Is sex in nature? Who said there are two genders, or two sexual orientations? Are we a result of our hormones? How much biology is there in our behavior, our desires, our subjectivity? Are there blue and pink brains? Do genes determine our characteristics, our way of being, our passions?
The invention of the sexes answers these questions by reviewing evidence and discussing interpretations. In doing so, many of the notions we accept as scientific truths are revealed to be flimsy and biased, if not outrageously false. Lu Ciccia traces the history of science and breaks down the arguments with which the scientific discourse on sexual difference built legitimacy for the androcentric value system and the supremacy of the male cis. In parallel, it reviews the ways in which, throughout that history, feminisms questioned and questioned, with varying emphasis, the naturalization of hierarchies. To respond to these challenges, in the journey of modernity, binarism settled successively in genitality, hormones, genetics and, finally, the brain. Far from complacent readings, Lu also notes the limitations of the various aspects of the feminist movement to produce a truly revolutionary reading of bodies and diversity.
With rigor and clarity, Lu Ciccia explores everything from cognition and behavior to the biomedical realm, and emphasizes the consequences that the androcentric gaze has had and has on the description of what diseases are, how and who they affect, and how they are treated. Without neglecting materialism, it questions the sharp distinction between nature and culture. From there in more, no causal relationship is left standing. Because the mind is more than the brain, and because destiny is not written in biology.