Head: Prof Dr K. Smilla Ebeling

The research work served to systematically analyse the role of gender in biology. They made it possible to analyse in two interconnected directions: On the one hand, questions were asked about the inscriptions of gender relations in biology. Gender structures biology as a field of study and profession, its networks and social worlds, the shaping of subject-specific habitus forms and also the paradigms, epistemological positions, choice of topics and methods and constitution of research objects. On the other hand, the role of biology within the constitution of historically and culturally bound gender relations on the individual, structural and symbolic level will be analysed. Scientific statements about gender and sexuality have a great power of definition and serve to justify and legitimise gender relations. The following were analysed:

1. the sexual behaviour of animals as a basis for legitimising human sexuality
This research project addressed interactions between social, everyday assumptions about gender, sexualities and reproduction and scientific research on these subject areas. On the one hand, it investigated which discourses on gender and sexualities flow into biological research and theory formation and, on the other hand, how biological theories and research results in turn shape the social understanding of gender, sexualities and gender relations and serve as a normative and symbolic basis of legitimacy and orientation for the evaluation of "appropriate" human behaviours and identities. The study was based on guided interviews with 60 academics involved in the production of discourses on gender, sexualities and gender relations. The project was a cross-university co-operation with the University of Hamburg (Institute of Sociology).

2. construction of gender in zoology
This project analysed the construction of gender in the animal kingdom from a cultural-historical perspective. The aim was to develop an understanding of basic biological concepts in the field of sexuality and reproduction - such as sex, reproduction, copulation, reproduction and sexuality. The focus is on phenomena that have been described in biology since the 17th century but are not very prominent and that deviate from the bipolar gender concept, such as hermaphrodites, unisexual forms of reproduction, pure female species, intersexuality and same-sex sexual behaviour. The central thesis that a heteronormative perspective in biology leads to phenomena that deviate from the bipolar gender concept being adapted to bisexuality is examined. A further aim was to visualise construction processes of bisexuality in the animal kingdom, into which social and cultural ideas of gender flow.

Central publications:

Ebeling, Kirsten Smilla (2006): Heteronormativity in zoology. In: Fritzsche, Bettina/Hackmann, Kristina; Hänsch, Ulrike/Hartmann, Jutta; Klesse, Christian/Wagenknecht, Peter (eds.): Heteronormativität. Empirical studies on heterosexuality as a social power relationship, Wiesbaden

Ebeling, Kirsten Smilla (2006): The Construction of Sexual Dimorphism and Heterosexuality in the Animal Kingdom. In: Bird, Sharon/Bystydzienski, Jill M. (eds.): Removing Barriers: Women in Academic Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics, Indiana

Ebeling, Kirsten Smilla (2002): The Reproduction of Gender Relations. The metaphorical field of parthenogenesis in evolutionary biology, Talheim