The very existence of the sociology of the body raises an important and
perennial problem about the relationship between nature and culture.
Although modern sociology has been prone to dismiss ‘nature’ as merely
a construct or has treated it as a cultural system, the tension between the
body as a living organism and as a cultural product continues to underpin the
sociological understanding of, and debate about, the body and embodiment.
There are, of course, strong political reasons for being anxious about the
contrast because the nature/nurture divide has often been used to legitimate
or to justify social inequality as a natural inequality, such as the (unequal)
gender division of labour in society. The ideological justification of this
division suggests that men belong to culture and are responsible for the
public sphere, while women in their domestic roles fulfil natural functions
such as child-rearing and family maintenance. While one can dismiss these
claims relatively easily, this distinction needs to be constantly re-assessed
since developments in the natural sciences have contributed to a profound
change in the ways in which the human body is conceptualized, managed and
produced. The contrast between nature and culture also therefore influences
the ways in which we think of science itself. We should not take a caricature
of the differences between men and women – between the public and
the private – as the definitive case against a contrast between nature and
culture.