Social Constructs Mediating Scientific Conceptualization: The Pressures of Society on Science

This week, I've talked about the notion of sex in humans as a social construct. My aim isn't to suggest that sex is purely a fabrication of human society—given the biological definition of sex based on gamete production—but to highlight that the societal operation of the male/female distinction, primarily based on sex assignment by doctors at birth, often misaligns with this biological definition.

The demotion of Pluto from its planetary status, as decided by a scientific community vote in 2006, serves as a parallel, illustrating how societal decisions or classifications impact our understanding of scientific concepts or natural phenomena. Just as Pluto remains the same celestial body despite its reclassification, our scientific interest in it continues unabated by the social decision to label it differently. This serves as a reminder that the labels we apply, whether in astronomy or in understanding human diversity, are often more reflective of our societal consensus than of intrinsic scientific changes. Similarly, I discussed the concept of race, another societal construct based on the superficial "eye-ball test" of skin color, which lacks a solid scientific foundation.

Adding to this discourse, the construction of homosexuality as an identity further illustrates the impact of societal constructs on our understanding of human behavior and identity. Michel Foucault's work reveals that defining homosexuality as an identity is a product of social construction. Behaviors now associated with homosexual identity have always existed and are observable across the animal kingdom. A biologist once remarked to me, "Those who think it's unnatural haven't looked at nature!" Yet, it's the categorization and definition of these behaviors as an identity deviating from the 'normal' that underscores the social construct.

Alongside the construction of the concept of homosexuality, there emerged a new social construct: heterosexuality. Heterosexuality was naturalized and established as the 'new normal' through scientific inquiry. This transformation was heavily influenced by centuries of evolving culture, where moral norms intertwined with religious dogmas, and was further propelled by the burgeoning influence of Enlightenment science. Scientists, armed with the tools and authority of their discipline, sought to provide natural justifications for these emerging social distinctions, thereby becoming contributors to a patriarchal system. This system cleverly leveraged scientific discoveries to cement and normalize these constructs, embedding them deeply within the fabric of society. In this process, heterosexuality became the natural norm, while homosexuality was framed as the aberrational deviance.

This exploration into the social constructions of sex, race, homosexuality, and heterosexuality challenges us to reflect on the role of scientific inquiry in reinforcing or challenging societal norms and perceptions. It invites a reconsideration of how we define identity and deviation in the context of an ever-evolving social and scientific landscape.

Tracing the Social Pressure from Man/Woman to Male/Female

I've finally come to understand what it means to say that sex in humans is a social construct. This understanding now allows me to further explore and make sense of the social aspect of this construct, examining the roots of what we categorize as 'male' and 'female,' beyond the confines of biology. Yesterday, I discussed how societal pressures shape the scientific definition of sex, pressing it to align with what is observed at birth—the "eye-ball test." This doesn't dispute the existence of a biological definition of sex based on gamete production, but highlights a mismatch with societal expectations derived from observable physical characteristics at birth.

In my previous exploration, I highlighted how Pluto's reclassification was influenced by societal and scientific consensus within the astronomical community, underscoring the dynamic interplay between societal values and scientific categorization. Turning our focus to human race and sex, these concepts further exemplify the intricate relationship between societal constructs and scientific inquiry. The categorization of race, often based on visible traits such as skin color, presents a compelling case where the scientific community has largely found that such social categories do not align with clear-cut genetic or biological demarcations. This understanding is rooted in the recognition that human genetic diversity cuts across socially constructed racial lines, challenging the notion that race has a direct biological basis corresponding to these superficial observations.

Conversely, the discourse surrounding sex in humans reveals a different landscape. While societal norms have historically leaned towards a binary classification based on observable physical characteristics at birth, the scientific understanding of sex is far more complex, encompassing a spectrum of biological realities including chromosomal, hormonal, and anatomical variations. This complexity has prompted discussions within the scientific and medical communities about how best to reconcile this biological diversity with societal classifications. The conversation is not so much about forcing a scientific definition to fit societal observations but about acknowledging and respecting the breadth of human variation within scientific and societal contexts.

This exploration into race and sex underscores a broader theme: the influence of societal perceptions on scientific classification is nuanced and varies across different domains. While the scientific community strives to base classifications on empirical evidence and biological realities, societal constructs of race and sex demonstrate the challenges and negotiations involved in bridging scientific understanding with social perceptions. It highlights a selective engagement with scientific legitimization, where some constructs, despite lacking a strict biological basis like race, are recognized for their social significance, whereas others, like sex, are subject to ongoing debates about the intersection of biology and societal norms.

Where, then, does the drive to find scientific validation for the socially defined distinction between male and female come from? My working hypothesis is that it's rooted in the socially defined concept of gender. By differentiating 'male/female' from 'man/woman,' we ascribe a biological status to the former, acknowledging the latter as a distinctly social construct. However, the 'eye-ball test' employed by doctors at birth carries significant historical and cultural baggage. It embeds gender roles within a patriarchal framework and perpetuates stereotypes linked to activities and attributes like hunting and gathering, reason and emotion, labor and family care, as well as arbitrary color codes and interests such as blue vs. pink and space vs. dolls. This entire social package encoded in the man/woman distinction not only preserves existing social patterns but also sets clear expectations about who fits on each side of the dichotomy. This practice, seemingly effortless, lends an illusion of biological legitimacy to a construction that is, at its core, deeply social.

The pressure to fit individuals into these predefined categories places an enormous burden on the biological aspects of sex, such as gamete production, to uphold societal constructs and expectations. As we navigate the nuanced distinctions between male and female, man and woman, it's evident that the social constructs surrounding gender and sex are complex and deeply embedded in our culture. This journey sheds light on the intricate interplay between societal expectations and scientific categorizations, challenging us to reconsider our approaches to understanding human identity. Amidst this reevaluation, it's hard not to spare a thought for the gametes, unwitting participants in a societal debate far beyond their microscopic existence. There’s indeed a lot of pressure on those poor gametes!

Sex and Planets: Social Constructs in Science

What might it mean to say that sex is a social construct? I've recently come to realise how we can understand the male/female distinction in humans as a social construct. Here's an attempt at explaining it. In biology, a definition of sex that applies across the animal kingdom is based on the production of gametes: males produce sperm, and females produce eggs. This seems to be the most stable definition, because reproductive organs and chromosomes exhibit too much variety, both within and across species, to serve as a reliable basis. Gametes, however, seem to capture the dichotomy required for reproduction. It doesn't matter what the reproductive organs look like or their organisation, nor does it matter which chromosomal configurations are at play. When individuals manage to combine sperm and egg, each is fulfilling their biological sexual role towards reproduction. Thus, there is a plausible biological definition of sex.

When I say that the male/female distinction in humans is a social construct, I'm not denying that there is a biological distinction. What I question is whether the biological definition in terms of gametes is what underpins the distinction operative in human society. In human society, the distinction often boils down to the "eye-ball test," which is the inspection of genitals at birth by doctors. The issue is that there isn’t a neat match between what doctors observe in newborn babies and the production of gametes. A significant amount of conceptual work and mental gymnastics are required for the eye-ball test to reliably match the biological definition. Consider a human who never produces gametes in their life, perhaps because they die before reaching puberty or for some reason, it just never happens in their bodies. What if the gametes someone produces don't correspond to the visible organs at birth? Questions like these need answers, and because there are billions of us, millions of cases simply fail to fit the biological definition. The social construction then occurs in insisting that there's a biological distinction in humans between male and female that matches the eye-ball test. It's a social obsession with finding reasons to preserve a dichotomous distinction claimed to be based in science but actually matches social categories.

Sex is not the only domain where science is pressured by society to provide a definition that matches social expectations. In Logic in the Wild, I discuss the demotion of Pluto as a planet in 2006. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) brought the definition of a planet to its members and voted on a new definition: “A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.” This new definition of a planet resulted from a vote! The reasons leading the association to vote for the new definition included the discovery of several objects in the Kuiper belt very much like Pluto, which would dramatically increase the number of planets in the Solar System, becoming a tedious exercise in categorising and naming all those objects. Instead of increasing the number of planets from 9 to hundreds or thousands, the society voted to demote Pluto and retain a manageable number of planets. If anything is a social construct in science, the definition of a planet is a prime example. Unlike individuals, however, Pluto isn't affected in any way by whether we call it a planet or not, and the scientific interest in it, its composition, and sending probes to it are not affected by how we name it. Trans people, however, are significantly affected by the social pressure to enforce a biological definition that captures a distinction fitting social patterns and legal requirements, allowing doctors to assign sex to babies with the eye-ball test. To say that sex is a social construct isn't to deny that there's a biological definition of the male/female distinction but to highlight that the definition doesn't fit with social expectations. Reinforcing the eye-ball test as the measure of sex is what creates social oppression, for social pressures to match social patterns, as a social construct.