“The Meaning of Sex Ch 3″ (LTCR) - Binary Opposites, or Diversity?Queering the Church

In discussing Chapter 3 of “On the Meaning of Sex“, Frank describes how it labours unsuccessfully to promote a cornerstone assumption that underpins so much conservative mythology of sex and gender:

Chapter Three deals with “the meaning of sexual differences,” and in it, Budziszewski is going to tell us 1) that men and women are different, 2) that the differences between men and women are meaningful, and 3) that those differences point (like an arrow) to our ideal natures, and tell us how we’re supposed to be.

This is a mashup of half - truths, which like so much else that (according to Frank) is contained in this book, and is so frequently regurgitated by the Christian right, have only limited foundation in observable reality.

For example, Budziszewski piles on the evidence, obtained from such sources as brain scans and cross-cultural studies, that illustrates that men and women are different. In doing so though, he ignores two important considerations. It is certainly true that there are differences between men and women observable in brain scans - but we don’t need brain scans to see that. A simple look at external bodies will do that. What he misses, is that these observable differences apply to men and women on average - and none of us is an average person, except sometimes in very specific respects. On any of the features that supposedly are characteristic of “men”, there will be men who do not fit the average - and women who do. It is also true that cross - cultural studies confirm that in every human society, there are socially approved roles suitable for women, and others for men. What he overlooks, is the inconvenient truth that these socially approved gender differences are just that - socially approved, and socially constructed - and these differences do not coincide across societies. For example, one of the most common occupations differentiated by gender is that of dairy work - but this is not always take the same form. In traditional European custom, dairies, milking and buttermaking are a distinctly female domain. But across Africa, where cattle are prized as a source of wealth, it is generally the men who take care of them, and would be horrified at the thought of women interfering in the natural order by taking on a “masculine” role.

This gross - oversimplification of the evidence, about “what is” in sexual differences, leads Budziszewski to unjustified assertions about what “ought to be”.

In a great irony, he is in fact well aware of diversity outside the realm of sexuality - and draws completely the wrong conclusion.

Budziszewski actually starts Chapter 3 by writing, “How many more colors there are in the world because there are two sexes and not just one!” He misses the whole of the world’s diversity and then complains that political correctness is forcing us to “make ourselves a little blind” and miss those colors. It drives me crazy. He basically sees everything as either red or blue, and if we acknowledge that there’s also purple, and different shades of red and blue, and yellow, and green, and everything else, he insists that we’re somehow diminishing red and blue.

(Note the rainbow)

The obvious lesson from his own analogy, is to recognize the fluidity observed from empirical observations, applicable to all dimensions of human sexuality and gender. There is no rigid differentiation between red and blue but a continuum of primary and secondary colours through the colour wheel familiar to visual artists - and additional tertiary colours, as well as a range of hues for each of them. Similarly, between the binary opposites of biological “male” and “female” sexes, there are a range of intersex conditions, which are different for external genitalia, internal genitalia, chromosomal patterns, and hormones. Between the poles of “masculine” and “feminine” gendered behaviour, there are those which are not attributable to any one sex, feminine men and masculine women whose gendered behaviour or expression do not conform to their biological sex, and those who fall somewhere between the usual extreme points of gender - masculine men who nevertheless have a feminine “side”, and their female counterparts. Nor is orientation a simple matter of “homosexual” and “heterosexual”, but once again a continuum, with many people falling somewhere in the bisexual middle, and any representative group of gay men exhibiting all the gender diversity, from “masculine” to “feminine” that can be found in a corresponding group of straights.

Natural law theory is based on the idea that sound moral judgements can be made on the basis of faith and reason. Instead of using this principle to apply reason to his observations of diversity of colour, or to what is known from science of the extraordinary range of human diversity, Budziszewski goes , reports Frank, in the other direction - manhandling the evidence to force a fit with his preconceptions of “appropriate” gender behaviour. In the analogy of colour, that is, he attempts to deny the existence of orange, green, brown or grey, turquoise, fuschia, puce, or biscuit. forcing them all instead, into a simplistic division between “red” and “blue”.

On page 57, Budziszewski is writing that women tend to be more body-conscious and more protective of themselves physically than men. “But considering their potentiality for motherhood,” he writes, “this heightened physical awareness is entirely appropriate.” Then he goes on: “Women need to be like this. There would be something wrong if they were not like this.”

Er… what?

There would be something wrong if they were not like this?

I had a friend in college, a girl who lived in our dorm, who would come out and play football with us on weekends. She wasn’t particularly big, but she was absolutely fearless on defense—I can vividly remember a flying tackle she put on my roommate, a big guy, behind the line of scrimmage. After college, she joined a rugby club and tried out for a local semi-pro women’s football team. Now she’s a firefighter. Who knows how much good she’s done in the world, how many lives she’s saved. And, heck, just think of all the good, all the joy, she’s gotten from her body, because of her fearlessness.

Budziszewski says something is wrong with her.

So we have Budziszewski’s answers to the questions I asked in part one of this post:

Are people who aren’t average flawed? YES.

Should we strive to be more normal? YES.

Should I be less turned on by my wife’s intelligence? YES.

Should I be less agreeable? YES.

Less trusting? YES.

Less nurturing towards my daughter? YES.

Which reminded me immediately of the wonderful title of a memoir by the lesbian writer Jeannette Winterson, quoting directly the words of her religion - crazed adoptive mother: “Why Be Happy When You Could Be NORMAL?”

And that is the problem with so much in the distorted tradition of “Natural Law” theory. By insisting on interpreting God’s purpose by drawing lessons from what is statistically normal, it overlooks the simple fact of diversity in God’s creation - and that the real point of natural law, in deducing God’s purpose, is identifying what is conducive to human flourishing - what “makes us happy”.

But, as Winterson’s mother asks, along with so many others who insist on blind conformity to what they see as God’s Law: