Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T11:59:44.166Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Corporeal Archetypes and Power: Preliminary Clarifications and Considerations of Sex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An examination of animate form reveals corporeal archetypes that underlie both human sexual behavior and the reigning Western biological paradigm of human sexuality that reworks the archetypes to enforce female oppression. Viewed within the framework of present-day social constructionist theory and Western biology, 1 show how both social constructionist feminists who disavow biology and biologists who reduce human biology to anatomy forget evolution and thereby forego understandings essential to the political liberation of women.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , Summer 1992 , pp. 39 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beach, Frank A. 1974. Human sexuality and evolution. In Reproductive behavior, ed. Montagna, William and Sadler, William A.New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Jessica. 1986. A desire of one's own: Psychoanalytic feminism and intersub‐jective space. In Feminist studies/critical studies, ed. De Lauretis, Teresa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bertrand, Mireille. 1969. The behavioral repertoire of the stumptail macaque. Basel (Switzerland): Karger. Published simultaneously as Bibliotheca Primatologica 11.Google Scholar
Bigwood, Carol. 1991. Renaturalizing the body (with the help of Merleau‐Ponty). Hypatia 6(3): 54–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bordo, Susan. 1993. Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture, and the body. Berkeley: University of California Press. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Borgia, Gerald. 1986. Sexual selection in bowerbirds. Scientific American 254: 92–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bramblett, Claud. 1976. Patterns of primate behavior. Palo Alto: Mayfield.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1989. Gendering the body: Beauvoir's philosophical contribution. In Women, knowledge, andreality: Explorations in feminist philosophy, ed. Garry, Ann and Pearsall, Marilyn. Boston: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chevalier‐Skolnikoff, Suzanne. 1975. Heterosexual copulatory patterns in stumptail macaques (Macaca arctoides) and in other macaque species. Archives of Sexual Behavior 4(2): 199–220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christian, Barbara. 1989. The race for theory. In Gender and theory, ed. Kauffmann, Linda. New York: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 1991. What can she know? Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Collins, Margery and Christine Pierce. 1973–74.Google Scholar
Holes and slime: Sexism in Sartre's psychoanalysis. Philosophical Forum 1(2): 112–27.Google Scholar
Dallery, Arleen. 1989. The politics of writing (the) body: Écriture féramine. In Gender/body/knowledge, ed. Jaggar, Alison M. and Bordo, Susan R.New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. [18361844] 1987. Charles Darwin's notebooks: 1836–1844, ed. Kohn, David and Barrett, Paul H.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. [1859] 1968. The origin of species. Middlesex (England): Penguin.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. [1871] 1981. The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. [1872] 1965. The expression of the emotions in man and animals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
De Waal, Franz. 1982. Chimpanzee politics: Power and sex among the apes. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Colophon Books. Eberhard, William G. 1985. Sexual selection and animal genitalia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eibl‐Eibesfeldt, Irenaus. 1972. Similarities and differences between cultures in expressive movements. In Non‐verbal communication, ed. Hinde, R. A.New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eibl‐Eibesfeldt, Irenaus. 1975. Ethology. 2d ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul. 1978. Facial expression. In Nonverbal behavior and communication, ed. Siegman, Aron W. and Feldstein, Stanley. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul. 1989. The argument and evidence about universals in facial expressions of emotion. In Handbook of social psychophysiobgy, ed. Wagner, H. and Manstead, A.New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul, Friesen, W. V., O'Sullivan, M., Chan, A., Diacoyanni‐Tarlatzis, I., Heider, K., Krause, R., Le Compte, W. A., Pircairn, T., Ricci‐Bitti, P. E., Scherer, K. R., Tomira, M., and Tzavaras, A. 1987. Universals and cultural differences in the judgements of facial expressions of emotion, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53: 712–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Enomoto, Tomas. 1974. The sexual behavior of Japanese monkeys. Journal of Human Evolution 3: 351–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fausto‐Sterling, Anne. 1985. Myths of gender. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Fisher, Ronald A. 1958. The genetical theory of natural selection 2d ed. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Flax, Jane. 1990. Thinking fragments. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ford, Clellan S., and Beach, Frank A. 1951. Patterns of sexual behavior. New York: Harper Torchbooks.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. The history of sexuality, trans. Hurley, Robert. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1986. The use of pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1988. The care of the self, trans. Hurley, Robert. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Goodall, Jane van Lawick. 1968. The behaviour of free‐living chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve. Animal Behaviour Monographs 1/3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Carol C. 1983. The woman question: Philosophy of liberation and the liberation of philosophy. In Philosophy of woman, ed. Mahowald, Mary B.Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay, and Lewontin, Richard. 1979. The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Science 205: 581–98.Google Scholar
Hall, K. R. L. 1960. Social vigilance behaviour of the Chacma baboon (Papio ursinus). Behavior 16:261–94.Google Scholar
Hall, K. R. L., and DeVore, Irven. 1972. Baboon social behavior. In Primate patterns, ed. Dolhinow, Phyllis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Hanby, J. 1976. Sociosexual development in primates. In Perspectives in Ethology, vol. 1, ed. Bateson, P. P. G. and Klopfer, Peter H.New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1985. A manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s. Socialist Review 15(2): 65–107.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1988. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3): 575–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1989. Primate visions. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 1987. The instability of the analytical categories. In Sex and scientific inquiry, ed. Harding, Sandra and O'Barr, Jean F.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hewes, Gordon W. 1955. World distribution of certain postural habits. American Anthropologist (n.s.) 57(2): 231–44.Google Scholar
Hewes, Gordon W. 1957. The anthropology of posture. Scientific American 196: 123–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubbard, Ruth. 1990. The politics of women's biology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Husserl, Edmund. 1970. The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology, trans. Carr, David. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Husserl, Edmund. 1973. Cartesian meditations, trans. Cairns, Dorion. The Hague: Nijhoff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Husserl, Edmund. 1980. Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenmenological philosophy. Third Book: Phenomenology and the foundations of the sciences (commonly known as Ideas 111), trans. Klein, T. E. and Pohl, W. E.Boston: Nijhoff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Husserl, Edmund. 1989. Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the phenomenology of constitution (commonly known as Ideas II), trans. Rojcewicz, R. and Schuwer, A.Boston: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M. 1989. Love and knowledge: Emotion in feminist epistemology. In Gender/body/knowledge, ed. Jaggar, Alison M. and Bordo, Susan R.New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Ivor H., and Frei, Dorothy. 1979. Exhibitionism—a biological hypothesis. British Journal of Medical Psychology 52: 63–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jung, Carl G. 1960. On the nature of the psyche, trans. Hull, R. F. C.Bollingen Series 20. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jung, Carl G. 1976. Psychological types, trans. Hull, R. F. C.Bollingen Series 20. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Evelyn Fox. 1987. The gender/science system; or, Is sex to gender as nature is to science? Hypatia 2(3): 37–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kummer, Hans. 1971. Primate societies. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Lancaster, Jane B. 1975. Primate behavior and the emergence of human culture. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Longino, Helen E. 1990. Science as social knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Konrad. 1967. On aggression, trans. Marjorie K, Wilson. New York: Bantam.Google Scholar
Lowe, Marion. 1982. Social bodies: The interaction of culture and women's biology. In Biological woman—the convenient myth, ed. Hubbard, Ruth, Sue Henifer, Mary, and Fried, Barbara. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman.Google Scholar
McWhorter, Ladelle. 1989. Culture or nature? The function of the term ‘body’ in the work of Michel Foucault. Journal of Philosophy 86(11): 608–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, G. 1981. Human sex differences: A primatohgist's perspective. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.Google Scholar
Napier, J. R., and Napier, P. H. 1985. The natural history of the primates. London: British Museum (Natural History).Google Scholar
Pierce, Christine. 1975. Philosophy (review essay). Signs 1(2): 487–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ploog, D. W, Blitz, J., and Ploog, F. 1963. Studies on social and sexual behavior of the squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus). Folia primatologica 1: 29–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poovey, Mary. 1988. Feminism and deconstruction. Feminist Studies 14(1): 51–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portmann, Adolf. 1967. Animal forms and patterns, trans. Czech, Hella. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Rogers, C. M. 1973. Implications of primate early rearing experiment for the concept of culture. In Precultural primate behavior, ed. Menzel, Emil. Basel (Switzerland): Karger.Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean‐Paul. 1956. Being and nothingness, trans. Barnes, Hazel. New York: Philosophical Library.Google Scholar
Sheets‐Johnstone, Maxine. 1990. The roots of thinking. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Sheets‐Johnstone, Maxine. 1993 (forthcoming). The roots of power: animate form and gendered bodies. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Stoller, Robert J. 1976. Sexual deviations. In Human sexuality in four perspectives, ed. Beach, Frank A.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Sugiyama, Yukimaru. 1969. Social behavior of chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, Uganda. Primates 10: 197–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symons, Donald. 1979. The evolution of human sexuality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Theweleit, Klaus. 1987. Male fantasies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Washburn, Sherwood L. 1950. The analysis of primate evolution with particular reference to the origin of man. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 15: 57–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wickler, Wolfgang. 1969. Sociosexual signals and their intra‐specific imitation among primates. In Primate Ethology, ed. Morris, Desmond. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.Google Scholar