2. Identifying as X - Grounded (in some way) by our actions and conceptions (Class and gender)

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  • Created by: Alasdair
  • Created on: 10-12-17 12:34
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  • 2. Identifying as X - Grounded (in some way) by our actions and conceptions (Class and gender)
    • Gender
      • Generally considered natural kind but some arguments are it is a social kind
      • Sex/gender distinction (according to Simone de Beauvoir, "The Second Sex")
        • "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman"
      • Sex
        • (probably) A natural kind depending on biological features such as  chromosomes, sex organs, hormones and other physical features
      • Gender (definition)
        • A social kind depending on social role/position/behaviour or identity which has been historically tied to being a (or at least, being perceived to be a) certain sex
      • Gender as structural category
        • What  your gender is has to do with your position with-in the gender social hierachy
        • Example from Sally Haslanger's account
          • "S is a woman if S is systematically subordinated along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social etc.), and S is "marked" as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of a female's biological role in reproduction"
      • Gender as identity
        • What your gender is has to do with your gender identity (e.g. whether you feel yourself to be male or female)
          • this could involve having a "gender of the mind"
        • A simple version
          • To have a male/female gender identity is to exhibit gender stereotypical behaviour (e.g. be more/less emotional) and to think this is the right behaviour for you to perform
        • Katherine Jenkins' definition of gender identity
          • "...having a female gender identity is having an inner map that is formed to guide someone classed as a woman through the social and material realities of someone who is so classed"
      • The inclusion problem
        • "...there seems to be no single property that all women have in common [thus] attempts to define woman risk excluding or marginalizing some women" - Katherine Jenkins
        • If we say that being a woman = either (a) the structural category OR (b) having gender identity we exclude some relevant people
        • Difficult to solve
          • Social kind types are ontologically subjective
            • i.e. they are the way they are only because of our actions, conceptions and interests
              • So we can't just say "it all in the eye of the perciever" or "anything goes"
                • i.e. every individual perception is not correct
          • They are epistemically objective
            • i.e. every individual perception is not correct
      • Sally Haslanger's critical theory
        • “Critical political theory begins with a commitment to a political movement and its questions; its concepts and theories are adequate only if they contribute to that movement. A feminist or antiracist critical theory does not attempt to be neutral on questions of race or gender, but begins with the assumption that current conditions are unacceptably unjust and a commitment to understand and remedy that injustice”
      • Ameliorative analysis
        • Definition according to Katherine Jenkins
          • "...an ameliorative inquiry into a concept F is the project of arriving at the concept of F-ness that a particular group should aim to get people to use, given a particular set of goals that the group holds"
        • Relevant goals
          • The proposed analyses do have to reflect possible ways of understanding the social kinds in question
          • the goals need to be relevant ones
          • It is not the case:
            • We can just say that social kind concepts mean whatever it would be best, for us, for them to mean
        • Relevant goals
          • Bad/irrelevant goals for gender concepts
            • What would be most useful for achieving the patriarchal goal of getting those seen as being of the female sex to do more childcare and housework than those seen as being of the male sex
          • Good/relevant goals for gender concepts? (according to Jenkins)
            • “An ameliorative inquiry into the concept of woman invites feminists to consider what concept of woman would be most useful in combating gender injustice.”

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