for all time ... so the so- called "unity" of discourse is really the articulation of different, distinct elements, under certain conditions which can be rearticulated in different ways because they have no necessary "belongingness. "63
In short, while ideology operates with the appearance of a seamless unity, articulation involves an investigation into the linkages and connections that make up the unity. Through articulation one can investigate the making of common sense. As was discussed in the rhetoric of science debates, rhetorical criticism that imagines rhetors as "points of articulation" shifts towards intertextual
62 Stuart Hall, "The Whites of their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media," Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text Reader, eds. Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995) 19.
63 Lawrence Grossberg, ed., "On Postmodernism and Articulation: An Interview with Stuart Hall," Morley and Chen 141.
37 readings and contexts rather than strategic consciousness. In other areas within the communication discipline, the introduction of articulation has had this very effect; as Grossberg has noted, theories of articulation have transformed communication from a study of models to a study of contexts.64 However, shifting the focus towards contexts is nothing new in rhetorical criticism. As Jasinski points out, there are already prominent critics such as Lucas, Campbell and Black who are advocates of carefully contextualized readings of texts. Jasinski presents a careful explication of the ways in which rhetorical criticism imagines the relationship between text and context, and makes the point that "while Campbell and Lucas remain committed to instrumentalism, they also destabilize some of its dominant assumptions."65 By reading texts within their "cultural grammar," critics such as Lucas and Campbell produce "thick" criticism (contrary to Gaonkar's concerns about the "thinness" of rhetoric). However, Jasinski's discussion does not address the problem of ideology and a politics of articulation. Grounding rhetorical criticism in a politics of articulation creates further possibilities for transforming the practice of rhetorical criticism.
A Rhetoric of Laughter Anne Makus points out that the critic's attention to ideology and common sense shifts the focus in rhetoric from an art of discovering and arguing from common ground to analysis of the construction of consciousness that controls discourse. That is, a shift is made from how the rhetor may discover common grounds with the audience from which to build a case
64 Lawrence Grossberg, "Cultural Studies and/in New Worlds," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10 (1993); 1-22.
65 James Jasinski, "Instrumentalism, Contextualism, and Interpretation in Rhetorical Criticism," Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science, eds. Alan G. Gross and William M. Keith (Albany: SUNY P, 1997) 212.
38 to observation of the controlling influence of common ground as common sense reflecting consciousness as it limits possibilities for discourse.66
In other words, a rhetoric grounded in a politics of articulation involves more than a shift towards carefully contextualized readings. Articulation relocates rhetorical criticism at a different point in rhetorical processes. The emphasis here is not on an inventional process during which rhetors produce arguments grounded in commonly held opinions, or topoi, but on the making of common sense or commonly held opinions. Everyone who has read Artistotle's Rhetoric has learned what is a "topic" but as it turns out the term is "notoriously am biguous."67 Leff offers this definition: "Topics are resources for constructing arguments, and an argument is a series of propositions offered as reasons to support a conclusion about a doubtful is s u e ." 6 8 Topics can be readymade bits of discourse with persuasive impact or resonance that can be inserted into speeches and other forms of rhetoric, or topics can be commonly accepted patterns of inferences. The effectiveness of a topic is dependent on its status as common sense, so topical premises are unstable and sometimes contradictory.69 For an understanding of the function of topics, an analogy from Bruno Latour's Science in Action is helpful. The w ord black box is used by cyberneticians whenever a piece of machinery or set of commands is too complex. In its place they draw a little box about which they need to know nothing but its input and its output... That is, no matter how controversial their history, how complex their inner workings, how large the commercial or academic
66 Anne Makus, "Stuart Hall's Theory of Ideology: A Frame for Rhetorical Criticism," Western Journal of Speech Communication 54 (1990): 499.
67 Michael Leff, "Topical Invention and Metaphoric Interaction," Southern Speech Communication Journal 48 (Spring 1983) 220.
68 Leff, "Topical Invention," 220.
69 Leff, "Topical Invention," 222.
39 networks that hold them in place, only their input and their output count.70
For the rhetor who is involved in producing arguments, a commonplace functions like a black box; so long as it does its work in the process of constructing persuasive arguments, its history and complex inner workings is not taken into consideration. From the perspective of a politics of articulation, criticism is an act of disassembling the black box in order to understand its inner workings and how it was made. As Dorma Haraway might say, criticism grounded in articulation is a "rhetoric of laughter" rather than a rhetoric of conviction. Haraway introduces the notion of a rhetoric of laughter in a section of Primate Visions that chronicles the work of feminist primatologists. The section opens with a quotation from Umberto Eco's novel The Name of The Rose in w hich a medieval librarian tries to prevent the discovery of a lost book of Aristotle's Rhetoric, on laughter. According to the librarian, setting this book loose on the world would have dire consequences:
If the rhetoric of conviction were replaced by a rhetoric of mockery, if the topics of the patient construction of the images of redemption were to be replaced by (he topics of the impatient dismantling and upsetting of every holy and venerable image—on, on that day, even you, William and all your knowledge, would be swept awayl^i
As Haraway further explains, while the librarian believes laughter is the devil's work, William believes that "laughter was an indispensible tool in the pursuit of understanding." For feminists, both critics and scientists, an attitude of skepticism and irony is helpful in the work of making interv^entions in one's own
70 Latour, 2-3.
71 Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, trans. William Weaver (New York; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980) 476, qtd. in Donna Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modem Science (New York: Routledge, 1989) 279.
40 field. In this context, laughter is not derisive, but "a form of interrogation and invitation to find the flaw in an apparent natural truth."72 An important commonplace that is in need of dismantling (and reconstruction) is nature. Nature, commonly thought to be located outside the scope of rhetoric, is a commonplace, a topos: So, nature is not a physical place to which one can go, nor a treasure to fence in or bank, nor an essence to be saved or violated. Nature is not a text to be read in the codes of mathematics and biomedicine. It is not the "other" who offers origin, replenishment and service. Neither mother, nurse, lover nor slave, nature is not matrix, resource, mirror, nor tool for the reproduction of that odd, ethnocentric, phallogocentric putatively universal being called Man. Nor for his euphemistically named surrogate, "the human" ... Nature is, however, a topos, a place in the sense of a rhetorician's place or topic for consideration of human themes ... In this sense, nature is the place to rebuild public c u lt u r e .7 3
Rhetorical criticism grounded in a politics of articulation focuses on the process through which commonsensical ideas are made. In the context of the rhetoric of science project, a feminist rhetorical criticism focuses generally on "the themes of race, sexuality, gender, nation, family and class [which] have been written on the body of nature in western life science since the eighteenth century."74 In the following section I will discuss how this focus requires a reconceptualization of the critical object and discuss more specifically a feminist rhetorical criticism that addresses the problem of nature, biology and the production of sexual difference.
72 Haraway, Primate Visions, 279.
73 Donna Haraway, "Otherworldly Conversations, Terran Topics, Local Terms," Biopolitics: A Feminist find Ecological Reader on Biotechnology, eds. Vanemda Shiva and Ingurm Moser (London: Zed Books, 1995) 70.
74 Haraway, Primate Visions, 1.
41 The Critical Object One could argue that identifying the critical object has become much more complicated since the publication of Black's Rhetorical Criticism and the subsequent rearticulation of object and method. Before this took place, identifying the critical object was fairly straightforward: rhetorical critics studied speeches. I would add that even then the identifying characteristics of the critical object were not completely self-evident, as critics did discuss the correspondence between "rhetoric" and "speeches." As rhetorical criticism developed, the study of speeches never disappeared entirely; however, as McGee points out (citing Gronbeck) after the reorientation of criticism "'public address' has clearly dissolved, being no longer a discrete object of study nor a necessary ground for critical judgment."75 Gaonkar argues that the "oratorical text" has been decentered. "The term oratorical was gradually pushed into the margins by its global cousin, 'rhetorical.' Similarly, in characterizations of the object domain phrases such as 'public discourse,' 'public argumentation,' and 'political rhetoric,' came to replace the dowdy locution, 'public address.'"76 The new terminology used to describe the object of rhetorical criticism suggests that this decentering process not only involved "oratory" but also "texts." The idea that texts are the object of rhetorical criticism has proved to be remarkably durable. For example after Black, there emerged in rhetorical criticism movement studies and genre studies, both of which de-emphasized the study of singular texts. As Leff explains, genre studies focus on "the stylistic and argumentative features common to a body of texts," while movement studies "stress systemic regularities, grouping discursive practices into phases and assimilating single
75 Michael Calvin McGee, "Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture," Western Journal of Speech Communication 54 (1990): 275.
76 Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, "Object and Method in Rhetorical Criticism: From Wichelns to Leff and McGee," Western Journal of Speech Communication 54 (1990): 299.
42 texts into the composite structures of the movement itself ."77 But as Leff adds in a footnote, even genre critics such as Karlyn Kohrs Campbell return to close
readings of singular texts7 8 With the advent of critical rhetoric (or ideological criticism, whichever you wish to call it) the text may have fragmented, but still remained as the preferred object of criticism. Leff wrote his essay "Things Made by Words" in response to debates about critical rhetoric and textual criticism. Perhaps because he aligns himself with textual criticism, more specifically "close reading," he has a tendency to keep pulling the text back to the center of rhetorical criticism. In the final sentence of the essay, he asserts that the "one activity shared in common by all other interpretive projects [is] the rhetorical reading of texts."79 The essay is his attempt to negotiate the fundcunentally opposed views of textual criticism and critical rhetoric while at the same time preserving room for both projects, as he puts it, in "friendly competition."80 But as Leff also suggests, close readings and ideology critique need not be entirely incompatible. Close reading focuses on single texts and reads them as exemplars of rhetorical artistry. A close reading focuses on "an unfolding sequence of arguments, ideas, images and figures
which interact through the text and gradually build a structure of meaning." 8i As most scientific writing is not eloquent, it would be constraining to share the
77 Michael Leff, "Things Made by Words: Reflections on Textual Criticism," Quarterly/ Journal of Speech 78 (1992): 223-231.
78 As Celeste Condit dryly notes in a discussion about reading single texts versus multiple texts, "close readers of multiple texts would end up doing the same thing as readers of single texts, only more of it." Celeste Condit, "Rhetorical Criticism and Audience: The Extremes of Leff and McGee," Western Journal of Speech Communication 54 (1990): 331.
79 Leff, "Things," 230.
80 Leff, "Things," 231.
81 Michael Leff and Andrew Sachs, "Words Most Like Things: Iconicity and tlie Rhetorical Text, Western Journal of Speech Communication 54 (1990): 256.
43 the textual critic's commitment to reading scientific texts as exemplars of rhetorical artistry, though one might read them in terms of their internal dynamics. At the end of his discussion on close readings versus critical rhetoric, Leff offers an interesting proposal: rather than beginning with texts, critics should begin with controversies. With this starting point, "texts do not represent the controversy through schematic reduction but through synecdoche, each text as a whole standing for one of the positions in the debate, and the ensemble of paradigm texts constituting an embodied representation of the entire controversy."82 Interesting as this idea is, it requires some modification: instead of beginning with controversy, the starting point for criticism is the "problem of ideology." "Controversy," with its connotations of equally situated participants exercising their strategic consciousness in an effort to persuade each other, is replaced with "the problem of ideology," or giving an account of how social ideas arise and "grip the minds of the masses" in a context in which ideas are negotiated and struggled over.83 In an early article proposing a rhetoric of science project Wander provides a similar rationale. In the introduction he makes the following declaration: "Burdened by the split between science and the humanities and caught up in the mystique of modem science with its guarantee of knowledge and power and promise for the future, the rhetorical critic has been slow to treat this topic."84 Pointing out that we live in an increasingly technocratic society, Wzmder argues that critics ought to pay attention to science's considerable cultural influence. A second project Wander proposes is the examination of the ways in which scientists persuade each other. The
82 Leff, "Things," 229.
83 HaU, "The Problem," 27.
84 Wemder, "The Rhetoric of Science," 226.
44 starting point for a rhetoric of science project is not scientific texts, but the idea of influence and the idea that science "has gripped the minds of the masses." Perhaps this project could more accurately be characterized as a "feminist rhetoric of biology." My reason for focusing on biology is that "biology... is the great 'representing machine' of the late twentieth century."85 fa this culture and at this time, no one lives a life untouched by biology, either in terms of practices or in terms of its "mental frameworks — the languages, concepts, categories, imageries of thought, and the systems of representation." Although I am not convinced that rhetoric is trying to achieve hegemony over science, I am convinced that science (more specifically biology) has achieved hegemony over culture. From my point of view I am interested in the ways in which biology, a "highly narrative science" provides us with ways of making sense of the world. The texts I discuss in the latter half of the dissertation — popularizations of evolutionary biology — are of interest because their authors are called upon to explain human social behavior, or who we are, and how we came to be that way. In "Beyond Reductionism" Vananda Shiva raises the interesting question "which and whose biology wül shape the future for humans and other species on the planet ?"86
Biology exerts its influence in a number of ways, but the more specific problems that is of relevance to this project is biological determinism. My interest in the problem of biological determinism not only provides a rationale for looking at particular texts, but connects my project with academic feminism.
85 In her book-Iength interview with Donna Haraway, Thyrza Nichols Goodeve recalls "In a seminar I took with Stephen Heath while in the History of Consciousness Program, he spoke about literature as the great representing machine of the nineteenth century, and film as the great representing machine of the twentieth century. Biology, woven and and through information technologies and systems, along with information technology , is one of the "great representing machines" of the late twentieth century." See Donna J. Haraway, How Like a Leaf: An Intervieio with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve (N ew York: Routledge, 2000), 26.
86 Vananda Shiva, "Epilogue: Beyond Reductionism," Shiva and Moser 267.
45 As feminist biologist Ruth Hubbard explains, biological determinism is a "form of reductionism in that it explains the behaviors and characteristics of soocieties in terms of biology." She goes on to explain that such explanations have b>een used for "the obvious differences in men's and women's access to social, ecomomic and political power. Among these were Darwin's descriptions of the effects of sexual selection on the sexual behaviors of females and males."87 As Htibbard
87 Ruth Hubbard, "Human Nature," Shiva and Moser,28. The problem of biological dieterminism does not only involve theories of sexual selection and sexual difference. For example there are also biological conceptions of race, which "have greatly receded in importance, thougfti have by no means wholly disappeared" (Hall, "Race," 18). Evelynn Hammonds argues that contrary to those who believe that race has disappeared as a biological category, "the notion of raece — both as social and scientific concept — is still deeply embedded in morphology, but it is the meaning given to morphological differences that has been transformed. Race ... has been reinsscribed in the new computer technology of 'morphing' and, as such, separated from its previous antecedents in the history of and-miscegenation, and racial oppression." Evelynn Haoimonds, "New Technologies of Race," Processed Lives: Gender and Technology in Everyday Life, eels. Jennifer Terry and Melodie Calvert (New York: Routledge, 1997) 109. Furthermore, scientific explanations of race have been displaced into studies of "deviance" or "criminality." .An example of this can be found in of all places, a speech. In 1992, Frederick Goodwin delivered "Conduct Disorder as a Precursor to Adult Violence and Substance Abuse: Can the Progression be Hedted?" to the American Psychiatric Association Aimual Convention in 1992. A ddressing the problem of violence in society, Goodwin suggested that a way to prevent juvenile criminzdity would be to intervene early and to identify chUdren who exhibited a propensity to become criminals, with pcudicular focus on chddren "known to be at high risk like low social cUass, living in high-impact urban areas." There were no explicit references to race in this speech, tihough Goodwin used language that was racially coded. The resulting controversy led to Goodwin's resignation as president of the APA. I learned of this example in Jenidfer Terry's seminar on Body Politics in Spring 1993. I should add that it was not untd much later that I finalljv understood the point of the example, ordy after I developed a particular awareness and vocabulary. Another point about biological determinism and race: as scholars such as Haraway, Londa Schiebinger, and Nancy Stepan show, race and gender are not discrete categories but are linked together in the making of science and biodetermiidstic theories. This point has tt>een addressed often in feminist writing but is worth reiterating. For example, in her article on "Race and Gender: The Role of Analogy in Science," Stepan maps out how "though em intertrwined and overlapping series of analogies, involving often quite complex comparisons, identifications, cross references and evoked associations, a variety of 'differences'—physical and psychical, class eind national have brought together a biosocial science of human variation" in the nineteenth century science of crardometry. "By analogy the so-called lower races, women, the sexually dewiate, the criminal, the urban poor, and the insane were in one way or another constructed as biological races apart' whose differences from the white male, and likenesses to each other, 'expllained' their different and lower position in the social hierarchy." See Nancy Stepan, "Race amd Gender: The Role of Analogy in Science," The "Racial" Economy of Science: Toivard a Democratic L^uture, ed. Sandra Harding (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1993) 361. See also Londa Schiebinger, Natture's Body.Gender in the Making of Modem Science (Boston: Beacon, 1993); and Donna Harawa'y, Primate Visions.
46 later adds, biological determinism did not end with Darwin; this perspective is promoted by contemporary sociobiologists. Indeed Robin Baker, an evolutionary biologist whose work is the subject of Chapter 4, is a proponent of biological determinism. Although he acknowledges cultural influences on
human behavior, he de-emphasizes them in favor of 'biological im peratives."88 The problem of biological determinism has not been addressed solely by feminists who study the sciences. For example, Jane Flax discusses the problems of "the natural barrier": the common believe that "if gender is as natural and as intrinsically a part of us as the genitals we are bom with, it follows that it would be foolish (or even harmful) to attempt either to change gender arrangements or not to take them into account as a delimitation on hum an activities."89 As Rax further explains there have been different responses to the problem of biological determinism in academic feminist work. One response has been to discuss biases in science that lead to these representations of sexual difference. Other feminists have argued that socially constructed gender prevails over natural sexual differences. Another response is to position natural differences as sites of resistance to oppressive cultures. The position I take on the question of biological determinism is informed by the theory of articulation I explained earlier. Contrary to the claims of biology, sexual difference is not natural, but naturalized. The naturalization of sexual difference is dependent on biology's considerable cultural influence and authority — in other words, biology has achieved an "ideological moment." Underlying biology's claims about sexual difference is the assumption that sexual difference is fixed, universal and timeless and operates in terms of a
88 See Robin Baker, "Introduction," Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex (N ew York: Basic, 1996) and Chapter 4, below.
89 Jane Flax, "Postmodernism and Gender Relations in Feminist Theory," Feminisni/Postmodemism, ed. Linda J. Nicholson (New York: Routledge, 1990) 49.
47 binary opposition of male/female. In other words biological difference presents sexual difference as a "unity," so m y critical response is to examine the linkages and connections involved in the making of sexual difference. From the perspective of articulation, meanings are never fixed but always subject to being contested and negotiated. Donna Haraway explains the uses of the concept gender and of feminist theory: Gender is a concept developed to contest the naturalization of sexual difference in multiple areas of struggle. Feminist theory and practice around gender seek to explain and change historical systems of sexual difference, whereby 'men' and 'women' are socially constituted and positioned in relations of hierarchy and antagonism. The complex analytical and political tension between the paired binary concepts of sex and gender ties feminist theories of gender closely to the constructions and reconstructions of the natural sciences, especially the life sciences.^o
The approach I take is not to look for scientific biases or "bad science," but to look at the ways in which the everyday workings of scientific discourse are involved in the production of sexual difference. This brings me back to the uses of textual analysis. Although I read very closely singular texts, in this case the text itself is not the starting point for rhetorical criticism. My close reading does not represent a commitment to the rhetor's strategic consciousness or rhetorical artistry (and in any case the texts that I have chosen do not measure up to the standards of eloquence.) Instead, I am interested in reading texts as sites of struggle over meaning, more specifically representations of gender. Moreover, texts are places where ideological elements cohere. As Michael McGee explains, although texts might appear to take the form of a unified whole. Critical rhetoric does not begin with a finished text in need of interpretation. Rather, texts are understood to be larger than the apparently finished discourse that presents itself as transparent. The apparently finished discourse is in fact a dense reconstruction of all the
90 Hciraway, Primate Visions, 290. See also Donna Haraway, "Gender for a Marxist Dictionary," Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991) 131.
48 bits of other discourses ftrom which it was made. It is fashioned from what we call "fragments."9i
In my examination of the ways in which textual elements cohere to form a unified whole, I will make use of narrative and metaphoric analysis to map out the ways in which these elements are either linked together or disconnected. I will elaborate on that idea in the analysis chapters that follow. For the moment I will turn to a discussion of two other key elements of rhetorical criticism, author and critic.
Points of Articulation: Author and Critic As I have already discussed some detail, the problem of authorship was a point of contention in the rhetoric of science debates. The debates about authorship suggested that rhetorical criticism is indeed heavily invested in the idea of strategic consciousness, and not only in terms of the ways in which critics imagine the relationship between key elements in rhetorical criticism such as author, text, and context. Comments by participants suggested that the idea of strategic consciousness also shapes a "rhetorical worldview" of science and politics. The influence of "ideologies of agency" on critical practices is worth investigating further. The debates also resulted in a spirited defense of agency, in which agency was aligned with strategic consciousness and the idea that rhetors are points of origin, while the idea of lack of agency was aligned with a view of rhetors as points of articulation. This dichotomy is much too sharp. To treat rhetors as points of articulation is not to assume a lack of agency. Instead, to imagine a rhetor as a point of articulation is to think about how they function in relation to a subject position and in relation to the discourses, scientific and otherwise, that structure consciousness. In order to explain this, let's return to Hall's discussion of ideology. As Hall explains, although 91 McGee, "Text," 279.
49 individuals can utter ideological statements, those statements do not have their origins in the individual. Ideologies are socially formed and pre-date individuals who form their intentions within them. Ideologies are the mental frameworks through which we make sense of the world. To imagine a scientist as a point of articulation is to situate her or him in relation to a larger scientific discourse that provides commonly accepted patterns of inference, concepts, and representations. Science's production of sexual difference occurs at the discursive level, not reducible to individualized experience or bias. An understzmding of scientists as points of articulation also is a starting point for formulating strategies for reconceptualizing sexual difference within science. A scientist can exercise strategic consciousness, but must negotiate the "mental frameworks" that structure this consciousness.92 Critics also function as points of articulation. We also formulate our intentions within ideology and are positioned in relation to discourses that produce the mental frameworks that structure our consciousness. Therefore, like the scientist, the critic who wishes to participate in conversations in her own discipline must engage not just at the individual level, but at the level of discourse. This accounts for the earlier discussion about disciplinarity. The marginalization of politically motivated criticism is not merely the product of individual bias, but involves the mobilization of internalized disciplinary mechanisms. Accordingly, the most effective response is to engage individuals and disciplinary precepts. As for the criticism we produce, thinking of the critic as a point of articulation is of particular relevance for those of us who engaged in feminist
92 For examples of scientists who have contested cind negotiated the dominant narratives of their field, see Haraway, Primate Visions, in particular part three "The Politics of Being Female: Primatology is a Genre of Feminist Theory." In this section of the book Haraway discusses the work of primatologists such as Jeanne Altmann, Linda Marie Fedigan, Adreienne Zihlman, and Sarah Blaffer Hardy.
50 and other politically motivated criticism. One point to consider is that given our institutional location and the fact that rhetoric (not to mention feminism) has little cultural authority in relation to science, the goals of politically motivated criticism m ust be defined very specifically. Rhetorical critics do not have the authority to solve the problems of science or to promote an alternative "rhetorical vision." For that reason it is important to pay close attention to the ways in which scientists themselves negotiate their own practices and narratives. Instead, rhetorical and other critics bring to the conversation a particular kind of expertise: rhetorical critics are very good at defining problems and identifying the issues. So, for example, a minor theme in this dissertation is the problem of defining issues in feminism. Contrary to media representations or the scientist's occasional explicit references to feminism, feminist politics and academic work involves much more than correcting "offensive" images of women. Finally, a point to consider for politically motivated rhetorical critics who are tempted to offer alternative rhetorical visions is the reminder that there is nothing "mere" about scientific rhetoric.
Conclusion In this chapter 1 have attempted to create a space for a feminist rhetoric of science through a reorientation of rhetorical criticism. This reorientation involved grounding rhetoric in the politics of articulation, which has a transformative effect on some of the key elements in rhetorical criticism: critical object, author and critic. In a rhetorical criticism grounded in articulation, the starting point is no longer the text, but the problem of ideology, or an account of how socially produced ideas achieve the naturalness and transparency that makes such ideas commonsensical. This shift in emphasis leads to a reconsideration of the rhetorical concept topoi (topics, commonly held opinions).
51 Instead of viewing topoi in terms of their function in the construction of arguments, the main focus of criticism is the making of the topoi themselves — criticism grounded in articulation is an act of disassembling rather than constructing. In the end the rhetorical critic still reads text, but reads them in terms of connections and disconnections rather than as a unified whole. Finally, although the idea of strategic consciousness, which shapes critical practices and a "rhetorical worldview" of science and politics, does not disappear but instead is resituated. Rhetors that function as points of articulation do exercise strategic consciousness, but in relation to the discourses that produce the mental frameworks that structure consciousness. Critics, too, function as points of articulation. The turn to a politics of articulation alsc connects this project to feminist politics and feminist academic work. The problem of ideology informing this project is biological determinism, or the idea that "biological imperatives" determine social behaviors and social relations. This dissertation, like much other feminist work, functions as a response to theories of biological determinism. Contrary to the claims of biology, sexual difference is not natural b u t naturalized. The purpose of this project is to examine closely some of the linkages, connections and disconnections involved in evolutionary biology's production of sexual difference. Moreover, an underlying assumption of this project is that biology's production of sexual difference is contested and negotiated within science. Therefore, the analysis chapter in the latter half of this dissertation are close readings of three texts produced by evolutionary biologists. Reading them separately shows the ways in which particular images of male and female bodies are produced within evolutionary biology; reading them together shows different strategies for reconceptualizing sexual difference within evolutionary biology.
52 CHAPTERS
MARGIE PROFET'S MAVERICK SCIENCE: MENSTRUATION AND METAPHOR IN EVOLUHONARY BIOLOGY
Introduction
In 1991, evolutionary biologist Margie Profet published an article in The Quarterly Review of Biology entitled "The Function of Allergy: Immianological Defense Against Toxins" in which she argues that allergy is not an "immunological anomaly," but an adaptive mechanism that defends the body against plant and animal toxins.93 In 1993, Profet published another article in the same journal entitled "Menstruation as a Defense Against Pathogens
Transported by Sperm ."94 As the title suggests, Profet argues that menstruation is not a wasteful by-product of the reproductive system, but an adaptive mechanism that defends the female body against disease. As you m ight see from these brief descriptions, Profet advances similar arguments in both essays. She sets out to prove that what is commonly thought of as a by-product or as excessive or wasteful in fact has an important function in the workings of the human body. While the article about allergies did not attract any media attention, Profet's article on menstruation was written up in Time, Nezvszoeek, The Nezv York
93 Margie Profet, "The Function of Allergy: Immunological Defense Against Toxins," The Quarterly Revieiv of Biology 66 (1991): 23-62.
94 Margie Profet, "Menstruation as a Defense Against Pathogens Transported by Sperm," The Quarterly Reinexv of Biology 68 (1993): 335-381.
53 Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Glamour, and People. Profet was characterized as a "maverick scientist" who proposed a "radical theory of menstruation." Moreover, the articles in these publications indicate that Profet's theory was the subject of debate within the scientific community as well. Why did Profet's new theory of menstruation provoke so much discussion? The articles in the press might provide a clue — they focused on Profet's representations of the female body as much as the new theory itself. These articles carried headlines such as "Rethinking Women's Bodies,"95 "A Brand-New Thought About Women's Cycles"96 and "Radical New View of Menstruation."97 The Nezo York Times article begins with some commonplace and traditional images of menstruating women: "... variously vilified, feared, pitied or banished from the village to spend her bloody days in solitude" but then notes that "[n]ow an evolutionary biologist proposes a radical new way of viewing menstruation, one that gives the ordinary business of having a period an active and salutary spin." Glamour reports that "our ancestors had it exactly backward when they viewed menstruating women as unclean."98 It is intriguing that menstruation, according to Profet, is not simply the "uterus crying for the lack of a baby," but instead is a process that maintains the health of the female body. Also interesting are Profet's images of the female body — efficient, productive and purposeful instead of inefficient and wasteful — but even more significant is how Profet is able to produce these images of the female body in the first place. After all, medical and scientific discourse are not
95 Joan Seligman, “Rethinking Women’s Bodies,” 4 Oct. 1993: 86.
96 Alice Kahn, "A Brzmd N ew Thought on Women's Cycles," San Francisco Chronicle 27 Sept. 1993: Bl.
97 Natalie Angier, "Radical N ew View of the Role of Menstruation," Nezo York Times 21 Sept. 1993: Cl.
98 Editorial, "The Important Questions One Woman Asked," G/flo/oitr October 1993:47.
54 known for putting an "active and salutary spin" on their representations of the female body. How does this transformation occur? What are the implications of these images? The purpose of this essay is to explore these two questions.
W hat is a maverick scientist? Articles in newspapers and magazines praise Profet for her brilliance and her ground breaking work. The reports suggest that Profet was able to produce a new theory of menstruation in part because of her outsider status in science, and in large part because she is a woman. However, Profet was depicted not entirely as an outsider to science. The articles reported that for several years she worked in the lab at the University of CaHfomia at Berkeley and that she has other publications in scientific journals. On the other hand, the flurry of articles that followed the publication of her new theory suggest that not only is her new theory "maverick," but so is her background and approach to scientific inquiry. For example, mzmy reports noted that although Profet is a working scientist, she never earned a Ph.D. in science; instead, Profet has two undergraduate degrees, one in political philosophy and one in physics. While other scientists were toiling away in the lab, Profet skipped graduate school so she could climb Mount Kilamanjaro. While other scientists generate their theories through experiments, Profet's revelations about the function of menstruation came to her in a dream: "... she had her nocturnal epiphany about menstruation in 1988 ... in her dream, the ovaries and faUopian tubes were pale yellow, and the uterus was bright red, filled with black triangles flowing out of it with the red."99 Of course the history of science is full of stories of scientists who had their epiphanies outside the lab, but the newspaper and magazine articles also suggest that Profet came up with new thinking on menstruation because of her gender.
99 Seligman, 86.
55 Many articles discuss Profet's status as a woman scientist and as an ordinary woman. In an editorial calling for more women in science. Glamour asks "Would that question have occurred to a male scientist — and would he have thought it worthy of investigation?"ioo Other articles report Profet's thoughts on the function of menstruation before she grew up to become a scientist. The New York Times reports that Ms. Profet first considered the problem of menstruation when she learned of it at age 7. "I was disgusted because it made no sense and seemed so inefficient," she said. "Why go to all that trouble to make that elaborate lining just to get rid of it? 1 thought, God must really hate us." As she grew older, the clinical explanation of menstruation dissatisfied her. She was particularly incensed by medical descriptions of a woman's period as the unfortunate and possibly unnecessary by-product of hormonal cycling. 101
In short, the popular press suggested that Profet's new theory of menstruation, with its active and efficient female body, comes from the mind of a "maverick scientist" who does not think like her c o l l e a g u e s .102 Was Profet a maverick scientist? Was she able to produce a radical new theory of menstruation because of her experiences as a woman? Not entirely. A preoccupation with the efficiency and productivity of bodily processes sounds more like a traditional evolutionary biologist than a young girl. My contention is that Margie Profet did not produce these representations of the menstruating body only because she is a woman or a maverick scientist. Profet's new theory of menstruation is as much the product of traditional thinking in evolutionary biology as it is the product of "maverick thinking." The objective of this analysis
100 Editorial.
101 Angier, Cl.
102 Shortly after the publication of her article on menstruation, Profet won a MacArthur Prize Fellowship — a "genius grant." She moved from UC Berkeley to The University of Washington, Seattle, and in 1995 published her book Pregnancy Sickness: Using Your Body's Natural Defenses to Protect Your Baby-to-be (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995). This book also was considered somewhat controversial.
56 is to contextualize Profet's theory more carefully and to account for her counterimages of the menstruating body. This involves a shift in focus from Profet as a maverick thinker to a focus o n the discourses, both popular and scientific, in which her theory is embedded. In other words, this analysis assumes that Profet is a "point of articulation," not a "point of origin." By saying this I do not discount Profet's experiences or her status as a maverick thinker. What I am saying is the production of kn_owledge is not reducible to experience, and experience is not unmediated. As Joan Scott explains: ... subjects have agency. They are not unified, autonomous individuals expressing free will, but rather subjects whose agency is created through situations and statuses conferred upon them. Being a subject means "subject to definite conditions of eodstence, conditions of endowments of agents and conditions of exercise.'" These conditions enable choices, though they are not unlimited.i03
Furthermore, as I explained in the previous chapter, the idea that rhetors are points of articulation is not reducible to the issue of whether (or to what extent) rhetors have agency. Rhetorical criticism grounded in a politics of articulation involves a significant shift in the practice of criticism and involves both as a theoretical and political perspective. The starting point for this approach to criticism is with a "problem of ideology." In the case of this project, the jproblem of ideology under consideration is biological determinism, o r the reductive idea that social and cultural differences between men and wom en are determined by so-called "natural" differences. From a perspective informed by feminist theory and a politics of articulation, "natural" differences are produced through a process of naturalization, which is in part enabled b y biology's considerable cultural authority. More specifically, the problem of biological determinism under consideration in relation to Profet's theory is that medical and other scientific
103 Joan W. Scott, "'Experience'," Feminists Theorize the Political, eds. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York: Routledge, 1992) 34.
5T theories about menstruation produce images of a female body that is irrational and uncontrolled. Such representations function ideologically to reinforce the idea that women — not just their bodies — are irrational and uncontrolled. Profet's theory challenges these taken for granted representations, and that is w hy it was new sw orthy. The problem of ideology is the starting point for criticism but the purpose of my analysis is not merely to identify the counterimages in Profet's theory. Journalists at the New York Times, Glamour, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Newsweek already have reported that Profet's new theory disrupted "cultural" myths about menstruation. However, the perception that menstruation is "unclean" or "wasteful" is not just an old cultural myth, but a widely held view in scientific discourse. To imagine that other bodily processes are efficient and productive in the context of evolutionary biology is not radical, but quite common. The radical perspective in Profet's theory is that scientifically speaking, menstruation is efficient and purposeful. Many feminist writers have debunked scientific myths about menstruation or reconceptualized it, but Profet's theory is noteworthy because her biological theory has a stronger cultural authority. Taking this into consideration raises the question of how Profet was able to make this intervention in the first place. In other words, if the discourse of evolutionary biology (and other scientific and medical discourses) views the menstruating body as inefficient and wasteful, on what grounds could Profet make her arguments and still be taken seriously enough to publish her work in a scientific journal? This analysis is grounded in assumptions that are different from those of the media discussion of Profet's theory. This analyis further involves the contextualization of Profet's theory in relation to the scientific discourses in which it is embedded. In my analysis I focus on the process through which the menstruating body is unlinked from images of
58 irrationality and inefficiency and reconnected to images of rationality and efficiency. In other words, I am interested in rearticulations that are taking place within this text. In the following section I wUl explain more specifically how metaphor analysis is useful for mapping out the rearticulations that are at work in Margie Profet's theory of menstruation.
The Role of Metaphor In the previous chapter I discussed the workings of ideolgy and suggested that an approach to textual criticism grounded in articulation would examine the ways in which elements in the text are linked together or disconnected in the process of making meaning and creating common sense. My analysis of Profet's article reveals three extended metaphors — of machinery, production and warfare — already at work in the discourse of evolutionary biology (as well as other scientific discourses). By focusing on these metaphors rather than on Profet's status as a maverick scientist, I am able to focus on the context in which Profet made her intervention. At this point I turn to a more specific discussion about the ways in which metaphor analysis is useful for mapping out these linkages and disconnections. First, it is important to keep in mind that a metaphor analysis need not involve the arbitrary and mechanistic imposition of rhetorical terminology in readings of scientific texts. As Nancy Stepan and many others have argued, scientific metaphors are not just embellishment: "... metaphors and analogies are not just psychological aids to discovery, or heuristic devices, but constituent elements of scientific theory."i04 Donna Haraway makes a similar point in a discussion of E.O. Wilson and his militarization of ants. Haraway asserts that in one of Wilson's papers "the ants are analyzed as an artillery system in cybernetic
104 Stepan, 360.
59 terms; that is the basic structure of the argument, not a convenient occasional comparison."i05 Similarly, as I shaU discuss in more detail later, metaphors of machinery, production and warfare were extended and shaped Profet's inquiry into the question of whether, in the context of human evolution, menstruation has an adaptive function. In the case of Profet's theory, the body is analyzed as an efficient set of mechanism and in terms of a.cost/benefit analysis. Second, a focus on metaphor enables the shift from focusing on strategic consciousness towards an intertexual reading. In science the use of metaphor is not just arbitrary or personal, and there are constraints on a scientist's choice of metaphors. As Stepan further explains. The nature of the objects being studied (i.e. organic versus inorganic), the social (e.g. class) structure of the scientific community studying them, and the history of the discipline or field concerned all play their part in the emergence of certain analogies rather than others in fiieir "success" or "failure."i06
The metaphors in Profet's theory are not the product of her imagination or her experiences as an individual, but already at work in evolutionary biology.i07 However, the purpose of this essay is not merely to reveal the presence of scientific metaphors in Profet's work or to establish that Profet is a point of articulation. Identifying these metaphors is a starting point for a discussion of how Profet was able to negotiate dominant representations of menstruation and the female body. Third, my analysis of Profet's theory depends on a particular view of scientific metaphor. Merely to point out the use of scientific metaphor is not
105 Donna J. Haraway "The High Cost of Information in Post-World War II Evolutionary Biology: Ergonomics, Semiotics, and the Sociobiology of Communication Systems," The Philosophical Fonim 13 (1981-82): 260. See also Haraway, "Sex, Mind, and Profit" in.Simians.
106 Stepan, 362.
107 See Haraway "The High Cost of Information." See also Haraway, "Sex, Mind, and Profit" in Simians.
60 destabilizing, nor does it reveal that Profet's theory involves a rearticulation of scientific metaphors that have been mobilized to produce negative images of the menstruating body. In fact, James Bono argues that some of the writing on science and metaphor precludes this kind of social and political critique by reinforcing the boundaries between science and other cultural practices. Some of the writing on science and metaphor positions scientific inquiry outside the of
the influence of "culture."i 08 This is accomplished by making sharp distinctions between "literary" and "scientific" metaphors. Relying on broad characterizations of science and literature and scientists and authors, writers such as Boyd argue that while literary metaphors are "unruly and subjective," scientific metaphors are controlled and objective. Bono observes: This view of scientific metaphors limits sharply the degree to which language may be said to shape scientific discourse. Metaphors are consciously chosen or "introduced" by scientific communities driven by intuitively grounded perceptions of the world and established theoretical frameworks. Rather titan the world's accommodating itself to language, Boyd regards scientific metaphors as part of the process whereby language accommodates itself to the world so that, in the end "our linguistic categories cut the worlds at its joints."i09
In contrast, my analysis of Profet is informed by a view of metaphor that connects scientific metaphors to a wider social and political context. Stepan's contribution to the literature on science and metaphor makes such connections. In her analysis she traces out the "systems of implications" involved in creating
108 James Bono, "Science, Discourse and Literature: The Role/Rule of Metaphor," Literature and Science: Theory and Practice, ed. Stuart Peterfreund (Boston: Northeastern UP, 1990) 59-89. Bono discusses the work of Richard Boyd and Brian Vickers in particulcir. Richard Boyd, "Metaphor cind Theory Change: What is 'Metaphor' a Metaphor For?" Metaphor and Thought, ed. A. Ortony (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979) 356-408; and Brian Vicicers, "Analogy Versus Identity: The Rejection of Occult Symbolism: 1580-1680,"Critical Inquiry 9 (1982): 93-111.
109 Bono, 65. This observation rzdses more questions about the consequences of assuming the strategic consciousness of the rhetor. Is strategic consciousness (an albeit unconscious) way that rhetorical critics grant some rhetors more authority to speak for themselves, while others do not have that privilege? And, as Donna Haraway points out, the distinction between "who speeiks" and "who is spoken for" is not a trivied one. Scientists, after all, appoint themselves as spokespeople for nature.
61 racial and sexual difference in nineteenth century craniometry. Metaphors are interactive, and "join together and bring into cognitive and emotional relation with each other two different things, or system of things, normally not so joined."iio In order to work, scientific and other metaphors must bring into play cultural commonplaces.^ Stepan argues that in the case of nineteenth science that produced sexual and racial difference, scientists "elevated hitherto unconsciously held analogies into self-conscious theory" and naturalized them. From the critic's perspective, understanding the workings of metaphor is an aid to mapping out the complex relationships that are naturalized by science. Therefore, instead of establishing the autonomy of scientific discourse, scientific metaphors reveal the instability of scientific discourse. "Rather than exhibiting unerring conscious design and authorial control... scientific metaphors adapt themselves to a larger ecology of contesting social and cultural values, interests and ideologies."ti2
Finally, metaphor is similar to articulation in terms of its logic. As I explained in the previous chapter theories of articulation are an anti-reductionist approach to ideology critique. At various times, critics have made use of articulation to discuss the fixing of ideological practices and images without reducing the process to modes of production, "culture," class, or experience. As I explained in the previous chapter, articulation involves the arbitrary linking
110 Stepan, 364.
111 Leff makes a similar cirgument on the relationship between tropes, topics, and invention in "Topical Invention and Metaphoric Interaction." The Southern Speech Communication [oumal 48 (Spring 1983): 214-229.
112 Bono, 81.
113 This is not a list of problems that have been worked on all at once, and memy have written a theory of articulation. I understzmd articulation as a very powerful idea that has been brought in when there are particular problems that need to be worked on—for example, in various discussions about culturalism, about race, about class, about gender. Slack characterizes her overview as a genealogy.
62 of discursive elements, and as Hall explains further; "the 'unity' which matters is a linkage between that articulated discourse and the social forces with which it can, under certain historical conditions, but need not necessarily, be connected."ii4 Criticism grounded in articulation calls attention to arbitrary linkages in a seemingly seamless unity, and furthermore examines particular moments in which these links are either forged or unmade. In terms of its logic, metaphor functions in a similar way by linking together different elements to create meaning. As with articulation, die arbitrariness of the linkage is not always evident, especially when the metaphor has been in use for some time. For example, scientists and others have become accustomed to thinking of the healthy body as a collection of efficient mechanisms. Furthermore, this metaphor has been mobilized to emphasize (or in the case of Profet, minimize) sexual difference. In terms of it status as a metaphor, the body as a machine is dormant, though still powerful in terms of shaping scientific inquiry. I borrow the term "dormant metaphor" from Katherine Hayles.ns As she and many others have argued, language is itself metaphoric. The distinction between metaphoric and other types of language is a question of perception, and some writing on metaphor makes the distinction between metaphors that are "dead" or "alive." Hayles prefers to think of metaphors as "dormant" or "active." Metaphors can be revived through shifting cultural contexts—and sometimes by cultural critics. In my analysis, I think of metaphor as a conceptual tool that helps me map out the rearticulations taking place in Profet's theory. Metaphor analysis enables a shift in emphasis from strategic consciousness to an intertexual reading that takes into consideration the discourses in which a text is embedded. Metaphor
114 Grossberg, "On Postmodernism," 141.
115 N. Katherine Hayles, "Self-Reflexive Metaphors in Maxwell's Demon and Sharmon's Choice: Finding the Passages," Literature and Science: Theory and Practice, ed. Stuart Peterfreund (Boston: Northeastern UP, 1990) 209-237.
63 analysis is useful to mapping out the workings of culturally contingent commonplaces in the process of creating representations, as well as accounting for the connections and discormections that are taking place in the text. A metaphor analysis of Margie Profet's theory of menstruation enables me to answer the question, "How does this transformation of images of the menstruating body occur?"
Menstrual Mechanisms Medical discourse characterizes the body in terms of whether its machinery is functioning smoothly or breaking down. In Profet's work, however, machine metaphors take on an additional function. From her perspective as an evolutionary biologist, Profet is interested in whether, within the context of human evolution, menstruation has an adaptive function. In her introduction, Profet explains: To demonstrate that a physiological phenomenon is an adaptation — that is, a function mechanism — one must, first, identify the problem that the candidate mechanism is designed to solve, and second elucidate design — that is, show that there is an adaptive fit between the mechanism and the problem that is too close to be merely the product of chance or the by product of other mechanisms.n^
Indeed Profet concludes that "the mechanisms that collectively constitute menstruation appear to manifest adaptive design in the precision, economy, efficiency and complexity with which they achieve the goal of producing menstruation."ii7 Metaphors of machinery and production do not only appear in Profet's introductory and concluding remarks, but are extended throughout the article. Through the use of these metaphors, Profet not only demonstrates that menstruation does have an adaptive function, but puts her "active and
116 Profet, "Menstruation," 336.
117 Profet, "Menstruation," 338.
64 salutary spin" on images of the female body. Through metaphors of machinery and "cost/benefit" analysis, the menstruating body is disconnected from images of irrationality and lack of control, and linked up with images of rationality and control. In medical textbooks, the female reproductive system (and the female body in general) is anything but efficient and productive. Emily Martin, a medical anthropologist, has conducted a metaphor analysis of women's reproductive processes in the context of American culture. According to Martin, in medical discourse the "normal" body is a collection of mechanisms that are hierarchically controlled. In this context, when the female body is at the point of menstruation or menopause, the reproductive system is no longer subject to control of the higher functions of the body, and the body's machinery is either working out of control or breaking down. As Martin explains it, the machine metaphor further implies that the purpose of the body is to produce. Menstruation is viewed as a failure to produce the most important product of the female body — children. In a chapter on scientific representations of menstruation and menopause Martin discusses the following quotation from a college textbook on anatomy: If fertilization and pregnancy do not occur, the corpus luteum degenerates and the levels of estrogens and progesterone decline. As the levels of these hormones decrease and their stimulatory effects are withdrawn, blood vessels of the endometrium undergo prolonged spasms (contractions) that reduce blood flow to the area of the endometrium supplied by the vessels. The resulting lack of blood causes the tissues of the affected region to degenerate. After some time, the vessels relax, which allows blood to flow through them again. However, the capillaries have become so weakened that blood leaks through them. This blood and the deteriorating endometrial tissues are discharged from the uterus as menstrual flow. As a new ovarian cycle begins and the levels of estrogen rises, the functional layer of the endometrium undergoes repair and once ______again begins to prohferate.^^8 118 Elliott B. Mason, Human Physiology (Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin Cummings, 1983) 525, quoted in Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction, ïad ed. (Boston: Beacon, 1992) 47.
65 Martin uses that particular quotation to point out that menstruation is characterized in terms of degeneration and decay, but this quotation also indicates the author's attitudes towards the mechanisms associated with menstruation. The control center of the body — the brain that releases hormones — withdraws the hormones that maintain the corpus luteum because of the want of a fertilized egg. The withdrawal of hormones results in the breakdown of the subordinate system, as the blood vessels that supply blood to the endometrium first spasm, and then become so weakened they cannot control the flow of blood. This account implies that menstruation is the female reproductive system working out of control, in a moment of weakness when it can't fulfill its proper function of producing children. In contrast, Profet describes the "exquisite mechanisms" of menstruation, and in this case menstruation is the desired product of the female body. The blood vessels that are supposed to "spasm and weaken" are "specialized spiral shaped arteries (that) constrict and dilate in a sequence timed to induce menstruation."ii9 Menstruation is not the result of the temporary breakdown of the reproductive system, but functions well within a timed sequence. The arteries purposefully coü and uncoil to control the flow of blood, and they are also designed to coil or uncoil in response to the amount of space available to them as the body goes through the reproductive cycle. Profet also implies that menstrual mechanisms are new and improved. In a comparison between the spiral arteries of woman and similar arteries in New World monkeys, Profet asserts that the coiled arteries in the women are a better, more advanced design, as the straighter arteries in the monkeys probably reflect "an early stage of the m enstrual cycle."i 20 Menstruation is not the by-product of a breakdown in the
Profet, "Menstruation," 339.
120 Profet, "Menstruation," 340.
66 body's machinery; menstruation is a set of mechanisms that function purposefully and are strong and well-designed. Another common view of menstruation is that the process is a waste of the body's resources — the female body simply discards the elaborate and nourishing uterine lining when that lining is not needed. Profet concedes that menstruation is "nutritionally costly" but does not concede that it is wasteful, and she makes this argument through another metaphor related to machinery and production. Part of her discussion is devoted to a "cost/benefit analysis" of menstruation. Profet argues that a basic problem with by-product hypotheses about menstruation is that they fail to account for its costs. None of the known features of female mammalian reproductive systems require menstruation as an ineluctable by-product. If menstruation were both costly and functionless, natural selection surely would have eliminated it long ago .121
In this cost/benefit analysis, Profet considers the costs of menstruation both in terms of the use of the body's resources and in terms of time. First, she concludes that menstruation is costly in terms of the use of resources available to the body. Menstruation is "nutritionally costly" because it depletes the body of iron. Moreover, menstrual blood contains "valuable complements" that fight disease. Second, menstruation is costly because it is time-consuming. As Profet explains, "it lengthens the reproductive cycle, because the process of degeneration and regeneration of endometrial tissue is necessarily time- consuming. The endometrial flux narrows the window of fertility, resulting in long intervals between reproductive opportunities during a single bleeding season. The occurrence of menstruation during short breeding seasons may significantly limit the days during which conception is possible."i 22 Why is menstruation so "costly"? Profet responds by comparing the
121 Profet, "Menstruation," 336.
122 Profet, "Menstruation," 337.
67 amounts of blood women produce with the amounts of blood produced by other menstruating animals. These amounts range from microscopic traces to visible and relatively copious amounts. In her analysis, Profet also compares the sexual activity of humans with the sexual activity of other animals; the factor she considers here is the potential of exposure to pathogens. The higher the level of sexual activity, the higher the potential for exposure to the threat of disease. From this comparison, she draws two conclusions. First, animals (humans include 123 Profet_, "Menstruation," 357, emphasis added. 68 resources. Medical textbooks represent menstruation as a by-product, while Profet argues that menstruation has an important function. Profet's theory marks an important shift in terms of representations of the female body. In another article that speculates about the evolutionary function of menstruation, the author concludes that menstruation "would be the penalty women pay for a greater state of readiness for the implantation of embryos in their uteri."i24 In contrast, the telos of the female body in Profet's article is not motherhood, but to maintain its own health. Arguing that menstruation functions as a defense against disease has many implications. By doing so, Profet not only challenges the traditional scientific thinking that menstruation is a wasteful by-product, but also links up the menstruating body (as seen from the perspective of science) with immune system discourse. This is significant, because of the power of immune system discourse. As Donna Haraway has said, "the immune system is both an iconic mythic object in high-technology culture and a subject of research and clinical practices of the first importance."i 2S Emily Martin has noted that "what have been called the key sciences — genetics and immunology — are both potent sites for the study of transformations in fundamental cultural concepts of life, person, 5oczeh/."t 26 Central to immunological discourse are metaphors of warfare, which prove to be important in Profet's theory and in its representation of the menstruating body. As 1 will explain in more detail in the section that follows, the convergence of the discourses of evolution and immunology as well as the convergence of their metaphors further transforms representations of the 124 c . A. Finn, "Why do Women Menstruate?" Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 30 (1987): 570. 125 Donna J. Haraway, "The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Constitutions of Self in Immune System Discourse," in Simians, 205. 126 Emily Martin, Flexible Bodies: Tracking Immunity in American Culture From the Days of Polio to the Age of AIDS (Boston: Beacon, 1994) 14. 69 menstruating body. Whether this convergence results in "transformations of fundamental cultural concepts" remains to be seen. Immunology and Menstruation Profet's descriptions of menstrual mechanisms suggest that menstruation is a desired product of the reproductive cycle, that menstrual mechanisms are well-designed and efficient, and that women have more to do in their lives than bear children. Profet's discussion of immunology in relation to menstruation reinforces some of these arguments. First, the introduction of the immune system into this discussion reinforces Profet's argument that menstruation is not a breakdown of the reproductive system, but that menstruation is normal and healthy. As Martin points out, the immune system recently has become a measure of health; I would infer that any body system that functions as part of the immune system must be by association healthy. As Profet explains it, menstruation is one of the "cascade of defenses" available to the female body. And what makes for a healthier body? Perhaps a healthy body is one that is capable of warding off pathogens, but scientific writing and popular representations of science also equate health with autonomy and clearly demarcated bodily boundaries. By these standards, menstruation as it is represented in scientific discourse is not healthy, because it involves the excreting of bodily fluids. Bodily fluids attest to the permeability of the body, its necessarily dependence on an outside, its liability to collapse into this outside (this is what death implies) to the perilous divisions between the body's inside and its outside. They affront a subject's aspiration toward autonomy and self-identity.127 Efficient and well-designed menstrual mechanisms alone can't make an 127 Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994) 193-194. 70 autonomous body; after all, Profet does concede that although menstruation is useful and productive, it is still a relatively costly process. Menstrual mechanisms effectively manage this blood loss, and the amount of blood shed is proportionate, so at least the flow of bodily fluids is controlled. The introduction of the immune system into Profet's discussion creates a more autonomous female body; the narratives about the immune system that are already in place make this possible. Martin explains that the portrait of the body conveyed most often and most vividly in the mass media show it as a defended nation-state, organized around a hierarchy of gender, race and class. In this picture, the boundary between the body ("self") and the external world is rigid and absolute ... the notion that the immune system maintains a clear boundary between self and nonself is accompanied by a conception of the nonself world as foreign and hostüe.128 This portrait comes from "old body discourse," and Martin is talking about popular representations of the immune system, but this characterization certainly applies to the menstruating body in Profet's article. In her discussion of the immunological function of menstruation, Profet also introduces metaphors commonly used in immunological discourse: metaphors of warfare and combat. In Profet's account of the purpose of menstruation, the reproductive tract is a combat zone, and menstruation serves as a defense against "colonization" by "tenacious pathogens." The same uterus that provides nourishment for a blastocyst also might nourish inadvertently those same pathogens with the iron - - a valuable resource — that is contained in menstrual blood. Profet explains: Host iron is so important for bacterial growth that mammals have evolved various defenses to deprive bacteria of iron — In order for menstruation to be an effective defense against pathogens, therefore, the reproductive tract must have concomitant mechanisms to sequester the iron of menstrual blood away from pathogens.^29 128 Martin, Flexible Bodies, 52-53. 129 Profet, "Menstruation," 346. 71 The female body does not squander its valuable resources, but "sequesters" those resources away from the enemy — agents of disease. During menstruation, the body not only withholds valuable resources, but also destroys the enemy pathogens: "menstrual blood also delivers complement — a component of blood that destroys a wide spectrum of pathogens — to the uterus."i30 Profet's female body resists colonization, contrary to the discourses (both scientific and otherwise) that present the feminine as the object and conquest and feminize the conquered. Narratives about the conquest of the female body certainly have appeared in scientific writing on fertilization, in which the egg and sperm synecdochally stand in for women and men. Recently however, alternative narratives have emerged- In "The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles," Martin identifies three alternative narratives that describe the merging of sperm and egg. The first type is a quest narrative in which a strong, masculine sperm rescues a weak feminine egg; while the passive egg awaits, the "streamlined," "efficiently powered" sperm are "propelled" into the reproductive tract. One sperm "burrows through the egg coat" and "penetrates" the egg. More recently, scientists write that the egg "captures and tethers" sperm, and "clasps the sperm and guides its nucleus into the center."i3i A third account describes a more egalitarian relationship between sperm and egg — the two parties "recognize each other" and "interact" with one another. However, this egalitarian relationship breaks down when the author insists upon characterizing the sperm as active and the egg as passive. In these scientific narratives about fertilization, the central characters are sperm and egg. In Profet's theory of menstruation, a new cast of characters is introduced: 130 Profet, "Menstruation," 346. 131 Emily Martin, "The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles," Signs 16 (1991): 498. 72 pathogens that also make their way into the female reproductive tract. With the introduction of pathogens into Profet's narrative about human sexual intercourse, the relationship between male and female bodies changes radically. According to Profet, there are many types of pathogens that find their way into the female reproductive tract, but the most "pernicious" of these pathogens are those that "can attach themselves to incoming sperm and ascend the female reproductive tract."i 3 Z Sperm are not always the enemy, but sometimes they are closely associated with the enemy. As Profet explains, "human sperm can be exploited as vehicles of transport by a wide spectrum of bacteria."i33 Sperm are no longer plucky little heroes that rescue the egg; instead, as Profet says repeatedly, "Sperm are vectors of disease." Although Profet's representations of the female body constitute a reversal of the images traditionally found in scientific discourse, her representations of the male body are an intensification of traditional images. In Profet's new theory of menstruation, sperm are still aggressive and competitive, but in this case are hyper-aggressive and out of control. For example, in a discussion of monogamous breeding systems Profet writes about the role of "kamikaze sperm" that "aggregate to block the sperm of other m ales."i 34 in. addition, sperm in Profet's narrative do not seem to act as rationally or purposefully as does the menstruating body; after all, they unwittingly transport dangerous pathogens into some of the most vulnerable parts of the reproductive system, the cervix and the uterus. In contrast, the female body does act rationally and purposefully by providing an environment that is sometimes hostile and sometimes nurturing. The environment of the reproductive tract is "most receptive to sperm and sperm-bom pathogens during 132 Profet, "Menstruation," 342. 133 Profet, "Menstruation," 341. 134 Profet, "Menstruation," 355. 73 the estrogen peak coinciding with estnis, and most hostile to sperm and pathogens during the progesterone peak following estrus/'i 35 When the female body lowers its defenses, it "enables the passage of sperm to the uterus," and "permits sperm survival" thereby protecting the autonomy and health of the female body. Profet similarly characterizes relationships between women and men. In her discussion on the sexual social systems of animals and humans, women either "accept" male sexual advances or "initiate sexual intercourse."^36 They do not passively wait for men to rescue them. Conclusions The publication of Margie Profet's "Menstruation as a Defense Against Pathogens Transported by Sperm" and the discussion that followed represent an interesting (if temporary) disruption in traditional scientific thinking on the process and function of menstruation, as well as traditional scientific representations of the menstruating body. For a brief moment, what was taken for granted was called into question. Profet certainly is not the first to reconceptualize the menstruating body, but what is striking about this reconceptualization was that it came from a scientist who is, in my view, both maverick and traditional. For me, this raises some questions. Is Profet practicing feminist science? What are the implications of Profet's theory? Although Profet's theory does not reproduce the usual gender hierarchies, in the end it merely reverses them. In Profet's theory, there are still troublesome binary oppositions at work (male/female, masculine/ feminine, rational/irrational, self/other), except in this case women are dominant and men are subordinate. The result is that the female body in Profet's theory becomes 135 Profet, "Menstruation," 343. 136 Profet, "Menstruation," 352. 74 more like the (default) male body, just at the moment when the female body is most unlike the male body. Profet's male body, whose "kamikaze sperm" pose a threat to the health of the female body, becomes more like the female body. Grosz writes that "for the girl, menstruation, associated as it is with blood, with injury and the wound, with a mess that does not dry invisibly, that leaks, uncontrollable, not in sleep, in dreams, but whenever it occurs, indicates the beginning of an out-of-control status that she was led to believe ends in childhood."i37 The menstruating body — leaky, messy, and out of control — is potentially transgressive. Profet's controlled and productive female body is more like the clean and controlled male body. The menstruating body is recuperated into scientific discourses that are implicated in capitalist metaphors of machinery, production and warfare. Profet's theory does not call into question these metaphors, nor the scientific narratives that are involved in the production of representations of the female body, traditional or otherwise. This makes me wonder exactly how science and scientific writing transform "life, culture, and society." What are the possibilities and limitations of a "maverick science"? 137 Grosz, Volitile Bodies, 205. 75 CHAPTER 4 THE PRODUCHON OF SEXUAL DIFFERENCE IN SPERM COMPETmON THEORY Introduction In this chapter I shift my attention to sperm competition theory, which made a brief appearance in Profet's article on menstruation. In the previous chapter I showed how Margie Profet, an evolutionary biologist, created a new theory of menstruation in which she also produced nontraditional representations of the female body. Through a metaphoric cinalysis, I mapped out the rearticulations that were taking place in the article she published in The Quarterly Revieiu of Biology. Contrary to medical and biological theories that assert menstruation is an inefficient, "costly" process and a waste of bodily resources, Profet argued that menstruation has an adaptive function and is both efficient and purposeful. In the context of Profet's work, the hysterical female body of mainstream scientific discourse was transformed into an efficient female body that wisely utilized its resources in order to maintain its own health. Profet's new theory drew substantial attention from the American media because she challenged dominant myths, both popular and scientific, about the female body and the function of menstruation. In this chapter I focus more specifically on the work of Robin Baker, an evolutionary biologist who is cited in Profet's article on menstruation. The text in question is Baker's book Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex, a 1996 publication of 76 Basic Books that is written for an audience of non-scientists. This popularized version of Baker's work is based on his scientific research on sperm competition theory. The study of sperm competition theory is relatively new, having begun slightly less than thirty years ago. Sperm competition has been defined as "competition between the sperm of one or two males for the fertilization of a given set of o v a ." t 3 8 As Smith explains in an overview of this theory, it is founded on three basic ideas. First, "males are reproductively selfish and compete, for mates." Second, "semen convey paternalistic characteristics to offspring." Third, "females routinely mate with more than one male within a reproductive cycle."i39 This general definition takes into account that sperm competition theory includes the study of different forms of life, including flowering plants, moUusks, spiders and damselflys. In fact, scientists first studied sperm competition in insects, and later turned to the study of human beings. An important idea in this definition is that "sperm competition" does not refer to external behavior (for example males of the species engaging in battle) but quite literally to competitions that are enacted in the body. This distinction is important. The variety of sexual acts and behaviors that Baker chronicles in his book do not constitute sperm competition in and of themselves, but function as strategies to maximize "reproductive success." Reproductive success is generally defined as having children, and therefore "each generation plays a game in which its members compete to pass their genes on to the next generation."i40 138 G. A. Parker, "Sperm Competition and the Evolution of Ejaculates: Towards a Theory Base," Sperm Competition and Sexual Selection, eds. T. R. Birkhead and A. P. Moller (San Diego: Academic, 1998) 4. 139 Robert L. Smith, foreword, Birkhead and Moller xv. Scientists interested in this theory consider it an extension of Darwin's theory of sexual selection (although they speculate he may have not pursued sperm competition as an area of study due to its sexual expEdtness and his "aversion to censure in the restrictive Victorian environment" [xvü]). See T. R. Birkhead, "Darwin on Sex," The Biologist 44 (1997): 397-399. Note the implicit narrative of progress/liberation in this consideration. 140 Bciker, Sperm Wars, 4. 77 Sperm competition involves "sexual investment strategies for genetic profit/'i'^i Reproductive success is gendered as well: for men it means having the most opportunities to father children, and for women it means having the opportunity to choose the best provider for herself and her children. The study of sperm competition involves the study of many sexual behaviors and bodily processes and events. Therefore, while Profet's article focuses on one bodily process. Baker writes about a variety of bodily processes and events that are relevant to sperm competition theory. In other words. Baker presents a more extensive narrative than Profet. One purpose of this chapter is to elaborate on some of the points I made in the previous chapter about representations of male and female bodies. Like Profet, Baker utilizes metaphors of warfare, machinery and production to produced similar representations of male and female bodies. Another purpose of this chapter is to address the ways in which Baker's writing on sperm competition reinforces the centrality of procreative heterosexuality. At this point I return once again to some of the methodological issues in rhetorical criticism that I addressed in Chapters Two and Three. Following is a discussion of the approach to criticisim I take in this text. First 1 wiU address issues of scientific authorship and the problem of ideology. Second I will discuss an approach to textual analysis that utilizes both metaphor and narrative to map out the ways in which elements within the text cohere to reinforce dominant representations of sexual difference, sexuality and the self. Scientific Ethos and the Naturalization Process In the previous chapter on Margie Profet I addressed her status as a "maverick" scientist. The purpose of the discussion was to address the 141 Haraway, "Sex, Mind and Profit," Simians, 44. 78 assumption that Profet was able to produce her new theory of menstruation with its representations of the body because of her experience as a woman. I argued that Profet's theory could not be reduced to her experiences as a woman and were as much a product of the discourse of evolutionary biology. As I will discuss in more detail later. Baker and Profet utilize the same metaphors and produce similar representations of male and female bodies. At this point I will focus on the question of scientific authorship. Although one purpose of this discussion is to continue previous discussions, about the idea that authors are points of articulation. Baker's work raises some other issues in relation to authorship. In my view. Baker's scientific ethos has an ideological function. In this section I will first address the issue of Baker's scientific credibility. I will then consider Baker's commentary about biological determinism and the status of his theory as scientific fact as part of a process of naturalization. First, unlike Margie Profet, Baker is not considered a "maverick scientist" and his work is not hailed for its feminist politics. In contrast to Profet's unconventional career path. Baker has followed a more traditional career trajectory. Baker began his career as a scientist studying bird migration, then took up the study of animal sexuality and later turned to the study of human sexuality. As noted on the book jacket. Baker was a lecturer at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester and co-authored another book on sperm competition theory with M ark Beilis. As Baker explains in the introduction. Sperm Wars is a version of Human Sperm Competition: Copulation, Masturbation and Infidelity revised for greater clarity and wider accessibility. As noted in his books. Baker has published in numerous scientific journals and had a long career as a prominent researcher in his field before he left his post as an academic and devoted his career to popularizing his work. In addition to providing his scientific expertise in the form of Sperm Wars, Baker also was a 79 consultant for Desmond Morris' television special. The Human Sexes, and has more recently has appeared on a series on the Learning Channel, The Science of Sex. Like Margie Profet, Baker has popularized his work and has made numerous media appearances. Baker's work, as popularized by Basic Books, is promoted as "groundbreaking" (which is not to say "radical," as in the case of Profet). The book jacket of Sperm Wars promises that this book "gives you a window into sexual behavior — your own and that of others — unlike any you've seen before." The representations of Profet and Baker as scientists — found in media articles and in book jacket descriptions — are significantly different. While Profet's ideas have been appropriated as feminist, the political implications of Baker's theories are downplayed in favor of the idea that sperm competition theory provides insight into human behavior. While Baker's ideas might be considered startling, they are not considered a challenge to dominant representations. In the previous chapter I discussed the reasons for considering Margie Profet as a point of articulation as opposed to a point of origin. In the case of Robin Baker my approach is similar. For example, as was the case in my analysis of Profet's theory, I view Baker's discussion of sexual difference and sexuality chiefly as the product of the discourse of evolutionary biology. My discussion of Baker's work is framed by some of the claims he makes in Sperm Wars about the relationship between biological determinism, feminism and moral judgements, particularly in the introduction to the book. Addressing Baker's claims about the relationship between biology and culture, feminism and moral judgments provides a starting point for a discussion of the ideological function of this text. Responding to Baker's explicit claims might be taken for a regression into rhetorical criticism that assumes the rhetor's strategic consciousness. I do not believe this to be the case. The point I made earlier is that the production of texts 80 and ideas is not reducible to the rhetor's strategic consciousness, which is both constrained and enabled b y the discourses in which his or her theory is embedded. In the case of Robin Baker, the assumption is that he formulates his intentions and arguments within the mental frameworks provided by the discourse of evolutionary biology. Therefore, my response to his claims focuses not on what I believe to be his intentions, but on context in which he produces them. The problem of biological determinism is especially relevant here because Baker addresses it throughout his book both implicitly and explicitly. For example, in the introduction to the book Baker provides a preview that explains sperm competition as the process by which sperm from two different males duke it out inside the female to win the right to fertilize the egg. [Sperm Wars\ w ill show the many factors that influence the outcome of such warfare, not the least is the female's own ability to aid or impede one or another sperm war by creating more or less favorable conditions for a successful outcome. It wül also show how advanced preparation is so strongly programmed into both the male and female that it continues bhndly through Hfe, even when the chances of such warfare seem minuscule to the conscious m i n d .i 4 2 In other words. Baker is arguing that human beings are driven by biological imperatives that were "hardwired" a long time ago. External forms of behavior, then, are seen as preparations for the more essential conflicts of sperm competition. Baker reinforces this point in the conclusion when he asserts that without sperm competition "Sex and society, art and literature—in fact, the whole of human culture — would be very different" 143 Out of recognition that for some readers his claims might be controversial. Baker addresses the issue of biological determinism explicitly in the introduction to Sperm Wars. The introduction is both a defense of biological determinism and 142 Baker, Sperm Wars, xiv. 143 Baker, Sperm Wars 316. 81 the status of his theory as scientific fact. While Baker acknowledges that the relationship between "culture and biology" is complex, the introduction defends an approach that emphasizes "biological imperatives" over "social constraints."i44 Baker bolsters his claims that nature supercedes culture by pointing out that even animals exhibit what are thought of as "cultural" traits, such as social constraint and morality. He further defends his focus on "hiology" rather than culture on the grounds that he hopes "to make his arguments relevant to people in a wide range of societies with a wide range of social, moral, and religious norms and beliefs ." 1 4 5 As Baker explains, although the hypothetical examples he uses in the book are of human beings living in contemporary, industrialized societies, sperm competition theory is applicable to all human cultures, both past and present. Throughout the book Baker reinforces this idea by supporting his claims about human sexuality with both cross-cultural examples and examples from the animal kingdom. This basic argument, reinforced over the course of the book, functions as part of the naturalization process and the fixing of meaning. As I discussed in Chapter Two, the power of biodeterministic perspectives is in part dependent on biology's considerable cultural authority. In the introduction to the book Baker also discusses the status of his work as scientific theory, further bolstering its authority. Baker himself discusses his career as a scientist, and discusses the process involved in making his scientific research accessible to a general audience. Baker further takes steps to point out that his work is scientifically sound. It is in the context of the discussion about the book's scientific merits that Baker raises the issue of biological determinism. As he explains, in order to produce good science it is important not to confuse 144 Throughout the introduction Baker opposes the terms "biological" and "cultural" rather than "natural" cind "cultural." The term "biological imperative" involves the conflation of biology and nature, a conflation that many people take for granted. 145 Baker Sperm Wars xix. 82 the "biological" with the cultural. He asserts that that in order to avoid this he has minimized the emphasis on cultural influences and "stripped human sexual behavior down to the bare bones — those events and repercussions that are most important for the biological interpretations that foUow."i46 In short, the introduction to Baker's book functions as a defense of the status of sperm competition as a scientific theory that provides an authoritative explanation of human sexual behavior, an explanation that is free of the distortions of culture. The bolstering of scientific authority could be read also as part of the naturalization process. My analysis of Baker's book functions as a response to his claims about biological determinism and the idea that his representations of sexual difference, sexuality, and the self are universal and natural. However, my response does not take the form of counterargument; I do not evaluate this text in light of its scientific merits or whether or not the claims he makes can be refuted with counterevidence. Instead, my response takes the form of an analysis that examines the ways in which elements in the text cohere to reinforce dominant representations of sexual difference and sexuality. Moreover, in this response I do not read the text as the product of Baker's strategic consciousness, but as a product of the discourse of evolutionary biology. As I did in the chapter on Profet, I utilize metaphor as a conceptual tool in order to map out this process. In addition I utilize narrative analysis. Following is a discussion of narrative analysis in relation to articulation. A Reorientation of The Narrative Paradigm In the previous chapter I explain the function of a metaphoric analysis of Margie Profet's theory in relation to articulation. In that chapter, the emphasis 146 Baker, Sperm Wars, xxii. 83 was not so much on the representations that are created through metaphoric interaction, but more on a metaphoric logic that works to bring together ideas in the first place. In other words, metaphors fimctioned as a theoretical tool for mapping out the connections and linkages involved in the making of representations of female and male bodies. As I shall discuss here, narrative has a similar function. The analysis in this chapter borrows from a rhetorically inflected view of narrative taken up from Walter Fisher's narrative paradigm. Making use of the narrative paradigm in my analysis requires some further explanation as there are some problems in Fisher's work that should be addressed. Fisher's narrative paradigm functions as a critique of what he calls the "rational world paradigm." According to Fisher, the rational world paradigm provides a view of the world as a "set of logical word puzzles that can be solved through appropriate analysis and appHcation of reason conceived as an argumentative construct. "t47 Solving the world's puzzles requires highly speciahzed argumentative skills, professional status, and access to restricted spaces where matters of policies are deliberated. The rationale for an oppositional "narrative paradigm" is to make the practice of argumentation accessible to all and not just an efite. The goal of formulating a narrative paradigm is to devise a logic of "practical reasoning" that applies to everyday argument. Fisher positions the narrative paradigm as an extension of Burke's definition of humans as the "symbol-using animal." "One's life is, as suggested by Burke, a story that participates in the stories of those who have lived, who live now, and who will live in the future."148 in contrast to the rational world paradigm, the narrative paradigm assumes: 447 Walter Fisher, Human Communication as Narration: Tozoard a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action (Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina P, 1987) 59. 148 Fisher, Human, 63. 84 1) Humans are essentially storytellers, 2) The paradigmatic mode of human decision making and communication is "good reasons," which vary in form among situations, genres and media of communication, 3) The production and practice of good reasons are ruled by matters of history, biography, culture and character ... and 4) Rationality is determined by the nature of persons as narrative beings—their inherent awareness of narrative probability, what constitutes a coherent story, and their constant habit of testing narrative fidelity, whether or not the stories they experience ring true with the stories they know to be true in their hves.149 In short, Fisher has a strong commitment to a rhetoric of conviction and the idea that everyone has narrative rationality and "common sense." My purpose is to reorient the narrative paradigm from the perspective of articulation. The first issue to address is Fisher's individualized view of narrative rationality. As he asserts the ability to judge narrative is "innate," and narrative fidelity is judged against personal experience. From the perspective of articulation theory, individuals form their intentions within ideology and experience is mediated within it. Second, the view Fisher presents (via Burke) of life as a conversation implies a conversation between individuals who produce the narratives. From the perspective of articulation, narratives are produced at the level of discourse by individuals positioned in relation to them, and narrative can function as a form of social control. As Dennis Mumby explains, narrative has both a social and an ideological function. Narratives "function to construct the social reality that constitutes the lived world of social actors."i50 From this perspective, "good reasons" are not pre-given entities that can be found in the stories people tell, but are constituted by narrative itself. Narratives that meet the standards of probability and fidelity offer "likely stories" that promote some perspectives while foreclosing others. 149 Fisher, Human, 64. 150 Dennis K. Mumby, "Introduction: Narrative and Social Control," Narratwe and Social Control: Critical Perspectives, ed. Dennis K. Mumby (Newbury Park, CA: Sage) 1993:5. 85 A key idea in Fisher's narrative paradigin is "good reasons," defined as "those elements that provide warrants for accepting or adhering to the advice fostered by any form of communication that can be considered rhetorical."i5i In a discussion of the uses of the narrative paradigm for criticism, Fisher offers a similar perspective: "a text is viewed as composed of good reasons, elements that give warrants for believing or acting in accord with the message fostered by that text."i52 The notion of "good reasons," is similar to the notion of commonplaces for its emphasis on concensus and finding materials for arguments.153 In Chapter Two I discussed the ways in which a rhetorical criticism grounded in a politics of articulation transforms perspectives on the function of commonplaces. A reorientation of rhetorical criticism grounded in a politics of articulation involves locating rhetorical criticism in a different point in rhetorical processes. This reoriention involves a shift from regarding commonplaces as materials for argument towards an investigation into the making of commonly held opinions. In the case of the narrative paradigm, rather than reading narratives in search of "good reasons" that reinforce commonly held opinions, the critic examines the ways in which the commonly held opinions are constituted through the narrative. The critic now utilizes narrative as a conceptual tool for mapping out the ways in which elements in a narrative cohere to create common sense. In the case of Sperm Wars the purpose of rhetorical criticism is to examine the ways in which elements of Baker's narrative cohere to reinforce the centrality of procreative heterosexuality and heterosexual monogamy. The reason for the narrative analysis is that Baker's endorsement of this ideal is not always readily 151 Fisher, Human, 107. 152 Walter Fisher, "The Narrative Paradigm: An Elaboration," Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Tiuentieth Century Perspective, eds. Bernard Brock, Robert L. Scott, James W. Chesboro, 3rd edition, (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1990) 245. 153 In addition, "good reasons" specifically involves finding the right values to guide decisions. Fisher, Human, 107. 86 apparent In fact, as I shall explain in more detail, sperm competition theory poses a potential threat to procreative heterosexuality and heterosexual monogamy. In the narrative analysis I will discuss how this contradiction is resolved in Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex. Narrative Structure in Sperm Wars Sperm Wars consists of eleven chapters, all of which are structured in the same way. Each chapter contains one or more "scenes" that describe a sexual encounter featuring unnamed characters. Over the course of eleven chapters there are thirty-seven scenes, and each scene is followed by an interpretation of the behavior involved from the perspective of evolutionary biology. As Baker explains, he has conducted research involving humans, but the stories in Sperm Wars are not derived from his interviews and other work with human subjects. Instead, the scenes are hypothetical examples used for purposes of illustration. Both the scenes and the explanation are the products of Baker's imagination, an imagination that is structured by the discourse in which his theory is embedded. The scenes and explanations are consistent with the general definition I discussed earlier. The scenes themselves describe various acts and behaviors, while in the explanations that follow Baker describes in detail the bodily processes that are at work as a consequence of the events that happened in the scenes. For example. Scenes 6 and 7 describe a married woman who has an affair with an old boyfriend. Having had sexual intercourse with first with her old boyfriend and later with her husband, the consequence is "sperm warfare." The explanation that follows describes in great detail the deployment of highly specialized "sperm armies" that compete to fertilize the egg. What I have just described is the core narrative in this book — the scenes that describe other sexual encounters are followed by explanations of the strategies that both men 87 and women deploy to alter the course of sperm warfare and maximize their chances of "reproductive success." The preceding paragraph reproduces the language of sperm competition theory in which extended metaphors of warfare, competition, production, and efficiency are at work. Later in this chapter I will return to the use of metaphor in Sperm Wars and the ways in which they function to produce representations of male and female bodies. For the present I will focus on the general narrative structure of the book and in particular on the arrangement of the "scenes." The . reason for doing so is to address two of the claims Baker makes in the introduction to his book. First, at the end of the introduction to the book Baker recounts: I have been told that Sperm Wars makes w om en seem scheming, manipulative, and deceitful. I have even been warned of feminist attack. This surprises me because, while writing the book, I thought I might be helping to redress the traditional male-dominated view of sexuality, the infamous double standard.iS4 Stereotypes of angry feminists aside. Baker might be correct on both counts. Baker's representations of women and the female body are not as problematic as they might be. Unlike other some of his predecessors. Baker takes for granted that females of a species play an active role in sperm competition.tss Moreover, throughout the book he characterizes female sexuality in the language of "choice" and "control." Notwithstanding Baker's egalitarian perspective, there are reasons Baker should fear "feminist attack," which I shall elaborate upon throughout the discussion. 154 Baker, Sperm Wars, xiv. 155 When this theory was first developed, the scientists focused first on the role of males in sperm competition and only belatedly turned their attention to the role of females. Baker and Beilis make this point: "Models of sperm competition tend to view the female tract as a passive receptacle in which males play out their sperm competition games." R. Robin Baker and Mark A. Beilis, "Human Sperm Competition: Ejaculate Manipulation by Females and a Function for the Female Orgasm," Animal Behavior 46 (1993): 887. 88 Anticipating yet another controversy. Baker closes the introduction by saying "A large part of the behavior I describe and interpret is at best amoral and at worst criminal. In my view it is imperative that I not take any moral stance. My aim is to interpret human behavior without any prejudice or criticism."i56 The more specific issue Baker raises is his discussion of rape, which he discusses as a strategy that is deployed to ensure "reproductive success." His concern is so great that he reiterates it when he discusses rape in Scene 33, and asserts that the reader should not take his discussion of rape as a reproductive strategy as an approval.157 What I wish to address here are the more general implications of Baker's claim that he doesn't make value judgments about the various kinds of sexual acts, behaviors, and experiences he discusses throughout the book. Although Baker claims that he does not make any value judgments about various kinds of sexual behaviors, acts and experiences, the arrangement of the scenes in the book — in other words, the order in which he presents the scenes — implicitly does make a judgment. The individual scenes, in which he describes the variety of sexual acts and behaviors that I listed earlier, would seem to threaten the centrality of procreative heterosexuality. Contrary to Baker's claims, the narrative structure of the book serves to recuperate those acts and behaviors and in fact reinforces the centrality of procreative heterosexuality. The first scene that describes a sexual encounter is characterized as "routine sex," and describes a monogamous heterosexual couple having sexual intercourse (on a Saturday night, no less). In the subsequent scenes Baker follows the story of this couple until they have achieved "reproductive success" and manage to conceive. Baker then leaves the happy couple behind and chronicles several additional events: infidelity, masturbation, nocturnal orgasm, 156 Baker, Spemi Wars, xxv. 157 Baker, Sperm Wars, 273. 89 orgasm during intercourse, the use of contraceptives, partner-swapping, first- time sexual intercourse, date rape, stranger rape, same sex encounters involving men, and same-sex encounters involving women. This is a partial list, but the instances enumerated here are presented in the same order as they appear in the book. The events I have just enumerated might suggest that sperm competition theory represents a threat to heterosexual monogamy and procreative sexuality due to the nature of the acts and behaviors it describes. Indeed, as I explained earlier one of the tenets of sperm competition theory is that the female of the species is not monogamous and has multiple sexual partners. From the perspective of sperm competition theory, this is not an exception but is the norm. However, the stories Baker tells over the course of the book and the general narrative trajectory serve to deflect the potential threat to heterosexual monogamy. Sometimes, the result is either heterosexual monogamy or procreative sexuality, but over the course of the book one or the other is recuperated. For example, following the discussion of "routine sex," Baker discusses instances of infidelity. In some of the scenes a woman is unfaithful to her partner and conceives a child by another man, but manages to deceive him and stay with her original partner. Although the paternity is in question (though sometimes the issue never comes up), the status of the heterosexual monogamous couple remains intact. Sometimes the choice presented is between staying coupled or utter ruin. In one scene a woman finally leaves her husband after years of his unfaithfulness because she has found another more suitable partner. While she has found a wealthier partner, her former partner remains uncoupled, becomes impoverished, and on top of that contracts gonorrhea.iss Only after he meets another woman and enters into a long term monogamous relationship does his life begin to improve. 158 Baker, Sperm Wars, 71. 90 BakeKs discussion of infidelity is illustrative of some of the issues he addresses in the introduction to the book. He expressed a fear of "feminist attack" for characterizing women as "manipulative" and "deceitful." On the other hand, as he asserts women do indeed have the "upper hand" as many scenes end with woman who have found more suitable partners with greater wealth, while many of the men end up alone, sometimes in financial ruins. Of course. Baker imagines women's success in questionable terms. For women, "success" is partly defined in terms of finding a suitable partner who will support them financially. There are many female characters in the book who depend on men for their financial success. A chapter entitled "Shopping Around for Genes" features the lone female character who is independently wealthy and has achieved reproductive success; however, she acquired her wealth through a former husband, now dead. In the explanation that follows. Baker explains that while men judge prospective female partners in terms of their looks, women judge prospective male partners in terms of their wealth. From the perspective of sperm competition theory (and other theories of sexual selection) this makes sense. In women physical attractiveness is a sign of health and the ability to bear children, while in men wealth is a sign of being able to provide for them. Culturally and historically contingent social relationslûps are naturalized through sperm competition theory and other theories of sexual selection. There are many morality tales in this book. For example, in the penultimate chapter. Baker groups together strategies that have proven to be successful (although they are characterized as "minority" strategies). This section covers the life of a bisexual man, the life of a lesbian couple, prostitution, stranger rape, and soldiers committing rape during wartime. The grouping of topics, the characterization of them as "minority" strategies, and their position in the narrative trajectory belies Baker's claim that he is not making moral 91 judgments. In the explanations that follow the scenes. Baker is equally careful to condemn rape and he also is careful not to condemn homosexuality. However, the fate of the bisexual man — the only such character in the book — contradicts his claims. Married at the beginning of die scene, his wife discovers his affairs with both men and women and leaves him. After that he moves from his comfortable home to a small apartment outside of town, later is arrested for having sex with minors, is jailed, and subsequently contracts AIDS. Baker concludes the narrative: "unemployed and penniless, he died of AIDS before his thirty-seventh birthday," the only character in the book to die a premature death. In Baker's book, with its decidedly middle-class perspective on life, financial prosperity, health and general well-being are linked to the state of heterosexual monogamy. Characters who make other choices are relegated as outsiders to society in many ways. In the middle part of the book, procreative sexuality and heterosexual monogamy do not always correspond, but one of the other always prevails. In the final chapter, entitled "Total Success," heterosexual monogamy, procreative heterosexuality, and "reproductive success" cohere in a moment of narrative and ideological closure. This scene features a heterosexual couple who are judged to have achieved "total success" not only because they had many children, but also because they have many grandchildren and great-grandchildren (and have therefore successfully passed along their genes). In the explanation that follows the scene. Baker concludes that "this final scene is a reminder that with the right person in the right situation, the best way to achieve the greatest reproductive success can sometimes be within a monogamous relationship."iS9 The final description of the scene reinforces the centrality of procreative heterosexuality: A gang of naked children ran across the clearing as a group of young men, naked apart from a belt around their waists, emerged from the forest. On 159 Baker, Sperm Wars, 314. 92 their shoulders the leaders were carrying the first of three large animals, already skewered on a wooden spit. The food for their feast had arrived.160 This rather clumsy twist in the story, with language that signifies a mythical and vaguely defined "primitive" hunter-gatherer society, reinforces the centrality of procreative heterosexuality not only by judging it the ultimate success, but also by implying that it is universal and timeless. Indeed, as Baker asserts in the explanation that follows, "this scene is also a reminder that long-term relationships, including monogamous ones, are estimated to have been a feature of human sexuality for around three million years."i6i The conclusion is not the first time that a mythical preindustrial society is invoked to bolster Baker's claims that our bodies were "hardwired" a long time ago in ways that have profoundly shaped sexuality and society. Baker often refers to examples of emimal sexual behaviors which are used as evidence in support of claims about the naturalness of human sexual behavior. Examples throughout the book that 160 Baker, Spertn Wars, 314. 161 Baker, Sperni Wars, 314. 93 refer to preindustrial societies and animal behavior bolster the larger claims that Baker makes about biological imperatives and the fixedness of human sexuality .162 Metaphor and Sexual Difference in Sperm Wars The narrative structure of Sperm Wars reflects the structure of sperm competition theory itself. The scenes describe the sexual acts and behaviors that prepare the body for sperm competition, while the explanations that follow emphasize more the bodily events that constitute sperm competition. In the previous chapter I outlined that narrative structure of the scenes, while here I focus on the explanations that follow. Baker's focus in the explanations are the events that take place in the body, more specifically the reproductive tract. As I 162 An example is Baker's discussion of prostitution, in which he asserts that prostitution is not merely a practice specific to a few cultures, but is found in most human cultures emd even in animals. Defining prostitution as the "exchange of sex for resources," Baker discusses the example of migratory birds. According to Baker male birds arrive at their breeding areas and establish territories, while the female birds arrive later. In a mercenary relationship, the female bird will exchange sex for access to the male bird's territory and therefore obtain access to valuable resources. From Baker's perspective examples such as migratory birds reinforce his claims that prostitution is not just a cultural phenomenon and has a long history {Sperm Wars, 264-266). From a feminist perspective, the example of migratory birds involves a complex mapping of culture onto nature that results in the naturalization of social relations. There are mzmy such examples in Sperm Wars, but m apping out the "traffic between nature and culture" (as Donna Heiraway would say) is an extremely complicated business best carried out in the context of another project. However, from a feminist perspective, mapping culturally specific social relations onto nature hcis a long history. For an example, see Schiebinger, Nature's Body, in petrticular her chapter on the development of new classification systems for plants in the eighteenth century. She points out how Linneaus developed a new classification system for plants based on their sexuality rather than on their medicinal properties (as was the case in the medieval period). Linking plant sexuality with eighteenth century perspectives on marriage and heterosexual monogamy, Linneaus produced a new taxonomy in which he imagined plant "nuptials," and "marriage beds," and plants that practiced monogamy. Relationships between male and female plants mirrored those of eighteenth century human husbands and wives. This same process of collapsing culture into nature (i.e., the process of naturalizing culture) was noted in Dcuwin's work by Marx who commented, "It is remarkable how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening-up of new markets, 'inventions', and the Malthusian 'struggle for existence'" (Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, 18 June 1862,Selected Correspondence, ed. S. W. Ryazanskaya [Moscow: Progress, 1965] 128, qtd. in Gillian Beer, introduction. The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin [New York: Oxford LIP, 1996] xxvii-xxviii). 94 explained earlier sexual acts and sexual and other behaviors do not constitute sperm competition but instead prepare both male and female bodies to "maximize their chances of reproductive success." As I discussed in the previous chapter on Margie Profet's theory of menstruation, scientific inquiry and argument are shaped by metaphors of warfare and production. The same metaphors are at work in Sperm Wars — as it turns out, "sperm wars" is not just a title that sells books. Metaphors of warfare are at work in this scientific narrative, as are metaphors of capitalist production.i63 Although the metaphors are not always present in descriptions of the human body and its processes, these metaphors provide patterns of inferences that shape the narrative. For example, although the female body does not unleash aggressive "armies" in sperm competition, it does engage in strategies that work to its advantage. Baker does not always use the language of capitalist production, but the same logic of cost/benefit analyses and efficient bodily mechanisms that were at work in Margie Profet's theory of menstruation are present in this text as well. In this section I will discuss the ways in which both male and female bodies are imagined in terms of warfare and production. Some of the basic descriptions of events that take place in sperm competition reinforce the traditional view that women are passive and men are aggressive. For example, the female reproductive tract is described in language that suggests it is a backdrop against which the action takes place. Baker uses adjectives such as "environment," "fertilization zone," and "void" to characterize the reproductive tract and describes areas of the reproductive tract 163 These metaphors are also present in Birkhead and Moller. 95 that are "patrolled" by rival s p e n n . i 6 4 Further reinforcing the stereotype of female passivity is Baker's description of the egg: Tiny hairs on the inside of the oviduct create a cnxrrent in the body fluid so that when an egg is released by an ovary, it is slowly wafted toward the blacic hold of the oviduct. Like a waiting hand, the fingerlike projections funnel the egg into the tube. From here, the egg begins its five day journey down toward the w o m b . " i 6 5 Rather than propelling itself into the fallopian tube, the egg "is slow ly wafted." Finally, as I explained earlier. Baker repeatedly refers to the egg as a "prize" to be won by competing sperm. Baker's use of such language to cdiaracterize the female reproductive tract do not necessarily contradict his claim that he views male and female bodies in more egalitarian terms; perhaps they are the unconscious reproduction of commonly used descriptions in sperm competition and in evolutionary biology. 164 Baker and Beilis describe the interaction between the sexes in monogamous species as "a subtle mixture of conflict and cooperation," but this does not refer to observable behaviors (although it clearly relies upon cliches of human relationships). Instead, they state that such interaction is "cryptic, taking place within the female's reproductive tract." The female body thus becomes the locus of sexual interaction, an enigma, a crypt, the occult place of burial. The cryptic interaction of humans is analyzed by looking at the ejection of sperm in extra-pair copulations, and not surprisingly. Baker cind Beilis find that female orgasm is a mechanism for retaining sperm (orgasm as "female strategy"). They state that "in purely monandrous situations, females reduced the number of sperm retained, perhaps as a strategy to enhance conception. During periods of infidelity, however, females changed their orgasm pattern." Seeming to change the sense of the term back to its more conventional usage, they continue "the changes would have been cryptic to the male partners and would numerically have favoured the sperm from the extra-pair males, presumably raising his chances of success in sperm competition with the female's partner [i.e., her "in-pair" partner, not her sexual partner in this case]" (887). Sperm competition is thus cryptic both in the sense of its staging area and in that it is a secret kept by the female, a secret uncovered by science. See Baker and BeUis, "Human Sperm Competition." Compare this to Thomas Laqueur's genealogy of sex, who points out that "near the end of the Enlightenment... medical science and those who relied on it ceased to regard the female orgasm as relevant to generation. Conception, it was held, could take place secretly, with no telltale shivers or signs of arousal— . The newly 'discovered' contingency of delight opened up the possibility of female passivity m d 'passionlessness'" {Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud [Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1990] 3). Thus while renewing an "active" role for females in sex, at least in "potential," sperm competition theory repeats the notion of female sexuality as secret. 165 Baker, Sperm Wars, 29. 96 The metaphor of warfare reinforces the stereotype of an aggressive male body, but as it turns out there is more to the story. At various points in the book. Baker describes highly specialized sperm armies that engage in warfare, "a motley collection of characters."i66 As Baker explains, one might not realize there are many different kinds of sperm with different functions. Throughout the book, he describes the varieties of sperm produced by the male body: "egg getters," "kiUers," "blockers," and the "kamikaze" sperm that made an appearance in Profet's article on menstruation. Baker's account of sperm competition in some ways contradicts Profet's narrative about events that take place in the female reproductive tract. For example, Profet's description of "kamikaze" sperm that ascend the female reproductive tract carrying dangerous pathogens on their necks suggested that the male body is hyperaggressive and out of control (in contrast to a controlled, rational female body). In contrast. Baker's narrative features many different kinds of sperm, not all of which are as aggressive as the "kamikaze" sperm. Moreover, this type of sperm is not always present in male ejaculate; as Baker describes it, kamikaze sperm are present only when needed. Just as Profet characterized the female body as a collection of efficient mechanisms. Baker characterizes the male body in a similar way. When threatened with the presence of rival sperm armies, the male body adjusts its production of different kinds of sperm accordingly. As Baker explains, "egg getters," "killers," "blockers" and "kamikaze," sperm are different in terms of function, appearance and age. For example, as younger sperm are more aggressive, they function as the faster-moving egg- getters and killers. As older sperm are more sluggish, they are more suited to aggregating and blocking other sperm from rival armies. In addition, sperm are distinct in terms of their shape and appearance. "Tapering sperm" have 166 Baker, Sperm Wars, 41. 97 cigar-shaped heads, while "pyrifonn" sperm have pear-shaped heads.i67 According to Baker, there is m uch variety in the shape of sperm: "Some sperm have round heads, some cigar-shaped, some pear-shaped, some dumbbell shaped, and some a head that is so irregular in shape that it defies description. Some sperm, the real monster troops, have two, or three, or, very occasionally, four heads."i68 Different types of sperm function in a hierarchy organized in terms of age, ability and appearance. The most flattering descriptions are of the elite egg-getting sperm who are destined to "win the prize" of the egg: the egg- getter is a magnificent, athletic, cell with a head, a midpiece, and a long, slender, tail. The head is paddle-shaped, oval in outline but flattened and wearing a cap. This cap is filled with important fluids. Inside the head, densely folded, is the package of DNA, the genes that a fertile sperm will deliver to the heart of the egg. The head perches like the top of the lollipop on the short, stiff, midpiece which is the sperm's powerhouse, the place where stored energy is mobilized to activate the tail for swimming. These sleek individuals travel effortlessly through the female's body fluids, pushed forward by elegant waves whipping in slow motion down the length of their tails.i69 Baker's description of the other sperm are not quite so lavish or full o f praise.? 70 However as I shall discuss later. Baker has similar praise for the female body. In any case, from the perspective of evolutionary biology, which explains the purposefulness of bodily parts and processes, what are seemingly deformed sperm with odd-shaped or multiple heads turn out to have an important 167 According to Baker, tapering sperm and pyriform sperm "are programmed to destroy a man's own egg-getters" {Sperm Wars, 107). Although this might seem a self-destructive act. Baker characterizes them as "family planning" sperm because they are useful in situations when it is disadvantageous for a man to father a child. 168 Baker, Sperm Wars, 41. 169 Baker, Sperm Wars, 41. 170 As Emily Martin observes. Baker is not the only scientist who extols the wonders of the male reproductive system. In a text that describes male reproductive physiology, the authors use adjectives such as remarkable and amazing. See Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body,AS. 98 function in sperm competition. According to this scientific narrative, the male body does not waste its valuable resources. The male body is optimized in other ways as well. As Haraway explains in a discussion about optimization in sociobiology, optimization does not mean maximum productive efficiency at all times. Insects in organized societies can be lazy as well as industrious; it has been precisely measured. Crucial to system optimization are the mass effects of many variables, not perfection of the individual worker ant.i^i At one point when Baker is describing a more quiet moment in the trenches of sperm warfare, he describes the sperm that have settled into some comer of the reproductive tract as "resting" and waiting to make their next move, so laziness is built into the optimization process in sperm competition theory as well. In short, the male body is a rational, controlled body that makes the optimal use of its available resources — even seemingly wasteful bodily functions and products have a purposeful function, and even in moments of rest. Furthermore, the optimization process does not just affect bodily mechanisms, but the acts and behaviors that prepare the body for sperm competition. For example, it goes without saying that masturbation is commonly considered to be a nonprocreative, wasteful sexual act, yet through sperm competition theory it acquires an important purpose. As Baker explains, masturbation in men prepares the body for sperm competition by changing the proportion of different types of sperm. When the male body senses the threat of a rival, masturbation prepares it for sperm warfare by shedding older, less vigorous sperm and replenishing the supply of younger, more aggressive sperm. Moreover, masturbation involves the wise use of bodily resources. As Baker explains it, there is a trade-off involved: Masturbation between acts of intercourse usually means that a man inseminates his partner with fewer sperm than if he had not masturbated. 171 Haraway, Simians, 64. 99 However, the sperm he introduces are younger, more dynamic, and less hindered by supernumerary geriatric sperm. As a result, just as many, if not more, manage to escape into the seminal pool and stay in the woman. And the sperm that escape are younger and more active — altogether a more efficient a r m y .172 Finally, timing is everything — timed right, male masturbation can produce the right proportion of sperm types at the right time, thus allowing a man "maximum flexibility in terms of adjusting his sperm a r m y ." i7 3 According to Baker female masturbation also has a purpose in sperm warfare, albeit a different one. Although the female body does not mobilize highly organized armies, it can prepare itself to favor one sperm army over another. As Baker points out, from the perspective of evolutionary biology, female orgasm does not have a self-evident function other than pleasure. In sperm competition theory, female orgasm (through either masturbation or nocturnal orgasm) acquires purposefulness and function. Baker's explanation is that in females, orgasm results in significant changes within the reproductive tract. Orgasm temporarily increases the flow of mucus into the vagina, which presents several advantages. According to Baker the orgasm that triggers the flow of mucous has several effects: first it increases the acidity of the mucous, which is advantageous because "neither sperm nor bacteria function properly in acidic mucus ... [Sjperm are less able to swim through the mucus channels and disease organisms are less able to invade and multiply."i74 Second, orgasm strengthens the "cervical filter," which physically blocks the sperm as well. The narrative about female orgasm and cervical mucus parallels Profet's narrative about menstruation in many ways. In both instances, bodily processes function to protect the female body against disease, and characterize the female 172 Baker, Sperm Wars, 81. 173 Baker, Sperm Wars, 82. 174 Baker, Sperm Wars, 169. 100 body in terms of exerdsing "choice" when it comes to conception. There is another important parallel between Profet's and Baker's view of the female body. Profet asserts that menstrual blood, a sign of a female body that is leaky, messy and out of control, in facts uses a proportionate amount of blood in a purposeful manner. The effect is a female body that is rational and controlled. Baker's narrative has a similar effect. In his discussion of cervical mucus. Baker comments that although most people think of mucus raAer contemptuously as a messy, amorphous substance ... [cervical mucus] is in fact very different... It is wonderful stuff with an immaculate structure, and it is absolutely vital to a woman's health, safety — and sexual power. It contains fibers and is permeated by channels. Most of these channels are very narrow, some only the width of two sperm heads side by side, but they are nonetheless the highways through which sperm swim as they migrate from the vagina to the inner regions of the cervix and b e y o n d . i ^ s The examples taken from Profet and Baker suggest that evolutionary biology makes over bodies, both male and female, containing and controlling messy bodily fluids and substances. Conclusion The optimization of both male and female bodies in sperm competition theory has the effect of strengthening the link between sex and reproduction. In my discussion of the "scenes," I argued that the details of the chronicles of various characters, together with the arrangement of the scenes, reinforced the centrality of procreative heterosexuality. Through a narrative that begins and ends with the success of monogamous heterosexual couples, and a succession of narratives that deflect threats to the idea of heterosexual monogamy. Sperm Wars establishes procreative heterosexuality as the telos of all human beings (at least the "successful" ones). The explanations that follow, which explairi the function 175 Baker, Sperm Wars, 16-17. 101 of a variety of acts and behaviors through the perspective of sperm competition theory, strengthen the link between sex and reproduction. In sperm competition theory there is no such thing as a non-procreative sexual act. Through an optimization process that affects bodily processes, acts, and behaviors, every sexual encounter can be explained as preparation for sperm competition and the event that signifies reproductive success: the merger of sperm and egg. As it turns out, the body constantly prepares itself for this event, even in dreams. In this chapter I have attempted to map out the ways in which narrative elements link up and cohere in order to reproduce and intensify commonly held views of sexuality and sexual difference. In the next chapter I turn to a scientific narrative that works at disassembling these commonly held ideas. Lynn Margulis, a molecular biologist, and Dorion Sagan, a science writer and her son, write from the perspective of a "new biology" with a view of evolution grounded symbiosis rather than adaptation and cooperation rather than competition. Their scientific narrative calls into question the very idea of the individual and radically destabilizes a fixed and binary gender system. 102 CHAPTERS DIFFERENCE AND GENDER IN THE NEW BIOLOGY Introduction The cover illustration of What Is Sexî'^^e features what is in this culture an instantly recognizable image. Moonlike, an ovum hangs in the center against a black background. Off to the lower left a single sperm, its curved tail suggesting movement, points its head toward the egg. This image depicts a moment of anticipation, just before the merger of egg and sperm. As part of the cover illustration this image seems to function as the answer to the question posed by the title. The juxtaposition of the title and this image implies a definition of "sex" that is necessarily linked to reproduction and a fixed dual-gender system. This image of egg and sperm, which stands in for human females and males, suggests that when it comes to answering the question "what is sex?" human beings are central to the discussion. However, Lynn Margulis, a biologist, and Dorion Sagan, a science writer and her son, have written a scientific narrative that is instructive on how to read this image of egg and sperm ironically. Margulis and Sagan's work is grounded in the Gaia hypothesis and a view of evolution that emphasizes symbiosis, interconnectedness, and cooperation rather than natural selection, individuality, and competition. In their work, which explains the origins of sexuality from the perspective of an evolutionary theory, sex and reproduction are not automatically linked together. Neither does sex or sexual 176 Lynn Margulis cind Dorion Sagan, What is Sex? (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997). 103 reproduction require two "opposite" genders. As it turns out, "male" and "female" are only "useful approximations." Furthermore, this scientific narrative is not so narrow in its scope, for its perspective on evolution and sexuality is nonzoocentric. In other words, human beings are not that significant in the larger scheme of things, and there is no hierarchy that positions different forms of life as higher or lower. The merger of egg and sperm is not the moment we've all been waiting for, and male and female are not a starting point for defining "sex." Feminist critiques of science have pointed out that the image of egg and sperm is linked to both popular and scientific narratives of romance, entrepreneurship, and warfare.i77 Narratives about egg and sperm often reinforce gender hierarchies and stereotypes: sperm are active, eggs are passive; sperm are athletic or little soldiers on a mission to conquer the egg, the egg is a femme fatale or waits patiently to be rescued.i78 Such stories about sperm and egg already have made a few appearances throughout this project. Even if the merger of sperm and egg has not always been the main topic of conversation, competing scientific narratives about sperm and egg have always been in the background. In the case of Margie Profet, her new theory of menstruation challenged stereotypes of the passive female body that are reproduced through scientific and medical narratives about the merger of sperm and egg. The endpoint of Robin Baker's narrative about evolution and sex is the merger of sperm and egg, and as I discussed in the previous chapter this narrative tightly links sexuality, procreation and heterosexual monogamy. As I already have suggested, the work of Margulis and Sagan represents a radical departure from 177 For feminist critiques of sperm and egg narratives see Emily Martin, "The Egg and The Sperm"; and Kirsten Dwight, "Sperm Stories: Romantic, Entrepreneurial and Environmental Narratives About Treating Male Infertility," Science as Culture. 27 (1997): 246-276. For an example of scientific narratives about sperm warfare, see Robin Baker, Sperm Wars. 178 See Emily Martin, "The Egg and the Sperm." 104 both Profet's and Baker's accounts of sex and evolution. One purpose of this chapter is to map out the ways in which Marguhs and Sagan call into question the very idea of the coherent subject; radically reconcep tualize gender; and weaken the link between sex, procreative heterosexuality, and heterosexual monogamy. This chapter on Margulis and Sagan also presents the opportunity to elaborate upon themes that I touched upon in previous chapters but have not yet addressed fully. For example, as I explained in my conclusions about Margie Profet, her theory of menstruation reconceptualized medical and scientific representations of the female body. However, I concluded that Profet's new theory was not disruptive enough of the problematic binary oppositions — male/female, self/other, active/passive, culture/ nature — that are at work in science's production of sexual difference. Donna Haraway explains how technoscience is involved in the producing these dualisms: From the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the great historical construction of gender, race and class were embedded in the organically marked bodies of women, the colonized or the enslaved, and the worker. Those inhabiting those marked bodies have been symbolically other to the fictive self of universal and so unmarked, species man, a coherent subject. The marked organic body has been a criticA locus of cultural and political contestation, crucial both to the language of hberatory politics of identity and to systems of domination drawing on a widely shared language of nature as resource for the appropriations of culture 179 Through my analysis of W hat Is Sex? I will address more explicitly the problem of sexual difference as defined in terms of binary oppositions and the ways in which Marguhs and Sagan reconceptualize sexual difference in terms of multiplicity instead of binary oppositions. This chapter also elaborates on some of the ideas I discussed in my critique of Robin Baker. In that chapter I said that my critique functioned as a response to Baker's book and utilized a narrative and metaphoric analysis in 179 Haraway, Simians, 210. 105 order to call into question some of Baker's claims about biological determinism, feminism, and moral judgments. In a sense, this chapter on Margulis and Sagan functions as further response to Baker's theory of sperm competition theory and its implications, albeit in a different form. Margulis and Sagan's work functions as a response to Baker in two different ways. First, with its reconceptualizations of gender, sexuality and the self, it presents an alternative to Baker's scientific narrative. As I explained in the chapter on Baker, my own response took the form of a critique rather than counterargument. In other words, rather than evaluating Baker's work on its scientific merits or producing counterevidence to refute his claims, I utilized narrative as a conceptual tool to map out the ways in which the elements of the narrative cohered in order to reinforce the centrality of procreative heterosexuality and heterosexual monogamy. From my position as a rhetorical critic, this is the most appropriate response as I do not possess either the authority or the expertise to produce a credible refutation. My strategy then is to juxtapose the work of another evolutionary biologist with the work of Robin Baker for a similar effect. Second, Marguhs and Sagan's work functions as a response to Baker because of its critique of neo-Darwianism, the dominant perspective in evolutionary theory that informs Baker's work. In addition to providing an alternative set of claims and evidence, Margulis and Sagan do critical work that is more commonly associated with cultural and rhetorical critics than with scientists. My own narrative analysis of Baker's book was an act of disassembling. Margulis and Sagan's self-reflexive commentary on paradigm shifts in evolutionary biology has a similar function. Self-reflexivity is a distinctive characteristic of Margulis and Sagan's writing. In What Is Sex? and other works, the authors provide an explanation of a "new biology" that emphasizes symbiosis and interconnectedness while simultaneously providing a 106 critique of the dominant perspective in evolutionary theory known as neo-Darwinianism. Furthermore, the authors address explicitly some of the implications of their work — for example that the new biology calls into question the very idea of the individual.iso Like Margie Profet, Margulis and Sagan challenge dominant perspectives on gender and the self. Unlike Margie Profet, Margulis and Sagan call into question the structures and scientific narratives that are involved in the production of representations of sexuality and the self. . Margulis and Sagan's writing is both an act of disassembling and reassembling scientific narratives. As Donna Haraway would add, "To contest for origin stories is a form of social action."i8i As my introductory comments suggest, this chapter marks a significant shift from the two previous analysis chapters in terms of its content. The previous analysis chapters were critiques of scientific texts that to different degrees reinforced dominant perspectives on gender, sexuality and the self, while this chapter is a critique of a scientific text that subverts those perspectives. This chapter also marks a significant shift in terms of its approach to criticism. As was the case in the previous analysis chapters, an underlying assumption is that the rhetors in question function as points of articulation, with the implication that the critical focus is on the workings of discourse rather than on strategic consciousness. In this chapter I continue to use narrative in order to map out the connections and disconnections that are taking place in this text. However, given the nature of the text and the authors' self-reflexivity, my role as a critic has changed. The purpose of my analysis is not demystification, but clarification. In other words, the purpose of my analysis is to explain the ways in which the shift from neo-Darwinianism to the new biology has a transformative 180 For an example, see Dorion Sagan and Lynn Margulis, "The Uncut Self," Slanted Truths: Essays on Gala, Symbiosis, and Evolution. N ew York: Springer, 1997. f 81 Haraway, Primate Visions 289. 107 effect on evolutionary narratives and the ways in which they imagine relationships between actors, both human and non-human. In my view, understanding the narrative structure of What Is Sex? is crucial for fully understanding the implications of the ideas that are presented in Margulis and Sagan's work. Through a neo-Darwinian lens the examples I discuss in the chapter — of gene-trading bacteria, exclusively female whiptail lizards and androgynous hyenas — would seem merely curiosities or anomalies in comparison to humans. Margulis and Sagan's points about individuality, gender and sexuality would be muted or lost. As I shall explain in further detail, Margulis and Sagan's narrative forecloses such a reading. "Why Must our Bodies End at the Skin?"t82 Margulis and Sagan's work is grounded in the Gaia hypothesis, a theory developed by James Lovelock and named by the novelist William Golding. Despite its poetic name and the figure of a maternal Earth, the Gaia hypothesis is most decidedly a scientific theory.iss From a Gaian perspective, the Earth and all living organisms are autopoietic. Autopoiesis is a fundamental principle in the Gaia hypothesis and is a replacement for "neo-Darwinian meclianics".i84 182 Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, 178. 183 Margulis and Sagan emphasize this point throughout the collection Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis, and Evolution (New York: Springer, 1997). However, in terms of its institutional status the Gaia hypothesis has not quite achieved complete legitimacy, as scientists interested in pursuing research from this perspective often have trouble obtaining the necessary funding (301). Donna Haraway also characterizes Gaia as a scientific perspective while situating it in a political and an historical context: "Lovelock's perception was that of a systems engineer gestated in the space program and the multinational energy industry and fed on a heady brew of cybernetics in the 1950s and 1960s, not, say the intuition of a vegetarian feminist mystic suspicious of the cold war's military-industrial complex and its patriarchal technology" ("Cyborgs and Symbionts: Living Together in the New World Order," The Cyborg Handbook, ed. Chris Hables Gray [New York: Routledge, 1995] xiii.). 184 Margulis and Sagan, Slanted Truths, 98. 108 Autopoietic systems are self-bounded, self-maintaining and self-perpetuating, unlike mechanistic systems that do not create and maintain their own boundaries. According to the Gaia hypothesis, the Earth itself is living, self- maintaining system. As the authors explain it, the Earth's atmosphere is analogous to a circulatory system, which was created and continues to be maintained by life, especially microbial life. Contrary to a neo-Darwinian perspective, the Earth is not just an inert scene to which living beings adapt and find their niche.iss Instead, the activity of living beings constitutes the very context in which evolution occurs. There are many implications of Margulis and Sagan's evolutionary narrative in terms of its view of the relationships between actors, both human and non-human. First, from the perspective of the new biology, the more important and interesting evolutionary changes occur not through selection and adaptation but through symbiosis, a "prolonged physical association between two or more different organisms belonging to different sp ecies." 186 As I shall discuss later in the paper, the definition of sex and Margulis and Sagan's three sexual systems are linked to the idea of evolution through symbiosis. In addition, unlike neo-Darwinian perspectives, the Gaia hypothesis sees evolution and fife in terms of cooperation, not competition for scarce resources. Because different forms of fife work in concert to maintain the autopoietic system that is the Earth, the Gaia hypothesis "falls outside the paradigm of selfish individuafism" that characterizes neo-Darwinianism .187 185 For a similar critique of neo-Darwinianism, see Judith Masters, "rEvoIutionary Theory: Reinventing our Origin Myths," Reinventing Biology: Respect for Life and the Creation of Knoioledge, eds. Lynda Birke and Ruth Hubbard (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995) 173-190. Masters argues that through the lens of a neo-Darwianism, there is a sharp dichotomy between organisms and their environment, which leads to a "strangely static view of natural organization, whereby the world is seen as having been partitioned into niches which exist prior to the organisms that fill them" (176). Masters also argues that neo-Darwinianism imagines humans' relationship to nature in terms of a masculinist impulse to achieve master)'^ and domination. 186 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 249. 187 Margulis and Sagem, Slanted Truths, 154. 109 The authors' Gaian perspective shapes the scope of their narrative about evolution and sex. In the opening pages of the book, the authors ask, "Why is sex so misunderstood? Is it because no one knows its history?" To characterize the book as a history of sex is useful, for it does progress chronologically and explains the origins of sexual activity and the ways in which sexual systems have evolved. However, in contrast to some neo-Darwinian accounts. What Is Sex? does not chronicle progress, but transformations.iss Furthermore, from a Gaian perspective human beings are not the pinnacle of evolution. The matter of our bodies is not unique. We are not composed of pixie dust... We are no more the "highest life form" than we are the "chosen species" for which all others were created. Nor has evolution or nature somehow "ended" with us.i89 Instead of focusing on humans (and other animals) as the starting point for their discussion about the evolution of sex, the authors write their history from a "nonzoocentric" perspective. What Is Sex? begins its history of sex with bacteria. This is an unusual move, but as Sagan explains, "four fifths of the history of life on Earth has solely been a bacterial phenomenon. Moreover, aU plants, animals and fungi and the miscellaneous eukaryotic kingdom known as protocists are bacterial in nature."i90 As Margulis and Sagan are fond of pointing out, bacteria are biochemically and metabolically far more diverse than all plants and animals put together. Their natural history is so bizarre that 188 Also see Masters, 182-3. She explains that in neo-Darv\'inianism the idea of evolutionary advance, or progress is a controversial one, and also points out that the less an evolutionary emphasizes competition, the less invested it is in the idea of evolutionary progress. 189 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 205. 190 Dorion Sagan, "Metametazoa: Biology and Multiplicity," Incorporations, ed. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter (New York: Zone Books, 1992) 377. Some definitions are in order: Life can be divided up into two categories: "prokaryotes," whose cells are not nucleated and "eukaryotes," with nucleated cells. Bacteria are prokaryotes, while the rest of us are eukaryotes. Protocists are "eukaryotic unicell or small muticeUular organisms (protists) and their large descendants which possess nuclei emd evolved by bacterial symbiosis. They cannot be classified as emimcds or plcmts (lacking embryos) or as fungi (lacking spores); protocdsta" (Mctrgulis emd Sagan, What is Sex? 245,248; Slanted Truths, 353). 110 they would have excited huge interest were they discovered in outer space rather than beneath our feet.i^i It is important to keep in mind that although the book proceeds chronologically, the authors do not describe events that take place only in the past — roughly speaking, bacteria are both relatives and ancestors. As we shall see, the authors describe a variety of sexual activity and sexual systems, some of which do not end in reproduction and some of which do not require two genders (or any gender at all). Three sexual systems exist concurrently, each serving a different function, and one is not more successful than or superior to the others. Margulis and Sagan's scientific narrative on evolution and sex is expansive in its scope. In this context, the position of human beings changes dramatically. Not only are we not the "highest" form of life and the pinnacle of evolution, we are displaced from our position in the narrative's center. Humans do not function as a point of comparison for other living creatures. In fact in the Gaian scene, human beings are not very important. This is not just a question of sheer numbers or that bacteria are more interesting and bizarre than we are but has to do with our relatively late arrival and the relatively unimportant role we play in creating and maintaining the Earth as an autopoietic system. Bacteria were here first, and "from a Gaian point of view animals, all of which are covered with and invaded by gas-exchanging microbes, may simply be a convenient way to distribute these microbes more numerously and evenly over the surface of the globe."i92 Human beings consume the Earth's resources in the form of food and air as well as oil and silicon, and produce waste as individuals and as communities.193 However, our impact on the environment is slight in 191 Sagan, 377. 192 Margulis and Sagan, Slanted Tniths, 153. 193 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 227. I ll comparison to that of bacteria. Although the activities of human beings are destructive to other animals, and to trees and plants, humans do not have the capacity to destroy life itself. Bacteria were here long before us, and certainly will survive us. Human beings have been ousted from their position at the center and endpoint of this particular scientific narrative about evolution. As if that weren'^t enough, in What Is Sex? and other works, the authors call into question the very idea of the self-bounded individual, or as Sagan puts it, "the zoological T is opem to radical revision."i94 As I explained earlier, the focus of the authors' perspective on evolution is on symbiosis rather than adaptation. Because of the multiple symbiotic relationships in which all Living creatures are involved, it is difficult to determine where one individual leaves off and another begins. In th e case of bacteria, it may be problematic to think of them as individuals, or even species, and it has been proposed that bacteria constitute a superorganism that spans the entire e a r t h .i^ s Humans and animals might be unwitting vehicles for gas-exchanging microbes, but the relationships created by evolution through symbiosis are much more intimate than that. One example cited often in Margulis and Sagan's work is Mixotricha Paradoxa, a protocist that Uves in the hindgut of a south Australian termite. The termite depends on the protocist for its survival because without Mixotricha Paradoxa, the termite would not be able to digest wood. In turn, this protocist depends on spirochete bacteria for survival. In great numbers, the bacteria attach themselves to the protocist and continuously propel it forward, literally keeping the protocist from falling out oF the termite. Although the bacteria, protocist, and termite all maintain 194 Sagan, 379. 195 Sagan, 378. 112 reproductive independence, they exist in a permanent cooperative relationship w ith each other.196 Termites are not the only ones who are involved in prolonged, mutually beneficial relationships with other living creatures. According to Margulis, symbiotic relationships with bacteria that developed long ago may have played a crucial role in the development of our bodies. The same fast-swimming spirochete bacteria that keep Mixotricha Paradoxa from falling out of the termite may have played a role in the development in the motility of sperm cells, when long ago symbiotic mergers between the spirochete and sperm cells created the tail that propels the sperm through the reproductive tract.i97 They also speculate that scientists can find the origins of human consciousness in bacteria. In the context of Margulis and Sagan's work, the story is a familiar one. "I hypothesize that all these phenomena of mind, from perception to consciousness, originated from the unholy microscopic alliance between hungry killer bacteria and their Margulis cind Sagan, Slanted Truths, 43. M. Paradoxa makes many appearances in Margulis and Sagan's writing. The authors discuss this protocist in Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution (Berkeley: U of California P, 1997);What Is Sex?; What Is Life? (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995); emd more than once in Slanted Truths. Dorma Haraway also cites this example in her introduction to the Cyborg Handbook. In this essay, she discusses Margulis and Sagan's writing about Caia, and in particular M. Paradoxa, as examples of cyborgs that are all "part of the same post-World War II clan" ("Cyborgs and Symbionts," xxi). Haraway explains: "... M. Paradoxa, [is] a mixed-up, peiradoxical microscopic bit of 'hair' {trichos). This little filamentous creature makes a mockery of the notion of the bounded, defended, singular self out to protect its genetic investments" (xvii). I cite this example specifically because it is one point of cormection between Margulis and Sagan's work and some postmodern writing. Haraway cites their work in this essay, and in turn they cite Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" in What Is Sex? An interesting feature of Margulis and Sagan's work is its interdisciplinarity. Sagan's essay "Metametazoa" was published in an interdisciplinary collection of essays about "the problem of life itself." The citations in Margulis and Sagan's co-authored works also are interdisciplinary and include Plato, Descartes, Foucault, Bataille and Oscar Wilde (to name a few). However, it is worth noting that although Margulis and Sagan cite authors who are not scientists and who could be characterized as "postmodern" or "post-structuralist," they cite such authors for purposes of elaboration or illustration. When it comes to citing evidence to support their claims they always cite scientific authors or scientific evidence. In my view the way in which they cite different kinds of writing has the effect of demonstrating an affinity for post-structuralism, while at the same time reinforcing the credibility of their writing as scientific. 197 Margulis and Sagan, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from our Microbial Ancestors (Berkeley: U of California P, 1997) 147. 113 potential archaebacterial victims/' Fast-swimming, active spirochetes invaded the slower-moving archaebacteria, who fought off the infection by absorbing their potential killers. Neither type of bacteria died; instead both survived in a symbiotic relationship for some one thousand million years. Margulis argues that our nerve cells are the products of such mergers, and "the spirochetal remnants may be struggling to exist in our brains, attempting to swim, grow, feed, connect with their fellows, and reproduce."i98 Although Margulis and Sagan have called into question the "zoological I," the self-bounded individual has not been dissolved entirely. Instead, human beings have been displaced from their central position in evolutionary narratives. Relationships between living creatures are cooperative, not competitive. The Gaia hypothesis and evolutionary theory based on symbiotic relationships have had the effect of redrawing the boundaries of the individual. In the discourses that imagine an autonomous body with clearly demarcated boundaries (such as neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory), these boundaries are often imagined to be epidermal. To use Margaret Morse's phrase, human beings have a "skin ego," or "envelope of identity and self."i99 The idea of a "skin ego" often is linked with the idea that the presence of bacteria in the body is a sign of infection and a transgression of the body's boundaries, but this is not the case in Margulis and Sagan's work. Often what begins as an invasion of "predatory bacteria" is transformed into a necessary, beneficial, and permanent symbiotic relationship. In this context, the boundaries of the body become more permeable. In What Is Sex? our skin still demarcates bodily boundaries, but the skin functions as a point of contact rather than a shield. Furthermore, the boundaries of living beings always are changing: "through their membranes, skins and orifices they connect 198 Margulis and Sagan, Slanted Truths, 118. 199 Margaret Morse, "What Do Cyborgs Eat?" Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology, eds. Gretchen Bender and Timothy Druckery (Seattle: Bay, 1994) 165. 114 with their surroundings and each other Organisms are far less independent individuals than modem neo-Darwinian biology has assumed/'^oo Moreover, our bodies are characterized as "open thermodynamic systems." As Margulis and Sagan explain, individual organisms are open to both energy and materials flowing through them. Indeed the most basic parts of living—eating, breathing, excreting, sex—attest to our status as open thermodynamic systems. It is probably no coincidence that the most natural pleasures—such as thrusting, coming, sneezing, drinking, eating, defecating, urinating, sunbathing, sweating and perhaps even music and vision as the aesthetic delights of sound entering the ear or light waves dancing through the back holes of our pupils to create visual impressions at the back of our retinas—tend to involve orifices and flows. The authors further assert that the self-bounded individual is an illusion defined in terms of informational closure — names, identifying numbers, and titles distinguish us as individuals, and this "closure is exacerbated by the American ethos of individualism ."20i In addition, individuality is defined in terms of the cybernetic concept of autopoiesis and thus the idea of the "skin ego" has not disappeared entirely but has been transformed. Margulis and Sagan have produced a powerful countemarrative in which they call into question the very idea of the coherent subject. Even more striking is that in their history of sex and evolution, the coherent subject never existed—this idea was always a fiction. Although there are individuals in the sense that they exist as autopoietic systems, the evolution of life itself has always depended on symbiotic relationships. The boundaries of the self are permeable and identity always has been partial and contingent. Margulis and Sagan's view of the body is affirmative in the sense that it is imagined in terms of its abilities to make connections and undergo 200 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 113. 201 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 33. 115 transformations. Whether gender has similarly been transformed remains to be seen. Three Sexual Systems. Fifty Thousand Genders: Gender and Sex Redefined Later in the essay I will discuss the ways in which Margulis and Sagan define gender in terms of multiplicity rather than dualisms, sex in terms of three sexual systems, and the ways in which the authors further problematize the zoological "I," but first I will examine closely a chapter in the book that focuses on human beings and some other other eukaryotic life forms. "Strange Attractions: Sex and Perception" is the penultimate chapter of the book, and its focus is decidedly zoocentric with discussion of examples including various species of birds and apes, damselflys and human beings. Absent from this chapter is the focus on microbial life, symbiosis, and cooperative relationships that characterizes the rest of the book. The point here is not to criticize the authors for this absence but rather to illustrate the ways in which the tensions between neo-Darwinian and Gaian perspectives manifest themselves in this particular chapter. In this chapter, where the focus tends to shift more towards neo-Darwinian perspectives, representations of gender and the self are the most problematic. In "Strange Attractions" Margulis and Sagan "explore the wider context of meiotic [reproductive] sex, then move on to traits, including those of our own species, which have arisen in the wake of sexual reproduction."202 This chapter explains from the perspective of evolutionary theory how animals (humans included) have developed characteristics that members of their own species find sexually attractive. In other words, when it comes to sexual attraction, appearances do count. The authors explain that perception plays an important 202 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 150. See also Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Origins of Sex: Three Billion Years of Genetic Recombination (New Haven: Yale UP, 1986). 116 role in the selection of prospective mates because although it is advantageous for individuals to choose the best mate, they can'^t detect genotypes, or "DNA making up the genes in the chromosomes of a prospective mate." Instead, we must rely on phenotypes, "or how genes are expressed to make the whole animal."203 Humans and other animals read outward appearances in each other as signs of fitness to reproduce and to be effective parents. As the authors also explain, the development of desirable traits evolved in a context in which relationships between animals of the same species are competitive rather than cooperative. When Margulis and Sagan set up the chapter, they begin with an explanation of sperm competition theory, which posits that over the course of evolution males of a given species develop strategies as they compete with each other to fertilize the fem ales.204 Or as Robin Baker puts it, sperm competition is the "process by which sperm from different males duke it out inside the female to win the right to fertilize the e g g . "205 According to sperm competition theory, "reproductive success" is the goal of sex, which for males means siring as many offspring as possible and for females means selecting the mate who will be the best provider. Oddly, the critique of neo-Darwinian perspectives that is so prominent elsewhere in Margulis and Sagan's writing is absent from their discussion of sperm competition, sex, and perception. Sperm competition theory is heavily implicated in the idea of the autonomous individual with clearly demarcated boundaries, cost/benefit analyses of various types of sexual acts and behaviors, the selfish protection of genetic investments, and defines bodies through extended metaphors of capitalism and warfare. In "Strange 203 Margulis and Sagem, What is Sex? 155. 204 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 167. 205 Baker, Sperm Wars, xiv. 117 Attractions/' however, sperm competition theory is presented merely as a scientific theory that accounts for the relationship between sex and perception. In their further discussion of human beings and attraction, the authors reinforce some fairly traditional ideas. For example, the authors argue that both "the Renaissance ideal of healthy plumpness [in women]" and the "slim supermodel" are "examples of features favored by sexual selection." They continue: Perhaps, in times of relatively limited resources, the bodies of wide hipped plump women indicate a potentially greater ability to bear and nurse infants. Alternately in modem, more densely populated urban cultures, slinmess may indicate women who are easier and less expensive to support.206 This example naturalizes what are arbitrary and hierarchical social arrangements: whether in the Renaissance or in contemporary society, men are responsible for supporting women financially while women primarily are responsible for bearing children and care for them. In the example about pelicans that follows, it is the male pelican who is judged in terms of his appearance. However, this is not a reversal; even in the animal kingdom the male is the breadwinner as the male pelican is judged in terms of how well he appears to be able to catch fish. The chapter does not quite achieve ideological closure, for in its narrative development it problematizes to a certain extent the idea of a fixed, hierarchical dual-gender system. In the final pages of the chapter, the discussion turns to sexual dimorphism, which in this book is defined as "body size and form, behavior and/or metabolic differences in males and females belonging to the sam e species."207 in the final example, Margulis and Sagan discuss the case of hyenas, whose apparent lack of sexual dimorphism from a human perspective at 206 Mcirgulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 162. 207 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 249. 118 the least is puzzling and at the worst monstrous. Interestingly, although the topic in question still is "sex and perception," the point of view has shifted. Other examples in this chapter addressed sex and perception from the point of view of the species in question — for example, if the authors talked about herring gulls, they discussed what are desirable traits from the point of view of the herring gull. In the case of hyenas,208 the authors do not talk about the selection of desirable traits in hyenas from the hyena's point of view. Instead, hyenas are discussed from the point of view of anxious humans confronted with the apparent sexual ambiguity of hyenas. As the authors explain, the differences between male and female hyenas are quite subtle because both male and female hyenas appear to have a penis. So subtle are these differences that the problem of sexual difference in hyenas was not resolved by scientists until the early 1990s. The authors do not discuss whether puzzled scientists studied hyenas closely in order to determine sexual difference based on other characteristics such as brain size, bone structure, hormone levels, or gendered divisions of labor. They do however, mention that the female hyenas are vicious hunters, and I wonder if human anxiety about hyenas is more specifically a reaction to the apparent masculinization of the female hyena. As it turns out the female of the species does not have a penis, but in fact has a large clitoris and lacks a vagina. Nevertheless, hyenas manage to reproduce and perpetuate the species. In what must be a painful process, female hyenas give birth along the length of the urethra and through the clitoris. The authors close the example — and the chapter — with the assertion that although hyenas might seem strange to humans, for their species they are "perfectly normal." From my point of view as a feminist critic, I have mixed reactions to this chapter on sex and perception, in particular to its discussion of sexual 208 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 198. 119 dimorphism. On one hand, Margulis and Sagan's assertion that "genders evolve and maybe even 'reverse' over time"209 problematizes what have been essentialist and deterministic views elsewhere in evolutionary theory and biology. The authors themselves hint at the problem of science's tendencies to read cultural constructions of gender onto human and animals bodies which has occupied many feminist critics. After all, as they explain it, the problem is not the hyenas themselves, but a limited hum an perspective that finds it difficult to imagine possibilities much beyond "our straight and narrow view." On the other hand, while Margulis and Sagan problematize the idea of a fixed, dual gender system, they have a tendency in this chapter to reinscribe and naturalize the dualistic cultural categories "masculine" and "feminine." In addition to the hyenas, there is the preceding example of human males and their dimorphic characteristics, which also reinforces their point that genders "reverse" over time. As the authors explain it, successful human males currently display the same "dominant dimorphic characteristics" of silverback gorillas, such as "large size, solid musculature useful in jealous combat, male pattern baldness, coarse hair, dark hair and/or skin, low voice, gruff manner, beard, mustache, side bums and patterned streaks of gray hair."2io However, the authors assert that as social arrangements change, displaying the characteristics of the "alpha male" becomes less important, and it will become more and more advantageous for men to "soften" their appearance. The problem is that these characteristics of the "new 209 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 199. 210 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 187. The comparison of humeins and other primates to "solve the problem of human nature" has a long history, as Londa Schiebinger reminds us in her study of eighteenth century science.Nature's Body. Such cross-species comparisons have been mobilized to produce hierarchies of race and gender. As Schiebinger also explains, beards and faded hair have a long history as signs of masculinity and virility. In eighteenth century Europe — during "the great age of classification" — the presence or absence of facial hair signified superiority or inferiority. The absence of fadal hair on women indicated a "less than noble character" and there was much discussion amongst naturalists about the apparent lack of fadal hair in Native American men (120-125). For an account of the production of gender and race in primatology, see Haraway, Primate Visions. 120 male" are characterized as "signs of youth and childlike fem ininity."2n As this example implies, male humans are either more masculine or more feminine— there is little room for ambiguity or for imagining something else entirely. Genders might reverse, but the dichotomous categories "masculine" and "feminine" remain intact and uninterrogated. However, the book as a whole, with its nonzoocentric perspective, suggests further possibilities for rethinking gender. For example, the definition of gender that appears in the glossary of the book destabilizes the male/female binary and the idea of a fixed system of "opposite" sexes: Differences between any two complementary organisms that render them capable of mating. Organisms of different gender potentially mate while those of the same gender cannot mate to form fertile offspring. Many species include healthy organisms of hundreds, even thousands of genders. In some, gender (mating type) differences are determined by tiny changes; specific genes and proteins on the surface of mushroom threads (hyphae) give over 50,000 genders in the common fungus, Schizophyllum. The bewildering series of genders in ciliates that depend on tiny daemical genetic differences in undulipodial surface proteins (ciliary antigens) give rise to genders that may change in a daily cycle. Maleness and femaleness commonly associated with fertilization by ansiogamy where male individuals produce many small, swimming gametes (i.e., sperm) while females produce fewer, larger food-storing gametes (i.e., eggs) is just one of many natural systems .212 There are a number of points worth emphasizing here, the first of which is that this nonzoocentric definition of gender does not begin with a binary opposition between male and female. This definition reinforces the authors' use of the term "gender" with its connotations of contingency as opposed to a fixed system. Margulis and Sagan's definition of gender is akin to Elizabeth Grosz' discussion of gender and difference, ... a difference capable of being understood outside the dominance or regime of the One, the self-same, the imaginary play of mirrors and 211 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 193. 212 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 245-246. 121 doubles, the structure of binary pairs in which what is different can be understood only as a variation or negation of identity.2i3 Since Margulis and Sagan's definition of gender does not begin with the male/female binary, "male" can no longer function as a stable point of reference, and "female" no longer is constituted as "symbolically other to the fictive self of universal and so unmarked, species man, a coherent subject/'2i4 ha this system, there are not just two genders, or even a third "intermediate" gender, but multiple genders that in some forms of Hfe number in the hundreds, or tens of thousands. What is remarkable about this definition of gender is not simply that there are so many possible genders, but the ways in which the authors talk about difference. And again, a more affirmative view of the body emerges, one that is grounded in multiplicity. As Grosz further explains, multiplicity does not merely mean "many" or "plural" but identities that are defined in terms of their potential to make connections and undergo transformations rather than maintain their sameness over time. In the final section of the paper that follows, I wül discuss Margulis and Sagan's' three sexual systems, a view of sex that further destabilizes a fixed, dual-gender system and reinforces a view of identity that is partial, contingent and multiple. In the chapter on sex and perception, the focus is zoocentric and the authors chronicle the evolution of desirable traits in species that sexually reproduce. However, not all forms of life sexually reproduce. This brings me back to the question "what is sex?" The answer to this question is much more complicated than the cover illustration suggests. When Margulis and Sagan define sex, they do not begin with either reproduction or gender, but with "gene transfer." 213 Elizabeth Grosz, "A Thousand Tiny Sexes," Gilles Deleuzeand the Theater of Philosophy, eds. Constantin V. Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski (New York: Routledge, 1994) 192. 214 Haraway, Simians, 210. 122 There are three distinct kinds of seixual systems: The first to evolve was the imidire«rtional type of bacterial sex that led to survival of a finely tuned global bacterial ecological network. Then, a highly specific form of symbiotic hiypersex helped form our nucleated ancestors, the protocists. Most recesntly in protocist ancestors to fungi, plants and animals the most familiar form of sex evolved: meiotic and fertilization sex involving cell fusion. These were aU necessary preludes to gendered bodies, such as ourselwes.2i5 To elaborate, transgenic sex in bacteria developed as a shortcut to survival. Under stressful conditions, bacteria trade genes. "Bacterial sex allowed them to change, not only by accumulating mutations, but by receiving genes from their separately evolved, transgenic neighbors. "216 Transgenic bacterial sex reveals a bizarre natural history. Bacteria trade therir genes often and easily and do not confine themselves to their own species. The authors use numerous analogies to illustrate how remarkable is transgenic baicterial sex: "If eukaryotes could trade genes as fluidly as do bacteria, it would b«e a small matter for dandelions to sprout butterfly-wings, collide with a bee, exchange genes again and soon be seeing with compound insect e y e s ."217 Ttiere are many kinds of bacterial gene transfer, but the important thing to keep iai mind is that life itself depends on transgenic sex, as transgenic sex in bacteriia transformed the planet "from a sterile, hostile place into one rich with a variety of abundant life."2i8 Transgenic sex is not just a curiosity and does not onl^y affect the bacteria who engage in it. The second sexual system, hyperseoc, also ignores the human taboo of interspecies sex. Hypersex, unlike other fcorms of sex, is not a temporary encounter but a "permanent merging thro*ugh symbiosis to make organisms with 215 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 80. 216 Mcirgulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 59. 217 Sagan, 378. 218 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 61. 123S genes from more than a single sonrce."2i9 Transgenic sex is a only a bacterial phenomenon, but hypersex is not. The authors explain: Bacterial unions are the foundation of each animal cell in your body and in each of the cells of plants. Your constituent cells are hypersex hybrids . .. Cells contain tiny organelles called mitochondria which produce energy for the cell by metabolizing oxygen. These microscopic mitochondria were once free living, oxygen-breathing bacteria. In the early days before any animals, plants or ftmgi had evolved, small predatory bacteria, adept at breathing oxygen, probably forced their way into larger fermenting cells (protodsts) with no such capability. With time the invading agents became mitochondria. They permanently "mated ."220 The merger of spirochete bacteria and human cells, which may have resulted in sperm motility and human consdousness, were acts of hypersex. Again, hypersex is not just a curiosity, but also has been crudal to our own evolution and survival. The third sexual system, fertilization or "fusion" sex, is probably the most familiar system to us since that is how human beings and many other animals reproduce. Our bodily cells are normally diploid, with two sets of chromosomes. Sperm and egg cells are haploid, with only one set of chromosomes. The process of creating the haploid sperm and egg from diploid cells called spermatocytes and oocytes is called meiosis. In animals sperm and eggs which eventually find each other, fuse, and form fertilized eggs that form embryos. Haploidy, ending in fertilization, arid diploidy, ending in meiosis, form the central cycle of the life history of animals."22i Just as the zoological I is open to radical revision, so too is the human dual gender system. The same sdentific narratives that destabilize the self-bounded 219 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 73. 220 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 74. 221 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 91-92. Note that Margulis and Sagan tell a more egalitarian story of the meeting of sperm and egg — here they "find each other," and "fuse." Out o f the picture (for the moment) are narratives about romance, entrepreneurship, sperm competition, sperm warfare, and the conquest of the female reproductive tract. 124 individual radically destabilize the idea of two genders. Our unimportance and late arrival to the Gaian scene puts things in perspective as gender is not necessary for sex to occur. Bacteria, which have long engaged in acts of transgenic sex and hypersex, are n o t gendered.222 Even the third sexual system, fusion sex, does not require two genders. Whiptail lizards, which are exclusively female, manage to reproduce through the fusion of female haploid ceUs .223 That authors speculate that our system of reproductive sex, which depends on a dual gender system, could very well change in the future. Margulis and Sagan imagine a future in which even hum an males might not be needed for reproduction. Perhaps the human dual-gendered system might reverse or disappear entirely over the course of evolution. Or it might be that in the future, only a small percentage of the population will reproduce: "sexual intercourse now prerequisite to reproduction may be co-opted for other roles in future human coUectives"224 . Although in the present the link between sex and 222 Some scientists tell a different story. As Bonnie Sparüer explains it {Im/Partial Science: Gender Ideology in Molecular Biology [Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995]), biology textbooks designate gender of E. Coli in terms of " + / "plus" being "mcde" bacteria, "minus" being the female. Bacteria do not engage in sexual reproduction through the merger of haploid cells (egg and sperm) and do not have genitalia. Instead, as Spanier explains, "One form of genetic transfer between two cells is the movement of a tiny circle of DNA, called an F (for 'fertility') plasmid, with the aid of a bridge called a pUus. The pilus is a thin protuberance that grows out from the surface of a plasmid-containing cell (called F+) and attaches to a cell without a plasmid (called F- )" (56). In other words, "male" bacteria are defined in terms of initiating sexual activity. "Female" bacteria are defined in terms of passivity and the lack of a pilus. Spanier, a molecular biologist, concludes that "the designation of male and female strains of £. Coli is simply incorrect by scientific definition." 223 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 119. 224 Margulis and Sagan, What is Sex? 216. 125 reproduction is fairly strong, over the course of evolution the link could w eaken.225 Margulis and Sagan look to the past as well as the future to destabilize what is thought to be a fixed and necessary two gender system. As it turns out, two genders, male and female are effects of evolution, and not so tightly linked to fusion sex that one is not possible without the other. Fusion sex long preceded humans and other animals. Two billion years ago, in times of stress, single celled protocists merged in order to survive. The haploid protodsts survived in a doubled or even tripled state. Sometimes the mergers weren't successful and the protodsts died. At first, there were no significant differences between the mating protodsts, but over time, differences evolved. In other words, Protodsts, whose males (or other mates) look the same as females (or other mates), detect each other by very subtle cues. In the beginning, with cells as their only bodies, no spedalized genitals or swimming propagules existed. Early mates looked just like each other. Over time, and separately and in many lineages, equal single cells became distinct and unequal. Ultimately, anigosgamy appeared in the form of small sperm and large eggs. With time different sorts of mating bodies evolved. (Margulis and Sagan 1997b 96) Gender itself evolved, and over time the gender systems we know might change. A dual gender system is only one of many possibilities. 225 In his essay "Michel Foucault" {Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction about Postmodernism [New York: Serpent's Tail, 1997]) Steven Shaviro has appropriated the work of Margulis and Sagem in order to discormect sexuality from the imperative of reproductive. Shaviro argues that in terms of our sexuality we are trapped by culture rather than nature: "Socially enforced norms of human behavior tend to be more rigid and intolerant of change than 'natural constraints ever were" (41). Moreover, "Overt discourses of liberation me less of a threat to power than is the simple dumb tenacity of the flesh — Bodies stubbornly resists psychological or linguistic categorization. Organs sprout and grow, adapt themselves to new functions, even uproot tliemselves to new locations. Orifices open and close. Our bodies still retain the marks of the old bacterial freedoms, even when our institutions work busily to suppress them. On the surfaces of the skin, and in the depths of the viscera, w e may discover the excesses of an inhuman sexuality" (42-3). In turn, Margulis and Sagan cite Shaviro in What Is Sex? (218-219). 126 sperm and Egg Reconsidered In light of the evolutionary narrative produced from the perspective of the new biology, the cover illustration of What Is Sex? invites a different reading. The cormection between the image of sperm and egg and narratives of romance, entrepreneurship and warfare is weakened, and this image is positioned in relation to a narrative told from the perspective of the Gaia hypothesis, evolution through symbiosis and cooperative relationships. The same evolutionary narrative that displaces human beings from its center also displaces reproductive sex from its center. Although reproductive sex is important to us and other species, so-called "fusion sex" is only one of three possible sexual systems. Moreover, when it comes to maintaining the autopoietic system that is the Earth, transgenic sex and hypersex have been and will continue to be far more important than reproductive sex. Reproductive sex might serve our own selfish interests, but transgenic sex transformed the Earth itself from a sterile and hostile environment into a living system abundant with life. Hypersex transformed human, animal and plant bodies and created permanent, mutually beneficial relationships that transcend the boundaries between species. From a Gaian point of view, defining "sex" in terms of reproduction seems not only erroneous but also overly self-interested. Moreover, this evolutionary narrative presents possibilities for transforming bodies, gender and the self. Sperm and egg, which synechdochally have stood in for human males and human females, can no longer signify autonomous individuals that cooperate with each other only occasionally with the goal of protecting their genetic investments. For one thing, it is difficult to determine where one individual leaves off and another begins. The sperm in its present form may be the product of an act of hypersex that took place long ago— thanks to fast-moving spirochete bacteria, the sperm can propel itself through the 127 reproductive tract. Similarly, human and other bodies have been transformed by other acts of hypersex in some interesting and important ways. According to Margulis and Sagan's scientific narrative, we are not autonomous, self-bounded individuals and never were. Furthermore, the merger of sperm and egg can no longer be read as the merger of opposites. As it turns out, male egg and female sperm are not in a fixed, dualistic relationship, but male and female are "useful approximations." The anomalous chapter on sex and perception demonstrates the limitations of a dualistic system in which the only possibility for change is to reverse. The larger narrative presents an affirmative view of gender and the body that is more concerned with making cormections and undergoing transformations than the reproduction and maintenance of the self. The shift from neo-Darwinianism to the new biology has a transformative effect on evolutionary narratives in terms of their scope and the way in which they imagine relationships between actors, both human and non-human. Understanding the narrative structure of this book is crucial for understanding its implications. Otherwise the three sexual systems, bodies that are products of symbiotic relationships and gendes that reverse over time might seem merely curiosities or anomalies for human beings who are accustomed to imagining themselves in terms of an autonomous body, a fixed, dual-gender system and one sexual system. However, in this narrative human beings no longer the point of reference against which all other life is measured. In What Is Sex? Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan have produced a "mutated" evolutionary narrative that provides a compelling alternative to constraining dualisms and self-centered perspectives .226 226 Haraway, "Cyborgs emd Symbionts," xix. 128 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION Conclusions are an opportunity to reflect on one's work. An important feature of this project was my effort to reorient the practice of rhetorical criticism. Addressing the implications of the work I have done involves another reorientation, in this case how to view the structure of this project. The structure of this project can be read two different ways. On one hand, the arrangement of chapters was more or less traditional: I begin by identifying an absence in the rhetoric of science and propose an approach to criticism that is designed to rectify the problem. In the latter half of the dissertation I mobilize this approach to rhetorical criticism in three analysis chapters. An alternative view of this project is to consider the first and second halves in terms of the way they address similar problems from the same perspective: articulation. As 1 explained in Chapter 2, articulation involves both a politics and a methodology. Furthermore, "strategically, articulation provides a mechanism for shaping intervention."227 This project represented my efforts at intervention, both in rhetorical criticism and in evolutionary biology. Reading the project in this way highlights the parallels between its first and second halves, and it is from this perspective that I will summarize my work. In Chapter 1 the starting point for criticism was a problem of ideology, in this case the absence of feminist perspectives from the rhetoric of science project. As I pointed out in that chapter, there is very little published rhetorical criticism 227 Slack, 112. 129 on either women in science or gender in science. Moreover, rhetoric scholars involved in this project do not seem to be influenced by what a substantial body of academic work that comprises feminist critiques of science. As other feminist critics in our discipline would point out, rhetoric of science is not the first project in our discipline that could be characterized as "womanless commxmication."228 Keeping in mind that the absence of feminist perspectives in rhetoric of science represents a recurring problem in the discipline rather than an isolated instance, I set out to understand this problem. I approached the absence of feminist perspectives not in terms of a gap in the literature, but in terms of the "mental frameworks—the languages, concepts, and categories"229 through which rhetoricians make sense of their critical practices and in the process preclude feminist and other politically motivated critique. The debates about the rhetoric of science presented an opportunity for feminist commentary, as it involved a sustained and self-reflexive discussion about our critical practices. I read the debates as symptomatic of the state of rhetorical criticism. In an effort to make sense of the practice of criticism at the level of discourse rather than in terms of individualized strategic consciousness, I turned to a discussion of disciplinary politics. I argued that our discipline advocates an attitude of critical pluralism and scholarly virtues of civility and tolerance, but in practice mobilizes the same attitude and values as a way of muting politically motivated critique; or in the alternative situates it outside of "proper" rhetorical criticism. The discussion about disciplinary politics provided a context in which to read the rhetoric of science debates. In my reading of the debates, I attended 228 See Carole Spitzak and Kathryn Carter, "Women in Communication: A Typology for Revision," Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Tiventieth Century Perspective, eds. Bernard L. Brock, Robert L Scott, and Jeunes W. Chesboro, 3rd ed. (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1980) 403-429. See also Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, "The Rhetoric of Women's Liberation: An Oxymoron,"Quarterly Journal of Speech, 59 (1972): 74-86; and Sonja K. Foss and Karen A. Foss, Women Speak: The Eloquence of Women’s Lives (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1991). 229 Hall, "The Problem," 26. 130 to the linkages involved in defining our critical practices. For example, a central issue in the essays on the state of rhetoric of science was the link between the classical tradition and a modernist perspective on authorship. Another topic of discussion was the relationship between object and method, and the ways in which a rearticulation of object and method both enables and constrains critical practice. The first chapter was an effort at disassembling. The second chapter was an effort at reassembling, which involved a reorientation in rhetorical criticism. In that chapter I discussed the possibilities of rhetorical criticism grounded in articulation. As I explained in the chapter, articulation involves both politics and methodology. Rhetorical criticism grounded in articulation addresses the process through which ideological elements cohere and are expressed through language, a process through which ideas become common-sensical. This approach focuses the attention of the critic on commonplaces, which in the practice of rhetoric function as resources for constructing arguments. Like ideologies, the effectiveness of commonplaces depends on their status as common sense. From the perspective of articulation, criticism focuses on disassembling commonplaces and observing "the controlling influence of common ground as common sense reflecting consciousness as it limits possibilities for discourse."230 Keeping in mind that individuals form their intentions within ideology, the critic also focuses her attention on texts in relation to the discourses in which they are embedded rather than viewing texts as products of a rhetor's strategic consciousness. Rather than reading texts as exemplars of rhetorical artistry, from the perspective of articulation texts are read as sites of struggle over meaning. In Chapters 3 and 4 1 elaborated on this approach to textual analysis through a discussion of metaphor and narrative as 230 Makus, 499. 131 conceptual tools that are useful for mapping out the articulations that take place in scientific texts. My response to the problem of the absence of feminist perspectives in rhetoric of science was motivated by a dual commitment to academic feminist work and to participate in conversations in my own discipline. Rather than formulating an entirely new method of feminist rhetorical criticism that can be added to the "pluralist buffet," I attempted to create a space for feminist critique by negotiating our disciplinary and critical practices. TWs was meant as a strategy for intervening within my own discipline. Instead of addressing gender as a starting point, 1 defined this feminist project more broadly in terms of a problem of ideology, more specifically biological determinism. It is important to keep in mind that biological determinism is not exclusively a feminist issue. Therefore, with biological determinism as a starting point, I was able to connect my work with feminism, but also create an approach to rhetoric of science with broader relevance and cormect my project with politically motivated criticism generally. Furthermore, defining the project in terms of articulation and ideology enabled me to produce an approach to criticism that puts me in conversation in my own discipline. In Chapter 2 1 developed an approach to criticism that utilized rhetorical concepts and methods already in use. Grounding rhetorical criticism in articulation involves a transformation of key elements in such as rhetor, text, and critic. I also utilized rhetorical concepts such as topic, and critical methods such as narrative and metaphor. My hope is that rhetoric of science critics will engage feminist critiques of science as they continue with their work. Feminist critiques of science should not be imagined solely in terms of an "object" of study, women and gender. Although 1 believe that academic feminism's commitment to politics always should be 132 foregrounded, it should be recognized as well for its methodological and theoretical insights. The latter half of the dissertation represents my efforts to intervene in evolutionary biology. In the analysis chapters I addressed the problem of biological determinism, a reductive perspective that explains sexual difference in terms of biology, thereby justifying 'Tiistorical systems of difference whereby 'men' and 'women' are socially constituted and positioned in relations of hierarchy and antagonism."23i Taking into consideration that critics also function as points of articulation, I kept in mind that the possibilities for intervention by feminist rhetorical critics are quite specific. This is not to say that rhetorical analysis is not worthwhile or important; however, we should keep in mind that rhetorical critics have neither the expertise nor the credibility to negotiate actively science's production of knowledge. In this case, I do not have the credibility to negotiate evolutionary biology's production of sexual difference. In my view, the role of the critic is to identify issues, define problems, and draw out the social and political implications of scientific rhetoric. My awareness of the possibihties and constraints of rhetorical criticism shaped the inter\'^ention in evolutionary biology, beginning with the choice of critical object. As I explained in Chapter 2, the critical object in this project is defined in terms of problems of ideology, and in this case the problem was biological determinism. Although a problem of ideology is a starting point, the usual preferred critical object, the text, does not disappear but instead is resituated. Texts are read as sites of struggle over meaning. In the case of this project, the texts I selected represented a range of responses to the question of biological determinism and representations of sexual difference, sexuality and the self. In other words, I was interested in discovering what strategies were available to evolutionary biologists for negotiating their own discipline. 231 Haraway, Primate Visions, 290. 133 In Chapter 3, the analysis focused on the work of Margie Profet, whose new theory of menstruation produced images of a productive and efficient menstruating body contrary to représentations^ both popular and scientific, of a menstruating body that is leaky, messy and out of control. I drew two conclusions about Profet's work. Firsts her representations of the female body constitute a reversal, keeping intact problematic binaries such as rational/irrational, production/waste, controlled/uncontrolled. Profet's work did not challenge the binaries that w ork in the making of the categories "masculine" and"ferninine." Second, E concluded that the representations in Profet's work were as much the product of ordinary thinking in evolutionary biology as her strategic consciousness. This point was reinforced in Chapter 4 by my analysis of the work of Robin Baker, another evolutionary biologist whose work on sperm competition theory m ade a brief appearance in Profet's article. As I explained in that chapter. Baker's ’work was not hailed for its feminist politics; in fact, in his introductory comments he revealed that he had been warned to expect "feminist attack." Unlike Profet, Baker's narrative about evolution, sexuality and biological imp-eratives seems to be granted the presumption of "common sense," as evidenced by his career as a commentator on television shows about sexuality and his publication of three books that popularize his scientific work. Utilizing the same metaphors of warfare, production and cost/benefit analysis. Baker's representations of female and males bodies are remarkably similar to Profet's. The main difference is that while Profet implies the mede body is hyper-aggressive and out of control (a reversal), both male and female bodies in Baker's narrative are rational, efficient and controlled. Baker's work produces- a rationalized female body and an optimized male body. Furthermore, Batker's scientific narrative, which is more extended than Profet's, suggests some disturbing implications of narratives 134 produced through this particular view of sex and evolution. In a discourse that values highly the idea of adaptation in the form of efficient mechanisms and optimized processes. Baker's narrative on evolution and sex more tightly links sexuality and reproduction. In other words, according to Baker every single sexual act, behavior, bodily process acquires the purpose of preparing the body for the best chance at sexual reproduction. The effect is to reinforce the centrality of procreative heterosexuality and heterosexual monogamy, via a narrative trajectory in which a heterosexual monogamous couple with many children is judged to have achieved "total success." From a feminist point of view (contrary to Baker's narrow conception of feminism) this is highly problematic. The chapter on Margulis and Sagan represents a significant shift in terms of the narrative it produces about gender, sexuality and the self. Margulis and Sagan write from the perspective of a "new biology" that privileges symbiosis over evolution, cooperation over competition, and incorporates a new system for classifying hfe that displaces humans from the center of more traditional evolutionary narratives. The new biology entails a paradigm shift and a rejection of the neo-Darwinian perspectives. The work of Marguhs and Sagan calls into question the very idea of the individual, and radicaUy reconceptualizes gender in terms of difference and multiplicity rather than in terms of constraining dualisms. Moreover, this narrative weakens the link between sex and reproduction. As Donna Haraway would say, what Marguhs and Sagan have produced is a "mutated narrative." The analysis of Marguhs and Sagan, juxtaposed with the other two analysis chapters suggests that Baker's and Profet's evolutionary narratives are informed by a neo-Dai-w^inian perspective. This was not a point I addressed in my analyses of Baker and Profet, in part because this was not readily apparent in the texts in question. For example, it is not immediately apparent whether Profet and Baker position human beings at 135 the center and endpoint of their evolutionary narratives. Discussing Baker and Profet more specifically in relation to neo-Darwinian perspectives might be an avenue for further research. As for the question of biological determinism, Margie Profet, Robin Baker, Lyrm Margulis and Dorion Sagan suggest there are different possibilities for coming to terms with this powerful idea. As I explained in Chapter 4, Baker addresses the issue explicitly in his introductory comments. Baker's defense of biology over culture, as weU as his efforts to establish his theory as scientifically sound can be read as part of a naturalization process that reinforces biology's cultural authority to "utter truths" about sexual difference. In other words, Baker reinforces an ideology of biological deterrninism. Neither Profet nor Margulis and Sagan address explicitly the issue of biological determinism; nevertheless, their work has implications for this idea. Profet's theory of menstruation can be read as a tacit endorsement of biological determinism. As Profet recounted in interviews, the thought of an irrational and uncontrolled female body was seemed wrong to her. However, rather than call into question the scientific and popular discourses that produce such unflattering representations, Profet's intervention represented a rearticulation that resulted in more salutary images of the menstruating body. These images rely on the idea of biodeterminism for their credibility. In the case of Margulis and Sagan it could be argued that in addition to radically reconceptualizing gender, sexuality and the self, the authors also dismantle the foundations of biological determinism. As I argued in Chapter 4, the authority of biodeterministic claims depends in part on the idea that underneath changing cultures, biological imperatives remain constant. In the case of sperm competition theory, Robin Baker argues that our sexual behaviors were "hard-wired" a long time ago. In the new biology, it would seem that hard 136 wired behaviors are not a possibility, as there is always the potential for bodies to undergo radical transformation through symbiotic relationships. As I explained in Chapter 5, Margulis and Sagan challenge the very idea of a fixed, dual-gender system. They argue that our dual-gender system is an effort of evolution, and it is possible that even in our species genders might change or reverse over time (albeit in a distant future). The idea of radically transformed bodies and the possibility of reversed or transformed gender would seem to undercut the very idea of biological imperatives. In light of Margulis and Sagan's radical reconceptualization of gender, sexuality and the self, the author's self-reflexivity and their undercutting of biological imperatives, the authors present a compelling alternative to self- centered perspectives and constraining dualists. Margulis and Sagan have contested evolutionary biology's origin stories about sex and gender. As Haraway has said, "To contest for origin stories is a form of social action."232 in terms of formulating strategies for intervention, there are issues worth exploring further. Identifying alternative narratives is only a start. First, biological narratives are not "mere" rhetoric, for they are linked to cultural, social and professional practices. Margulis and Sagan's mutated narrative was enabled by a new biology that emphasizes interconnectedness and symbiotic relationships over selfish individualism, and a new classification system of life that does not position human beings at its pinnacle. The transformation of evolutionary narratives involves a tremendous amount of work, and cannot be explained solely in rhetorical terms. The question is, how will rhetorical criticism account for the social, cultural and professional practices involved in the making of meaning? A first move is to shift away from an emphasis on individualized strategic consciousness. The question remains whether rhetoric will be able to 232 Haraway, Primate Visions 289. 137 accommodate the perspective I have just described, or if in doing so rhetorical criticism will be transformed beyond recognition. A second issue to consider in the search for alternatives is how different biological narratives are positioned in relation to each other. My discussion about Profet'^s and Baker's career trajectories was meant to address the status of their ideas as "natural" and "common sense." It was interesting to me that the two scientists utilized the same metaphors to produce similar representations of bodies, yet only one was singled out as a "maverick" with disruptive ideas. This raises the issue of how scientists and scientific theories are positioned in relation to each other in terms of credibility and how that effects the potential for transformative scientific narratives to be taken seriously. The case of Margulis and Sagan presents another interesting set of problems. Although their narrative involves radical reconceptualization, will it be taken seriously? The question of credibility is raised again, although I would argue this time it takes a different form. The challenge of writing the critique of Margulis and Sagan was explaining clearly the narrative structure of What Is Sex? In my view, understanding the narrative structure is crucial for understanding fully the implications of the book. I found out just how challenging this was as I struggled to come to terms with the text and explain it to others. As I developed the chapter, I gave drafts to various people to read, and the response was consistent: "The bacteria are interesting, but how is this relevant to humans?" The responses suggested to me that the conceptual frameworks necessary for mciking sense of What Is Sex? are not readily available to many readers. Perhaps further investigation would reveal that neo-Darwinian frameworks have "gripped the minds of the masses" and shape our readings of scientific narratives. This is speculation but worthy of investigation. The responses also suggest that I had not yet met my challenge as a critic. In any case, as interesting 138 as I find Margulis and Sagan's ideas, there is a distinct possibility they could be consigned to a spectacle beyond analysis. As of this writing, rhetoric of science still is viable project, though the rhetoric of science debates have quieted. Since the publication of Rhetorical Hermeneutics, there have been further exchanges in the form of book reviews and a few conference papers. However, many of the participants in the earher debates, prominent critics who do not ordinarily write about rhetoric of science, have moved on to other projects. Moreover, based on w hat I have read in recent journals and have heard in conference presentations, the lengthy discussions about methodology in rhetorical criticism have not had a disruptive effect on the shape or direction of rhetoric of science. There is further opportunity for ongoing discussion. 139 BIBLIOGRAPHY Angier, Natalie. "Radical New View of the Role of Menstruation." The New York Times 21 Sept. 1993: C l. Angus, Ian. "The Politics of Common Sense: Articulation Theory and Critical Communication Studies." Communication Yearbook 15 (1992): 535-570. Appadurai, Arjun. "Diversity and Disciplinarity as Cultural Artifacts." Disciplinarity and Dissent in Cultural Studies. Eds. 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