labrys, études féministes/ estudos feministas
juillet / décembre 2010 - julho/dezembro 2010

Emily Martin

interview by tania navarro swain

Professor, Department of Anthropology and The Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge, New York University

Areas of Research/Interest Anthropology of science and medicine, gender, cultures of the mind, emotion and rationality, history of psychiatry and psychology, US culture and society. - Founding editor of the general interest magazine Anthropology Now (www.anthronow.com) sponsored by the American Ethnological Association, funded in part by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and published by Paradigm Publishers. To subscribe visit www.paradigmpublishers.com/journals/an
Journal website is at http://anthronow.com

--With Louis Sass and Elizabeth Lunbeck, Martin co-organizes the regional seminar, The Psyences Project. The Psyences Project brings clinicians into dialogue with academics around common interests in mind and brain as understood by disciplines such as psychology, psychiatry, and psychopharmacology in cultural and historical context. (http://www.nyu.edu/fas/ihpk/Psyences/PsyencesSP2006.htm)

--Research Director (with Elizabeth Lunbeck) of a 2009 Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship program funded by the Social Science Research Council, on “Cultures and Histories of the Human Sciences.”

Other information and publications

http://anthropology.as.nyu.edu/object/emilymartin.html

tania navarro swain -   The discourse on Nature which determines the essence of Beings has been deconstructed by all the feminisms. How does Anthropology incorporate this feminist work?

Emily Martin - Anthropologists look into concrete settings in which people make their lives around scientific developments and findings. Rayna Rapp shows how genetic counseling and testing is experienced very differently by wealthy families than by less well off ones. In my work on Bipolar conditions, I show what it is like to live under the description of such a condition when one is a famous CEO or comedian, as compared to someone who has little material support. So the conclusion is there is no fixed “nature” discovered once and for all by scientists. There are scientific descriptions of the world, which people in varying circumstances put to use in various ways.

tns- How did your academic colleagues, women and men, receive and perceive your work?

EM -The Woman in the Body was slow to be picked up by the field. It made its way as a selection in course offerings, and from there became more well known. I had plenty of company! This was the 1980s and the whole second wave of feminism was still building and very strong.

 tns -  Anthropologists and sociologists of different nationalities maintain that in social relations, masculine domination is “natural” and has always existed ever since the beginning of times. What would your research answer to this?

EM - I would say masculine domination is a product of social systems of the organization of groups and the understanding of meanings of social life. How else can we understand the dramatic changes in the position of men and women in different historical periods and in different places?

tns -   In your article “The Egg and the Sperm” you show how Sciences build up an  interpretative and imaginary construction on reality. Could you explain the inflexion points of this important work?

EM - The article looks in detail at the language and imagery used in both scientific and popular publications about the egg and the sperm. This is my data. The data show that presuppositions, assumptions, ideals, etc. from the prevailing culture make their way into scientific research and conclusions. Sometimes these presuppositions prevent a more open and useful set of questions being asked. For example, the assumption that the heroic sperm (competing with each other) valiantly charge up the vaginal tract to penetrate the egg has now been shown to be largely mistaken: the sperm do not follow a direct line and the egg’s role in enfolding the sperm is crucial.

tns -  The value and  importance given to sperm follow a logic of social emphasy given to the masculine. In your article you ask: “How is it that positive images are denied to the bodies of women?” Please comment this question and such issues related to social relations.

EM -   The bodies of women confound some of the central tenets of proper personhood in EuroAmerican concepts since the 18^th century. These tenets include: stability over time, consistency, orderliness, and rationality. As it has been imagined in medicine, the male body exemplifies these virtues: it produces sperm for example, at a regular rate for most of the lifetime. It does not change hormonally on a regular basis after puberty. Women’s bodies, on the other hand, are imagined to contradict these principles: they change hormonally every month, and they undergo not only puberty but the decline and disorganization that menopause is imagined to be. But the moment one sees this pattern is the moment one can begin to re-imagine both bodies differently. Would it be possible to re-imagine women’s bodies as adaptable and flexibly changeable in the constantly changing world we all live in? Perhaps men’s bodies are less static and orderly than we have imagined?

tns-  If we put aside all stereotypes about gender and “natural” hierarchy between sexes, is it possible to conceive an hypothetical, domination-free society that would not be based only on anatomical details? A society where sex is not reigning as a king?

EM - It is entirely possible to conceive of such a society, and part of the work of feminism is to encourage such conceptions, even if they seem far from reality at the present time. However, sex is not the only route to domination, and even if women could magically take over power in American institutions, I daresay that capitalist social relations and the inequalities they are based on would largely continue. Nonetheless, it is important that when women took up powerful positions in the American NIH, the research agendas of the Institute began to change: women were included in clinical trials, and women’s health issues gained in importance.

tns -  Among various Brazilian early societies, at the time of  the “discovery” (XVIthe century), all young individuals could choose their partners and social functions, independently of their genital sex. Would´nt you say that this type of behavior does break down the masculine sex/domination stereotype?

EM - Yes, it would seem to have that potential.

tns-  Your brillant analysis of medical discourse that presents menstruation as a gap in the reproduction mechanism, exemplifies the body determism imposed on women social destiny. Could you comment on such a representation in relation to the desire for  motherhood that presently multiplies fertility clinics?

EM - I haven’t studied this phenomenon myself. To understand it I think would require an ethnography at the grass roots level, such as Susan Kahn, Marcia Inhorn or Elly Teman (Birthing a mother) have done for Israeli society. I think the logics and reasons behind the imperative for motherhood will vary in different societies. The logics and reasons would probably also involve ideas about male fertility, so the issue would be broader than motherhood per se.

tns-  Could you explain those metaphores of body/machine and physician/mechanic, if we consider the social power attributed to physicians, especially in relation to women.

IEM - f a woman thinks of her body as a machine, then she would be apt to think she needed a mechanic to keep it tuned up and repaired. When she was pregnant and went into labor, she might bring her “machine-body” to a “mechanic-physician” to deliver the baby. Somehow the meaning of the word “labor” in the activity of work gets forgotten: it is the woman who labors and brings forth her baby into the world.

tns- Do you think that the imaginary negative representation of menopause has been modified throughout the XXth century?

EM - I think menopause is probably less stigmatized today. But even the entry of many more women into medicine would be hard put to offset the cultural significance of aging, which is largely negative.

tns- How, when and why did you become a feminist scientist?

EM - After being actively against the US war in Vietnam, I was in California and in the process of writing my dissertation when I became active in the conscious raising groups of the women’s liberation movement of the time. This experience opened my eyes to the importance of language and symbolism in constructing gendered inequality. This deeply influenced the next research project I started, which resulted in The Woman in the Body.

tns- Could you comment on the importance of the feminist production of knowledge, in the deconstruction of “objectivity” and that of scientific “evidence/certainty”.

EM - With the help of the history of science, and STS (science and technology studies) we are coming to understand a great deal more about how scientific research comes to be accepted as fact. This acceptance has much to do with the social standing of those who produce the evidence, and hence it has to do with gender, among other things. It can be useful to inquire into the meaning of “objectivity” in particular contexts: I think of objectivity as occupying a position that claims it has no investment in what can be seen from that point of view. Usually many factors have to be ignored to make such a claim.

labrys, études féministes/ estudos feministas
juillet / décembre 2010 - julho/dezembro 2010