But this is ridiculous, both because language and culture are themselves products of biological evolution, and because the ways in which languages and cultures evolve have much in common with the ways biological organisms evolve. Culture studies people also tend to equate the biological or 'natural' with what is unchanging and deterministic, the 'cultural' with what is historical and variable, but this is equally ridiculous. For on one hand, human culture tends to be extremely conservative, inflexible, and self-perpetuating. A patriachy based on cultural norms is no easier to overthrow than a patriarchy based on genes. While on the other hand, recent developments in the life sciences, in what I am calling 'postmodern biology', have increasingly demonstrated how mutable and unstable organisms and their environments are, and how variable genetic inheritance really is.
Biological evolution has a much longer and more bizarre history than human culture can boast of.
At best, they are statistical averages taken over large populations. So it seems to me that, ironically, the culture relativists or constructionists turn out to be more rigid, more 'essentialistic', than the biologists. A lot of recent feminist criticism has pointed out the way in which we think about gender constructions. Your book, Doom Patrols , is named after the comic book series Doom Patrol. I'm using the character of Cliff Steele as a way to discuss the dilemmas of masculinity in contemporary American society.