Camille: The biggest gap in Women's Studies
is the failure to have a requirement about
biology. Christina: Oh, well that. Camille:
Because there's no reference to biology. You've
had 40 years of Women's Studies with a social
constructionist view of gender without the
slightest reference to hormones or endocrinology
or anything else. Christina: Exactly. Forty
years of Women's Studies, and I think we know
less about gender than we did at the start
of it, for this very reason. This dogma, oh,
that men and women are the same, that we're
cognitively interchangeable. Camille: We're
blank slates at birth, and society inscribes
gender on us. It's absurd. Christina: As one
feminist philosopher said many years ago,
"We're all born bisexual, and then through
socialization, we're transformed into gendered
human beings, one destined to command, the
other to obey." I once read that to my husband
who said, "Which one commands and which obeys?"
Camille: There you go. Christina: For heaven's
sakes, I'm someone who was writing a dissertation
on androgyny and I never for one moment in
my entire life have questioned that the sexes
are actually different, and that there's a
very powerful, hormonal compulsion that drives
the sexes together for our procreation, hello,
okay. Camille: And it's so obvious and people
say, "Well, what's the evidence?" Well, let's
start with the entire anthropological record
or just look at a magazine rack and it's clear
that men are looking, on average, I'm not
talking about all men and all women, but on
average, there are different propensities.
Christina: Men have 8 to 10 times the amount
of testosterone circulating in their bodies
than women do. As if there aren't consequences,
but of course, this subject is something utterly
untouched in gender studies. You're going
to graduate with a degree in Women's Studies
and know nothing about it. Camille: Nothing
about it. Christina: Nothing. Camille: Nothing
to know and so they are, at any time they
find statistical disparity between men and
women, any field, if there are more male petroleum
engineers, it has to be discrimination. Camille:
Right, it can't be women's free choice for
any reason. Christina: Free choice and that
on average women are interested in other things.
Camille: Absolutely and also women want more
flexibility in their lives to allow for children...
Christina: Children. Camille: ...but that's
not also part of the feminist equation. Christina:
Oh, and if we don't have a special bond with
children...It's so absurd the denial of nature,
the denial of femininity and masculinity.
Camille: Absolutely. Christina: Which for
most people, it's a source of enjoyment and
if you are conventionally feminine, you enjoy
that typically and the same with male, and
you enjoy a masculine man. And all of this
is now either denied or there's this aura
of disapproval around conventional sexuality
and there's so little pushback in the Academy.
Camille: Well, it's because there's no knowledge,
and people are just settled and sluggish within
their little selves, their ideological selves
and there really are very few truly inquiring
minds left, no true intellectuals, really
in the Academy. The Academy and, of course
the colleges and universities, have never
been known for producing free thinkers. It
is after all a bureaucratic entity the Academy.
If we want intellectuals, the present system
is certainly not the way to produce them.
