ABSTRACT
Beyond the Natural Body focuses on this episode in the 1920s and 1930s in which scientists became confused by their own assumptions about sex and the body.
UNDER THE SPELL OF THE BODY
What about sex and the body? Early-twentieth-century scientists were definitely not the only ones who struggled with the question of how we can think about female and male bodies. During the second wave of feminism that started in the 1970s, (fe)male bodies were of central concern in many debates, although in a rather peculiar way. Feminist biologists, like myself, were certain that biological determinism had to be rejected. We knew that nature does not determine what we mean when we use terms such as woman, body, femininity. We chose this position to contest those opponents of feminism who suggested that social inequality between women and men is
primarily rooted in biological sex differences. According to this opinion, social changes demanded by feminists are wishful thinking because biology, rather than society, sets constraints on the behavior and abilities of women. Biology is destiny, and feminists simply have to accept this reality.
