Richardson-2008-role-of-gender-criticism-in-the-case-of-sex-determination

Source: Richardson, S. (2008) “When gender criticism becomes standard scientific practice: the case of sex determination” In Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering. Ed. Longa Schiebinger. Stanford University. Press. pp. 22-42

• 1990: cloning of SRY gene regarded as confirmation of long-standing single “master gene” model of sex determination
  • the master gene model purposed that a single dominant genetic switch initiates sexual differentiation. In this case the SRY gene triggers the development of testes which produce horomones that “masculinize” the fetus
  • this model was an androcentric theory (i.e. focused or centered on men)
• Late 1990’s: single “master gene” model of sex determination rejected, replaced by model which includes SRY gene as one among many factors involved in sex determination

Thesis: Richardson documents how “gender criticism became a cognitive resource in the field of sex determination genetics during the 1990s” (p.22) in three main ways:

1. feminist biologists and science analysts anticipated the revised model earlier than others
2. feminist theories of sex and gender lent intellectual resources to the model reconstruction effort
3. gender criticism sharpened the epistemic tools of the field of sex determination in mammals

normalization of gender criticism = Richardson notes how developments internal and external to the field of sex determination led to the acceptance of gender criticism, which is the exploration of ideas about masculinity, femininity, and sexuality as socially constructed.

This incorporation of gender criticism into sex determination genetics occurred in three stages:

1. cultural changes in and around the field created the conditions for receptivity to gender criticism
2. a respected female scientist in the filed, Jennifer Graves, began to employ an explicitly feminist framework in her work
3. over time, members of the larger sex determination research saw gender criticism as useful to their own thinking, incorporating feminist insights into their work

The NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health opened in the early 1990s and this period witnessed significant expansion of feminist science studies. In research biology, particularly genetics, women entered the profession that for the first time was close to equal men in the field. All these developments led to increasing challenges to the dominant biological models of sex and gender.

criticism of the master gene model

Fausto-Sterling (1989), a biologist and feminist science critic, published a paper that highlighted the ignored explanatory gaps in the master gene model¹:

1. equating the genetics of testis determination with the genetics of sex determination means neglecting parallel investigation into the genetics of ovarian development
2. researchers privileged male over female processes by accepting the theory that said “male as presence and female as absence”
3. assuming sex is a “clear cut” binary unambiguously determined by genetics

“Fausto-Sterling concluded that these assumptions about gender had “pre-vented the articulation of a coherent theory” of sex determination. She urged an alternative model of sex determination that includes both male and female developmental pathways and “permits the existence of intermediate states”.

Immediately after the announcement of the identification of SRY, Jennifer Graves and Roger Short (1990) published a strong critique that anticipated the challenges the model would face.

“Graves argued that researchers’ unreflective assignment of masculine qualities to SRY lead them to ignore contradictory evidence and prefer an unsustainable model of Y chromosomal sex determination over alternative models. Researchers clung to this model even when countervailing evidence should have led them to abandon it” (p.32)

Graves’ critique (2000):

1. model entailed that SRY would be “well-conserved and act uniquely in testes formation”. Instead, empirical research showed that “SRY is poorly conserved, shows a weak, inconsistent transcription pattern, and appears to have different functions in different species”
2. Model attributes “agentic and aggressive qualities” to SRY
3. devalues and neglects contribution of X chromosomes

Graves offered an alternative model of sex determination known as the Wimp Y model, in which the SRY is a degraded version of a gene on the X chromosome. For Graves, sex determination is highly contingent, error-prone and always evolving mechanism.

The normalization of Gender criticism

Beginning around 2000, a marked shift occurred in sex determination literature as the SRY model fell out of favor and a general awareness matured of the pitfalls of androcentric and gender-dualistic thinking.

A new approach to modelling sex-determination emerged² =

1. consensus on importance of research on ovarian determination
2. replacement of the “master gene” conception by multi-factorial model of sex determination
3. the call for a human-specific model of sex determination

Footnotes

1. Richardson, p. 28 ↩

2. Richardson, p. 36 ↩