Abstract

The theme of human biology recurs continually both in feminist and in anti-ferminist literature. Reflection on human biology has seemed to promise answers to the urgent questions of why women everywhere are subordinated and whether and how that subordination can be ended. Invariably, anti-feminists have justified women's subordination in terms of perceived biological differences between the sexes, and feminists have responded to their claims in a variety of ways. In this paper, I want to look critically at the ways in which feminists in the liberal and Marxist traditions have responded to the biologically based challenges of anti-feminism, and to suggest an alternative way of conceptualising the relation between human biology and the social status of women.