Naturalistic views were not, then, dominant in the period prior to theeighteenth century. Instead of the social position of women and menbeing determined by their respective biologies, whatever one thoughtabout women and their rightful place in the world could, apparently,be understood in terms of bodies permanently open to the'interpretive demands of culture' (Laqueur, 1990). However, arevolutionary shift took place sometime during the eighteenth centurywhich substituted 'an anatomy and physiology of incommensurability'for the existing model of social difference based on homologies between male and female reproductive systems(Duroche, 1990; Laqueur, 1987). During the eighteenth century,science began to flesh out the categories of 'male' and 'female' andbase them upon biological differences. This was accompanied by thedevelopment in the late eighteenth century of the notion of 'sexuality'as a singular and all important human attribute which gave one aself-identity which was firmly contrasted with the opposite sex(Laqueur, 1990: 13).
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