Michael Solot reveals his true agenda in the final sentences of his review of John Colapinto’s book [June 2], when Solot asks whether Reimer has “any special insight into the feminine mind.” Since when is there such a thing as “a” feminine mind, some set of beliefs or feelings or attitudes or behaviors that all women–or all “true” women, Solot might say–share? There isn’t such a thing, any more than there’s a “masculine” mind. But that’s only Solot’s last mistake.
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His first mistake is to not recognize, presumably because it would disturb his neat worldview, that many feminists–and many academics and progressives, for that matter, as well as many who wouldn’t fit Solot’s labels–recognize that there are, indeed, biological bases for human behavior, but that these bases aren’t determinants. But perhaps such complexity and such subtlety is beyond him. (Solot also apparently fails to recognize that some feminists, so-called “difference” feminists, actually stand with him in declaring–mistakenly, in my opinion–that men and women are “naturally” different. Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice is perhaps one of the most famous outlines of aspects of that position.)
There are other points to be made–is all government overspending or funding of unworthy projects the result of the “audience” of feminists, academics, and progressives? Would that explain exorbitantly overpriced items in the defense industry? Or might it have something to do with the way power accrues, and the way people can misuse it?–but the most important is just this: at least some utopias have people following their interests, and their talents, without regard to whether their genitalia match those interests in some role-prescribed way. This does not deny the influence of biology, but neither does it assume that the presence or shape of a particular piece of tissue determines what one will prefer as toys or, later, as one’s life work.
