In the early 1980s, my feminist friends repeatedly asked me to explain what biologists have had to say about women, and why it is that women are depicted as determined and limited by their “biological nature” in ways that men, in general, are not. Despite my years of education in biology, I had no answers to their questions. These questions led me and other biology students to found the women’s group in biology. The very first ideas for this book stem from the many evenings of discussions I shared with this group. The subject of women’s biology turned out to be profoundly political, and was at that time not yet subjected to any systemic feminist inquiry. We discussed our objections to the determinism and reductionism of biological theories relating to sex differences, and the implications of such theories for feminism. The women’s group proved to be a very creative and productive context for developing ideas and strategies to introduce the subject of women and biology to the agenda of the university curriculum. Thanks to the efforts of this group, this issue became institutionalized as a new field in women’s studies at the University of Amsterdam. The major part of the work presented in this book was done in the socially and intellectually stimulating atmosphere surrounding the establishment of this new research field.
There are, inevitably, a great many people whose ideas, inspiration and support have contributed to the realization of this book: Olga Amsterdamska, Louis Boon, Teresa Brennan, Christien Brouwer, Adele Clarke, Jacqueline Cramer, Diana Long, Annemarie Mol, Nanne van der Poll, Koos Slob, Anne Fausto Sterling, Marianne van den Wijngaard, and Ineke van Wingerden. I am grateful for the help of all these colleagues and friends who have provided me with the knowledge, skills and energy that made the writing of this book into such an intellectually exciting endeavor.
My work has been greatly facilitated by the cooperation of the— unfortunately now late—Professor Dr Marius Tausk, and of Dr. Ina Uyldert, who gave detailed accounts of their experiences in the field of sex hormones in the 1920s and 1930s. I gratefully acknowledge the permission of Dr. K. Wiedhaup to consult the Organon Archives containing the correspondence of Professor Dr. Ernst Laqueur, and the assistance of the library staff of the Faculty of Biology at the University of Amsterdam in collecting the relevant
literature on sex hormones. I wish to thank Gene Moore In particular for his skillful and thorough editing of the translations.
Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and friends. To my parents for providing me with the opportunity to complete a higher education, which enabled me to leave my job in a small town pharmacy for a then unknown but exciting future. To my friend Rob Vrakking for providing me with the ideal condition for the birth of this book: a creative silence.
Some of these chapters are based on previously published materials. Chapter 2 was first published in the Journal of the History of Biology, 1990, 23 (2):163-186; an earlier version of Chapter 3 appeared in Bulletin of the History of Medicine 1990, 64:243-261; Chapter 4 has been published in Social Studies of Science 1990, 20:5-33; and a shorter version of Chapter 5 appeared in Science, Technology and Human Values, 1993, 18:5-25.
I gratefully acknowledge the permission of AKZO, Organon International BV, to use the photographs of the early laboratory work on sex hormones (Chapters 3, 4 and 5 ) and Chemisch Weekblad, The Lancet and Nature for permission to use the photographs of publications on sex hormones (Chapters 2 and 5).
However natural categories are, we need to search whether and by what means they find their existence as natural categories.
(Coupland 1988)
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Bodies are not born, they are made.