Question Do you think there are two distinct kinds, 'male' and 'female', in terms of gender, biological differences, or social and cultural constraints? I know this seems like a broad question but it is asked with the idea/intention of feminism behind it. If any of you have a brief (or extensive!) philosophical opinion on any issues within this query I would be very interested to know. Thank you for your time.

Accepted:
November 9, 2005

Comments

Questions like these prove to be either especially difficult...or so easy that one suspects one hasn't understood the question. On the "easy" side, plainly most of us can tell the difference most of the time, and there do seem to be fairly reliable morphological and biological indicators or sex. Similarly "easy" to notice are the differences between the sexes that are recognized within social and cultural contexts--though these plainly differ widely from culture to culture.

Given the "easy" aspects of the question, one might be seduced into thinking that such obvious observations are adequate to answer the question...but I suspect they are not, and may even be misleading. I have several problems in mind here:

(1) Just how much can we infer about the appropriateness or justice of social recognitions and restrictions that are based upon differences between the sexes, from observable biological differences? As a general rule, I think people have thought there was much more we could infer about social rules and expectations, from biology, than is actually justifiable. Some philosophers suspect or actually argue that little to nothing can be inferred, socially, from biological bases.

(2) Just because we note that a social constraint is in place, can we infer that the constraint is ultimately changeable--or even ultimately arbitrary? In other words, if something appears within the "nurture" side of "nature vs. nurture," must we conclude that whatever sustains it is something people could change, if only they had the will (or the morality) to do so? Another way to put my worry is this: Is the "nature-nurture" debate really entirely perspicuous at all--are can there be "natural nurtures" and "nurtured natures" which make questions of objectivity and mutability much more complex that the formulation of the debate seems to allow?

My suspicion is that questions of sex and gender end up being far more difficult to adjudicate than simple "yes or no" formulations would capture. And to this, we almost certainly need to add in the enormous variety of differences in sex and sexuality beyond "male" and "female"--after all, many people will at best imperfectly exemplify (and many will present contradictory qualities to) whatever goes into these categories. So, we will surely need to add other "kinds" to your list, as well.

Most philosophers now recognize a distinction between the biological category "sex" and the social category "gender." One's sex is determined by a collection of biological factors that typically (though not always!) go together: chromosomes, anatomy, and hormones. Gender is the social role a society assigns to persons on the basis of their sex: the set of expectations about behavior and appearance deemed appropriate for someone of that sex, and a system of rewards and sanctions that enforce conformity.

The sanctions that I speak of can take many forms. There can be explicit laws or regulations specifying which roles can be performed by males and which by females, with punishments for violators. But there can also be informal or tacit conventions that are extremely effective. A man who wants to get ahead in the American business world will not wear skirts or lipstick, whereas a woman in the same milieu will do exactly that. (Check out "Dress for Success" at your local bookstore.) More seriously, women who violate social expectations about sexual behavior, for example, are often faced with loss of social standing, and may even be regarded as fit objects for violence and rape.

Because these social forces are so effective, they create real and observable differences between men and women. Consider hair removal: current American gender norms dictate that women shall have no hair on their faces, underarms, or legs. But women do have hair in these places. (Yes, Virginia, there is a bearded lady) To conform to the "hairless" norm, they spend millions of dollars shaving, bleaching, waxing, electrically zappping, and dipilatating it off. The result is a real regularity: American women are much less hairy than American men.

But here's the kicker: although conformity to gender norms often takes a great deal of deliberate effort, it's part of the norm that this effort must be invisible. So, to stick with my example, many men are CLUELESS about what women do, and have to do, to remove hair from "unwanted places." The existence of the norm, therefore, creates not only an observable regularity, but the impression that this regularity is "natural."

There's a further complication: because the impression is fostered that these engineered regularities are "natural" -- i.e., not the result of deliberate human effort -- the content of the norm itself incorporates an ideal of naturalness: the more a woman conforms to gender expectations (regardless of how much effort and frustration this actually causes her) the more "natural" a woman she is thought to be. A woman who announced that she'd like to have children, but would prefer that her husband raise them herself because she's just not that into babies and toddlers, is regarded in contemporary American society as not just unusual, but as "unwomanly." Similarly for men -- the man willing to marry such a woman had better be really into sports, or he's a social goner.

So now I can answer your question: yes, there are differences between men and women. But given the efficacy of gender norms, no one could have any basis for attributing these differences to differences in "natures" between men and women. Indeed, the whole nature/nurture controversy is vexed, and generally embodies multiple confusions -- not the least of which is the idea that a property one has "by nature" cannot be changed. The important question, and one that can be answered, is whether the nearly universal practice of slotting people into gender roles is a good one or a bad one. The jury is in on this: gender roles are in fact, and probably are necessarily, hierarchical and oppressive. They lead to unjust social divisions based on morally irrelevant biological facts, and should be abolished.

If you want to see these points developed in more detail, let me recommend The Politics of Reality by Marilyn Frye. Enjoy.