Ecologist wants to change sex studies to include nature and culture
Lizards are homebodies.
After meeting their mates, the monogamous reptiles stake out small territories near other lizard couples. They're close to being suburban, Joan Roughgarden, a Stanford University ecologist, said.
Studying the mating habits of lizards isn't so different from studying the mating habits of humans, she thinks. Yet the former is the domain of scientists, the latter the pursuit of anthropologists.
Roughgarden wants to change that historic academic division that separates the way we study sex. She is leading an effort to bring the academic camps together in the hope that one day research will examine the scientific and cultural forces that shape gender and sexuality.
Sex scholarship isn't offered at many universities, said Debbie Herbenich, a spokesperson at the Kinsey Institute, which is affiliated with Indiana University. When universities do offer programs, they are often housed in the humanities department and have little interaction with science.
Stanford, for instance, offers some gender and sexuality courses through its feminist studies program, but they usually do not incorporate science.
"It reflects a fundamental different notion of where sex happens," said Paul Robinson, a Stanford history professor who also teaches a seminar on gay autobiographies. "One believes there is a biological logic to sexuality, and the humanities people who study it think it's more in the mind. Is it mental, or is it physical?"
It's both. Roughgarden is a member of the Committee on Cultural and Biological Diversity. The committee has initiated a yearlong colloquium in which professors and students consider topics like female masculinity and the ecological aspects of gender and sexuality.
The series of discussions are the first steps to deciding what, if any, new gender and sexuality programs Stanford should offer. Committee members say a new program - whether it's a major, minor or research center - would be fundamentally different from queer-studies courses offered at most universities because the academic scope would include the study of animals as well as humans, and would touch on scientific, legal, cultural and policy aspects.
Such a course is much needed, Roughgarden argues, because the topic of sexuality is so prevalent in society. We argue over whether the Boy Scouts and the military should allow gays, whether churches should wed same-sex couples and then if insurance should cover both spouses and whether sex changes are a medical necessity. Yet there is little research to support or counter the claims made on both sides, Roughgarden said.
"I think somebody has to be brain-dead not to realize there's a lot of confusion about gender and sexuality," she said.
Diversity that includes more than gender and race is highlighted during the discussions. Roughgarden, who discusses in her upcoming book, among other things, how she started life as John Roughgarden, is impatient with what she calls binaries. There are more options than straight men and women having babies, she said.
She's especially interested in how genders express themselves. For instance, there are birds, fish and lizards that have three versions of male within the same species, she said. Within the same species, she said, the males have different sizes, colors and birth and death rates.
Roughgarden suspects it's the same with humans, but the "intermediaries are thrown out." That is, people who don't fit into tidy categories have historically been treated as aberrations and ignored.
The colloquiums discuss such differences. A recent speaker at the colloquium was Judith Halberstam, an English professor from the University of California-San Diego, who discussed "female masculinity."
"Everyone was completely and totally engaged," Lisa Moore, assistant director at the Women's Community Center at Stanford, said. "There was real interest in trying to understand people who try to play with gender and understanding that gender is something to be played with."
Students want more academic venues to explore gender and sexuality issues, said Ben Davidson, assistant dean of students and director of the gay, lesbian, bisexual center on campus. Stanford has done a good job providing support services and social opportunities for students, he said, but "I see a real hunger for academic venues - teaching opportunities, courses, research opportunities - so they can look at the range of issues which touch on their personal lives."
Student Caitlin Kalinowski, who describes herself as queer, has taken some courses on gender and wants the university to offer more. She says the rising visibility of gays, drag kings, and transgenders should force academics to realize that sex is more than "an id impulse."
"Diversity is not about academic boundaries. It's about race; it's about biology; it's about animals," Kalinowski, a junior product design major, said. "I think it's huge. I think this is a groundbreaking way to look at gender."
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