The Wabash community is no stranger to controversial speakers, and tonight’s lecture by Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling should be no exception. Emails to the student body have described her as “one of the nation’s leading biologists of gender” and “one of the most controversial feminist scholars.” An article in The Wabash Commentary described her work as “pseudoscience,” but chairman of the Gender Issues Committee, Prof. Warren Rosenberg, describes her work in other terms.
“She’s helping to find the truth about gender and biology,” he said.
Fausto-Sterling will speak at 8:00 p.m. tonight in Hays Hall room 104. She will also visit an introductory biology class and Rosenberg’s freshman tutorial, “Men and Masculinity.” The title of her lecture is “Beyond Nature versus Nurture: New Ways to Think about Sex, Gender, and the Body.”
Her visit to campus is sponsored by a plethora of organizations: the Department of Biology, the Department of Psychology, the Gender Issues Committee, the Lecture Series, and Division I. The involvement of so many groups, according to Rosenberg, was necessary to procure the necessary funds to pay for a speaker of national repute. The event has been in the works for two years.
Fausto-Sterling’s work centers on the relationship between society and biology, especially with regards to gender. This is the focus of her two books aimed at the general public, Myths of Gender and the more recent Sexing the Body. According to her website, she “has achieved recognition for works that challenge entrenched scientific beliefs while engaging with the general public. [sic]”
Lately, Fausto-Sterling has turned her scientific attentions to the relationship between culture and bone development. She describes the relationship in an article in the journal SIGNS titled, “The Bare Bones of Sex.”
”She has a firm grounding in science, but also a skepticism about how much we can rely on science alone,” Rosenberg said. “She takes an interdisciplinary view of biology, and doesn’t see biology as a value-free science.”
For many, Fausto-Sterling’s work is characterized by her controversial assertion that 1.7% of people are intersex. She also claimed that the scientific community should recognize five genders: merms, ferms, and herms, in addition to the traditional male and female. After facing outcry from the intersex community, she recanted on the point.
Fausto-Sterling is currently Professor of Biology and Gender Studies in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Bio-Chemistry at Brown University. Professors and students from other regional colleges will likely attend her lecture tonight.
“She really is a fascinating person to bring in,” Rosenberg said.