Sexism and Science

by Evelyn Reed

The author has some fun citing opinions by such notables as Lionel Tiger, who glorifies male bonding such as that in the Ku Klux Klan, while noting that women might be able to bond over activities such as "charity groups, hairdressing salons, and berry-gathering cliques."

Genres: Feminism, Science, Gender, Politics, Anthropology, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1978

About the author

Evelyn Reed (1905–1979) was an American communist and women’s rights activist.

In January 1940, she traveled to Mexico to see the exiled Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalia Sedova. There, at the house of Trotsky in Coyoacán, Reed met the American Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon, leader of the Socialist Workers Party (United States). Reed joined in the same year, and remained a leading party member until her death.

An active participant in the Women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Reed was a founding member of the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition in 1971. During these years she spoke and debated on women’s rights in cities throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, the United Kingdom and France.

Inspired by the works on women and the family by Friedrich Engels and Alexandra Kollontai, Reed is the author of many books on Marxist feminism and the origin of the oppression of women and the fight for their emancipation. Some of the most notable works by Reed are: Problems of Women’s Liberation, Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family, Is Biology Woman’s Destiny?, and Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women (with Joseph Hansen and Mary-Alice Waters.)

She was nominated as a candidate for President of the United States for the Socialist Workers Party in the United States presidential election, 1972. On the ballot in only three states (Indiana, New York, and Wisconsin), Reed received a total of 13,878 votes. The main candidate for the Party was Linda Jenness, who received 37,423 votes.

"The woman question can only be resolved through the lineup of working men and women against the ruling men and women. This means that the interests of the workers as a class are identical; and not the interests of all women as a sex. Ruling-class women have exactly the same interest in upholding and perpetuating capitalist society as their men have. The bourgeois feminists fought, among other things, for the right of women as well as men to hold property in their own name. They won this right. Today, plutocratic women hold fabulous wealth in their own names. They are completely in alliance with the plutocratic men to perpetuate the capitalist system. They are not in alliance with the working women, whose needs can only be served through the abolition of capitalism. Thus, the emancipation of working women will not be achieved in alliance with women of the enemy class, but just the opposite; in a struggle against them as part and parcel of the whole class struggle."
- Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women

Reviews

[Eärendilen · Rating 3 out of 5]

از سری مطالعات فمینیسم سوسیالیست، با نام اصلی "جنسیت‌زدگی و علم":

"هدف اصلی آنها تاختن به تز مورگان درباره سه دوره‌ی اصلی تکامل اجتماعی است. وحش‌خویی، بربریت و شهری‌گری (تمدن) مورگان از دگرگونی نیروهای تولیدی در سه مرحله پشت سر هم اجتماعی، دگرگونی‌های رخ داده در نهادهای اجتماعی برخواسته از آن را درآورد. او نشان داد که ویژگی‌های بنیادین شهری‌گری چون دارایی فردی (مالکیت خصوصی) و دولت در دوره وحش‌خویی وجود نداشته و تنها به فرمی ناپرورده در بربریت پدیدار شده است. بر همین پایه، نهادهای فرهنگی زناشویی به شیوه امروزی، خانواده تکی و به فرمان درآوردن زنان هر اندازه که به گذشته‌های دورتر بازگشته و به بررسی تاریخ می‌پردازیم، ناپرورده‌تر و رشدنایافته‌تر بوده‌است. در دوره وحش‌خویی چنین نهادهایی دیده نمی‌شود."

کل داستان این کتاب همینه. این تز مورگان و سایر جامعه‌شناسان و مردم‌شناسان دهه ۱۸ میلادی، و همکارانشون در دهه‌ی بعدی که از دید تکامل‌گرایانه و ماتریالیستی قدیم روی می‌گردونن.

دو فصل اول خیلی روان میره جلو و با سند و مدرک صحبت میکنه و از تکامل و گله‌های پریمات و اینتراکشنای درون گله‌ایشون میگه.
بعد به دوران گذار می‌پردازه و اینجا یک استاپ داریم تا در فصل سوم و چهارم بگه چطور جنسیت‌زدگی و از طرفی سیستم سرمایه‌داری روی علم موثر بودن و تفاسیر و نتایج رو دستکاری می‌کردن.

دو فصل بعدی عملا دعواست و خسته‌کننده:)) و خوب خیلی مشخصه که طرف مقابل اولین رید اشتباه میکنه، اکثر صحبت‌هاش نقض شدن. ولی کلا این فصل‌ها چون تئوری محضن و از سند مدرک به اون صورت مثال نمیارن یک مقدار حوصله سر برن و سر ذوق نمیارنت اصلا. این دعواها هم با ازمان و شدت کمتر ادامه داره در فصل‌های بعدی.

فصل هفتم و هشتم دنباله‌ی اون دوران گذار و توضیحات تکاملی اجتماعی و فرهنگیه، که جالبه و معنی میده اغلب ولی قسمت‌هایی هم هست که شک ‌برانگیزه کماکان.

فصل آخر هم سیر متود پژوهشی مردم/ جامعه‌شناسی رو تعریف میکنه و قوت و ضعفشون رو میگه و مثل همه‌جای کتاب از دانشمندای مطرح هر جریان نام میبره و تئوری میاره.

در کل کتاب بدی نبود ولی اون‌طوری که توقع داشتم از جنسیت‌زدگی علوم در طول زمان صحبت نکرد، و با اینکه از مترجم دلخور بودم که این چجور ترجمه‌ایه که کرده واسه اسم کتاب، ولی جدا فقط بحث مردم‌شناسی بود:) اینم بگم که ترجمه بعضی جاها تعریفی نداشت، دلبخواهی کلمه به کار برده بود و باعث سوءبرداشت می‌شد.

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting overview of the ways anthropology in the mid 20th century was being used to advance sexist and capitalist ideology with very strong rebuttals to these arguments from Reed. Explained some interesting anthropological ideas fairly well for non-anthropologists and connected well to Marxist texts like Engel's Origins of the Family. It's always interesting to see the way modern society influences and is influenced by science be it sociobiology or anthropology.

[Abrar_abdullaha · Rating 3 out of 5]

جيد، فيه نقاط مثيرة للأهتمام لكن مليت شوي في المتتصف

[Rozhin Mohammadi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Actually I'm thinking I wasted my time with reading this book! I did not learn anything new during reading this book! I wish I read another book of her, maybe now I had a better imagination of her :)

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good...

[م · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكاتبة لم تجادل بشكل مباشر فكرة النسوية وعوضًا عنه، تجدها تفند مزاعم الرأسمالية التي اعتبرتها الأساس لنشوء التمييز الجنسي.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A COLLECTION OF LATER ESSAYS FROM THE AUTHOR OF "WOMEN'S EVOLUTION"

Evelyn Reed (1905 - 1979) was a women's rights activist and an influential member of the Socialist movement in this country; she was the Socialist Workers Party candidate for President in 1972 in several states, for example. She has written/coauthored a number of other books, such as 'Woman's Evolution: from Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family,' 'Problems of Women's Liberation: a Marxist Approach,' etc.

She wrote in the Introduction to this 1977 book, "The first three essays in this book are primarily concerned with the newer sciences of sociobiology and primatology, the last five with the status of anthropology. All of them are by-products of the same workshop in which my major work, 'Woman's Evolution,' was fashioned; this collection can be regarded as a sequel and supplement to 'Woman's Evolution.'" Five of the articles first appeared in the International Socialist Review.

She says, "Equating humans with primates by overemphasizing certain similarities while underplaying the vast differences is unscientific. One of the unfortunate results of this error has been the misapplication of the term 'society' to animal life." (Pg. 20) Later, she adds, "Only humans can organize guards, soldiers, and other defense bodies which are found in social life... there are no primate 'societies.'" (Pg. 25)

She observes, "The handicaps placed upon women are exclusively social and not biological; for the earliest and longest period in human history there were no such handicaps." (Pg. 82)

She argues, "1. Opponents of the matriarchy do not deny the presence of the matrilineal kinship system, since it exists to the present day in many primitive regions. Where did this matrilineal structure come from if not from the ancient matrilineal epoch? 2. Why has the passage from matrilineal to patrilineal kinship always been in that direction, never the other way around? 3. Why is the ancient system of matrilineal kinship and descent found nowadays ONLY in primitive regions and never in the advanced patriarchal nations, which have long lost and forgotten their matriarchal origins?" (Pg. 116)

She asserts, "What is needed to rescue anthropology from its blind alley? It must return... to the evolutionist and materialist approach of the pioneer scholars. That is precisely what I have tried to do in my book 'Women's Evolution,' which begins with the basic premise of the priority of the maternal clan system or matriarchy." (Pg. 119)

This is a provocative, interesting book, and is a very helpful supplement to 'Women's Evolution.'

[Michael Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reed provides a solid defense of her thesis Woman's Evolution and exposes the petty bourgeois anthropologists' pragmatic method for distorting the materialist and evolutionary nature of social development.

"Engels believed that Morgan's discovery was as important to the study of the primitive social structure as the discovery of the cell was to biology, or as Marx's concept of surplus value was to economics."

I think Evelyn Reed's contributions are on par with these discoveries. In conversation with other politically conscious workers, I have been describing Woman's Evolution as the Capital of prehistory. Sexism and Science is a fantastic supplement to that work.

She has some lines in this text that are the most elegant and concise summary of Marxist principles I have read. "The key to human progress is in the advancements made in producing the means of life. [...] Successive epochs can be delineated through the growth and development of the material forces of production."

I especially enjoyed her reply to Howard Haymes and the piece "Evolutionism and Antievolutionism."

[Marc Lichtman · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Library Journal: Reviewed by: Mary Mallory, Tozzer Library, Harvard University

"In this collection of essays, Reed attempts to show how pseudoscientific postulations and sexist prejudices have obscured the truths and distorted the facts discovered in certain sciences: namely, anthropology, biology, primatology, sociobiology, and sociology. Although not disparaging what she considers genuine discoveries, she makes a valiant slashing effort to reduce some “reactionary” giants (Robert Ardrey, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Lionel Tiger) to windmills. Reed has a certain flair with terminology and a fresh iconoclastic lack of academic decorum. She is knowledgeable in the disciplines under discussion. Overall the book is a stimulating corrective to establishment academic doctrine and popular scientific vagaries. Recommended for scientific, women’s, as well as nonspecialist collections."

My personal favorite or her essays in here is "Evolutionism and antievolutionism," which while it's from 1957 is just as valid today, especially with "woke" ideology, which is totally antievolutionary.

I also recommend Cosmetics, Fashion, and the Exploitation of Women.

This is one of my favorites of Evelyn Reeds books. It shows her having a better grasp of science than many leading scientists, who let their prejudges and their submersion in bourgeois ideology determine their ideas.

While I like all the essays, I have a particular fondness for "Evolutionism and Antievolutionism" which was first published in 1957. Those who would seek to discredit it by pointing to its age are merely discrediting themselves. Her thinking is way in advance of them. This is about what Reed sometimes called "the hundred-year war" in anthropology. The founder of anthropology in this country was Lewis Henry Morgan, who studied the Iroquois after meeting an educated young Seneca in a bookstore. He correctly thought that society moved through social evolution, and that by learning the past we could see ourselves better in the present and even gain some insight into our future.

Morgan's book Ancient Society Or, Researches In The Lines Of Human Progress From Savagery, Through Barbarism To Civilization came to the attention of Marx and Engels, who both saw it as bringing new information backing their point of view. The discussions between the two ended up with Engels, after the death of Marx, writing the famous The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State based on Morgan's research, as well as some of his own. That book, together with Marx's The Civil War in France: The Paris Commune on the Paris Commune, formed the basis of the Marxist theory of the state. And it has inspired several generations of revolutionary minded people, especially women.

AS capitalism developed further, it became less in need of science, and more in need of obscurity. Today most US anthropologists reject the idea of social evolution, and just study societies as different phenomena not representing anything other than an interesting way to live. Evolution represents a threat to their "social relativist" views. In 2010 the American Anthropological Association took the word "science" out of their statement of purpose. I think being honest is a step forward. There remain scientists in it, and many more in related disciplines.

I see antievolutionary anthropology as one of the origins of the fake science that's parading itself as "Woke." For more on that, read Labor, Nature, and the Evolution of Humanity: The Long View of History.

[Umut Erdoğan (Kareler ve Sayfalar) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reed'i sevmemek mümkün değil, şiddetle tavsiyedir.
Yazısını yarın blog'da paylaşacağım.