The Metaphysics of Gender
Author: Charlotte Witt
Print publication date: 2011
Published to Oxford Scholarship: January 2012
ISBN-13: 9780199740413
- While working on this book, I have had the occasion to try to explain its topic to friends, family, and acquaintances. I would ask whether they thought they would be the same person or individual if they were a different gender. All the people I spoke with thought that they would not be the same person if they were a different gender; the world, it seems, is filled with gender essentialists. Indeed, my interlocutors often had difficulty understanding why someone would write a book on a question that had an obvious answer. They may have also had doubts about my authorial competence once I explained that I had difficulty understanding the question, much less answering it. This book is simply my attempt to articulate what they understand already. What does it mean to think that gender is essential to an individual, and why might it be true—at least for one understanding of gender, one interpretation of essentialism, and one kind of individual?
- Most feminist writing on gender essentialism, including critical work, focuses on the issue of whether there is some property common to all women, possession of which is necessary and sufficient for kind membership. Some feminists are sceptical that there is such a property. Others find the whole enterprise theoretically misguided and politically dangerous. In response, some feminists argue that political solidarity requires some commonality among all women, and there has been a revival of attempts to formulate a theoretical basis for solidarity.
