Abstract
This chapter develops an alternative for (what feminists call) “the sex/gender distinction”. I do so in order to avoid certain problematic implications the distinction underpins. First, the sex/gender distinction paradigmatically holds that some social conditions determine one’s gender (whether one is a woman or a man), and that some biological conditions determine one’s sex (whether one is female or male). Further, sex and gender come apart. Taking gender as socially constructed, this implies that women exist mind-dependently, or due to productive human social activities; thus, it should be possible to do away with them just by altering the social conditions on which gender depends. In addition, some feminists take gender to depend on oppressive social conditions. Changing our social environments, then, would not only unwittingly eradicate women; doing away with women should be feminism’s political goal. I argue that both implications are unacceptable. In response, I argue for a view that is more congenial to ordinary thinking and that doesn’t have the goal of eradicating women.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that although this is the traditional view, some feminists reject the distinction between biological sex and social gender; for instance, some take both sex and gender as social notions (for example, Butler). Further, although some feminists accept the distinction between gender and sex traits, they deny that social factors play no role in discerning the latter. For instance, which traits are taken to determine one’s sex is (in some ways) a value judgement. Take the case of the athlete Maria Patiño, who has female genitalia, has always considered herself to be female and was considered so by others, but who was discovered to have XY chromosomes and barred from competing in women’s sports (Fausto-Sterling 1–3). Patiño’s genitalia were at odds with her chromosomes and the latter were taken to determine her sex. Patiño successfully fought to be recognised as a female athlete arguing that her chromosomes alone were not sufficient to not make her female. This case suggests that there is no immediately obvious biological way to settle what sex amounts to. Doing so involves evaluative judgements that are influenced by social factors. (For more on feminist conceptions of sex, see Mikkola, “Feminist Perspectives”.)
- 2.
Some quick caveats are in order. In a trivial sense many features of reality depend for their existence on social agents. If all social agents suddenly zapped out of existence that would obviously abolish (for instance) wives and US senators on the account that they are social agents. It would also abolish all social institutions, since social agents are needed to uphold those institutions. Further, had there never been any social agents, artefacts would not have existed; all manufactured goods depend in this causal sense for their existence on social agents. But I am not interested in causal mind-dependency here. Although pieces of paper depend on us for their existence in that paper is always manufactured by human agents, that some pieces of paper count as money depends on us in a different sense: if social agents suddenly zapped out of existence, money would cease to exist although the pieces of paper that count as money would not.
- 3.
Although all abolitionist conceptions are conventional, not all conventional ones are abolitionist. That is, although one may hold that the existence of women and men ontologically depends on some social conventions, one need not hold that these conventions are oppressive. Further, although all conventional accounts of gender are (in some sense) social constructivist, not all social constructivist accounts have the conventional implications mentioned. This is because there are different ways to understand social construction, and how social factors influence and shape our gendered social realities. (For more on different conceptions of social construction, see Haslanger, “Ontology and Social Construction”.)
- 4.
I am alone in providing radical rethinkings of sex and gender; for example, see Stoljar and Alcoff. Although both Stoljar and Alcoff offer interesting conceptions of gender and sex that are much more plausible than the paradigm conceptions, they, nonetheless, retain some commitment to the sex/gender distinction. My view is that it is better to give up the distinction entirely.
- 5.
In Haslanger’s “Gender and Race” this analysis was termed analytic; Haslanger has subsequently modified her terminology. Further, the analysis I have outlined is (what some call) Haslanger’s “revisionary analysis” (see Saul, “Gender and Race”). Haslanger has also suggested a non-revisionary analysis of gender, which roughly holds that even though her analysis is counterintuitive this does not show that it is not an analysis of our gender concepts: we might simply be deeply confused about what we are talking about so that even though we don’t take ourselves to apply “woman” on the basis of social subordination, we might still in practice be doing so (“What are we Talking about”; “What Good are Our Intuitions”). I have argued elsewhere (“Gender Concepts and Intuitions”) that the prospects of Haslanger’s non-revisionary account being true are not good (Saul in “Gender and Race” also argues for this). This being the case, I won’t consider the non-revisionary account here.
- 6.
I’m not alone in thinking so. For example, Jennifer Saul argues convincingly that the term “woman” has a contextually varying extension: we use the term on the basis of (various) sex traits and (various) gender traits (“‘Woman’ as a Contextually Varying Term”; see also Stoljar).
- 7.
Note that the question, how to eradicate women and men, is different from how to eradicate sexism. Although eradicating sexism is a complicated matter and it is not immediately obvious what social changes are needed to do so, it seems at least prima facie conceivable that feminists could agree on and articulate what kind of social change would do away with sexism and yet not be able to agree on and articulate definitively what kind of social change would do away with women and men. To illustrate, think about race: articulating what kind of social change would abolish racism is a complicated matter, but we can think of ways to undercut racist oppression without necessarily aiming to do away with racial kinds. For instance, having policies that make it impermissible to discriminate individuals on racial grounds need not threaten the existence of raced individuals. In a similar vein, it is prima facie conceivable that we can have policies that undercut sexist oppression, but do not threaten the existence of women and men.
- 8.
Whether these features make gender ascriptions apt is something I won’t take issue with. I am simply pointing out some common grounds on which speakers deploy gender terms.
- 9.
One might wonder whether all descriptive traits are mind-dependent or whether only (broadly speaking) the socially constructed ones are. I think that there is a way to understand all descriptive traits as being mind-dependent (being products of human social practices). However, this requires understanding social construction quite broadly and it requires that we acknowledge the existence of not only object-construction but also of idea-construction (for more on this distinction, see Haslanger, “Social Construction”). That is, social forces and human practices bring certain objects into existence, like $1 bills; but they also bring certain ideas or notions into existence, like the idea of money in general. So, even though we are either born with ovaries or not, the idea or notion of ovaries is a product of human social practices, broadly speaking. After all, the history of scientific research of human anatomy is deeply intertwined with many social practices that have guided (and still guide) such research.
- 10.
Another way in which one might try to sever the links between the trait/norm pairings and women/men would be to try to undermine the associations between trait/norm pairings and women/men. So, it would leave the childcare/femininity pairing intact but would aim to dissociate this pairing from women. But, insofar as “femininity” on my account means “associated with women”, I cannot see how this strategy would work. It would still leave in place an implicit normative suggestion that childcare really should fall within women’s purvey. As a result, leaving the trait/norm pairings intact would be the wrong strategy. The insidious pairings themselves must go.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of the paper was presented at the “Thinking about Sex and Gender” conference in February 2008 at Lancaster University, UK. I am grateful to those present for their helpful comments and suggestions. This chapter has also benefited greatly from discussions with and comments received from Jules Holroyd, Kathleen Lennon, Jennifer Saul, Alison Stone, Alessandra Tanesini and Charlotte Witt.
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Mikkola, M. (2011). Ontological Commitments, Sex and Gender. In: Witt, C. (eds) Feminist Metaphysics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3783-1_5
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