Gender as a historical kind: a tale of two genders?

Biology & Philosophy
Marion Godman

Abstract

Is there anything that members of each binary category of gender have in common? Even many non-essentialists find the lack of unity within a gender worrying as it undermines the basis for a common political agenda for women. One promising proposal for achieving unity is by means of a shared historical lineage of cultural reproduction with past binary models of gender (e.g. Bach in Ethics 122:231-272, 2012). I demonstrate how such an account is likely to take on board different binary and also non-binary systems of gender. This implies that all individuals construed as members of the category, "women" are in fact not members of the same historical kind after all! I then consider different possible means of modifying the account but conclude negatively: the problem runs deeper than has been appreciated thus far.

References

Sep 21, 1979·Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Containing Papers of a Biological Character·S J Gould, R C Lewontin
Sep 1, 1993·Journal of Clinical Pathology·P S Patil, C Bem
Dec 16, 2016·Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners·Annamarie BreenJulie Fine

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Citations

Jan 1, 2021·Mind & Language·Nicholas Shea

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