My contribution to this Symposium focuses on the links between sexuality and reproduction from the evolutionary point of view.' The relation between women's sexuality and reproduction is particularly importantb ecause of a vital intersectionb etweenp olitics and biology feminists have noticed, for more than a century, that women's identity is often defined in terms of her reproductive capacity. More recently, in the second wave of the feminist movement in the United States, debates about women'si dentityh ave explicitlyi ncludeds exuality;m uch (...) feminist argument in the late 1960's and early 1970's involved an attempt to separate out an autonomous female sexuality from women's reproductive functions. It is especially relevant, then, to examine biological arguments, particularlye volutionarya rgumentst, o see what they say about whether and how women's sexuality is related to reproduction. We shall find that many evolutionarya rgumentss eem to supportt he direct linkingo f female sexualitya nd reproductionY. et I will argue that this supporti s not well-groundedI. n fact, I think evolutionarye xplanationso f female sexuality exemplify how social beliefs and social agendas can influence very basic biological explanations of fundamental physiological processes. In this paper, I shall spend some time spelling out a few examples in which assumptions about the close link between reproduction and sexuality yield misleading results, then I shall conclude with a discussion of the consequences of this case study for issues in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In ‘How Androcentric is Western Philosophy?’ (The Philosophical Quarterly, 46 (1996), pp. 48–59), I criticized five claims for the androcentrism of philosophy. In her ‘How Androcentric is Western Philosophy? A Reply’ (ibid., pp. 60–6), Susan Mendus finds my arguments faulty in a number of ways. Much of her criticism has to do with the distinction introduced in my article between pervasive and non-pervasive androcentrism. Pervasive androcentrism in a philosophical theory calls for substantial reform, complete rejection or replacement (...) by a feminist alternative. Non-pervasive androcentrism requires merely a renunciation of some androcentric themes from a philosophical theory. The difference is analogous to the one between a regime, law or idea we judge to be totally or mostly bad and would like to discard completely, and a regime, law or idea we think should be corrected here and there, but is generally worthwhile and after some amendments could be usefully maintained. (shrink)