SEX AND EMBODIMENT, meeting 2 (out of 3)

get to Rer

"My landlady, a voluble man, arranged my journey into the East."

slide 2

light and darkness

Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of right.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.

light and darkness

'I have come to see you, spirit of evil and sovereign of shadows,' the newcomer replied, glowering inimically at Woland.
    'If you've come to see me, why didn't you wish me a good evening, former tax collector?' Woland said sternly.
    'Because I don't wish you a good anything,' the newcomer replied insolently.
    'But you'll have to reconcile yourself to that,' Woland objected, and a grin twisted his mouth. 'You no sooner appear on the roof than you produce an absurdity, and I'll tell you what it is — it's your intonation. You uttered your words as if you don't acknowledge shadows, or evil either. Kindly consider the question: what would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? Shadows are cast by objects and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. Trees and living beings also have shadows [cf. shifgrethor]. Do you want to skin the whole earth, tearing all the trees and living things off it, because of your fantasy of enjoying bare light? You're a fool.'
    'I won't argue with you, old sophist,' replied Matthew Levi.
    'You also cannot argue with me, for the reason I've already mentioned: you're a fool,' Woland replied. from The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov

slide 4

Therem Harth rem ir Estraven

"Though I had been nearly two years on Winter I was still far from being able to see the people of the planet through their own eyes. I tried to, but my efforts took the form of self-consciously seeing a Gethenian first as a man, then as a woman, forcing him into those categories so irrelevant to his nature and so essential to my own.

[...]

Was it in fact perhaps this soft supple femininity that I disliked and distrusted in him? For it was impossible to think of him as a woman, that dark, ironic, powerful presence near me in the firelit darkness, and yet whenever I thought of him as a man I felt a sense of falseness, of imposture: in him, or in my own attitude towards him?"

slide 5

"Are they like a different species?"

"No. Yes. No, of course not, not really. But the difference is very important. I suppose the most important thing, the heaviest single factor in one's life, is whether one's born male or female. [...]

Equality is not the general rule, then. Are they mentally inferior?

I don't know. They don't often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers. But it isn't that they are stupid. Physically they're less muscular, but a little more durable than men. Psychologically —"

After he had stared a long time at the glowing stove, he shook his head. "Harth," he said, "I can't tell you what women are like. ... In a sense, women are more alien to me than you are. With you I share one sex, anyhow..."

slide 6

"Are they like a different species?"

slide 7

The First Mobile, if one is sent, must be warned that unless he is very self-assured, or senile, his pride will suffer. A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.

[...] And in the end, the dominant factor in Gethenian life is not sex or any other human thing: it is their environment, their cold world. Here man has a crueler enemy than even himself.

I am a woman of peaceful Chiffewar, and no expert on the attractions of violence or the nature of war. Someone else will have to think this out. But I really don't see how anyone could put much stock in victory or glory after he had spent a winter on Winter, and seen the face of the Ice.

basic principles of genomic imprinting


somatic cell line: the imprint mark is maintained throughout cell division, leading to parent-specific monoallelic gene expression in tissues


germ line: the parental imprint mark is erased and a new one is established according to the sex of the developing embryo

inheritance trees

stylized family trees showing the inheritance of two alleles
  1. grandmother homozygous for "black", grandfather for "white"; all progeny are heterozygous and express both traits

  2. no difference in inheritance, but expression of the "black" trait depends on sex; hence, the "black" phenotype is transmitted only down the maternal line
note "generation-skipping" of the trait in (b)

slide 10

parent-of-origin effects in neurological/mental disorders

slide 11

parent-of-origin effects in cognitive function

slide 12

sex-imprinted genes: outstanding questions

*conflict hypothesis: the notion that the evolutionary mechanisms driving monoallelic inheritance stem from conflict between the sexes that arises as a result of sexual (as opposed to asexual) reproduction.

slide 13

supplementary material