Summary Notes on Feminism and Philosophy Finals Module
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Course
Feminism and Philosophy
Institution
University Of Oxford
Notes on feminism and philosophy module including notes on feminism, sex and gender, social constructionism, what is a woman, gender realism/essentialism, trans inclusivity, intersectionality, epistemic privilege, ignorance and oppression, sexual liberation and problematic desires
Notes Feminism
Table of Contents
Feminism...........................................................................................................................3
What is feminism?........................................................................................................................3
What is feminist philosophy?........................................................................................................3
How does philosophy relate to practice?......................................................................................3
Sex and Gender and Social constructionism........................................................................3
What is it for something to be natural?..........................................................................................................3
Biological determinism.................................................................................................................4
Objections to biological determinism.............................................................................................................4
Sex vs gender................................................................................................................................5
Social construction........................................................................................................................6
What is a social construction?.........................................................................................................................6
Gender as a social construct............................................................................................................................7
Women are socially constructed.....................................................................................................................8
Why claim that gender is social constructed?...............................................................................................11
What is a woman?...........................................................................................................12
Do we need a concept of woman?..............................................................................................12
Needed..........................................................................................................................................................12
Not needed....................................................................................................................................................12
Should we aim at abolishing women?.........................................................................................12
What to consider when defining women....................................................................................13
Gender realism/essentialism......................................................................................................14
Biological account of gender.........................................................................................................................14
Defined by shared experience?.....................................................................................................................14
Relationship to historical concept?...............................................................................................................15
Defined by position in society?.....................................................................................................................15
Know who they are?...................................................................................................................17
Identity based accounts..............................................................................................................17
Anti-essentialist arguments........................................................................................................17
Performative gender (Butler)........................................................................................................................18
Problems with anti-essentialist arguments...................................................................................................20
Trans................................................................................................................................20
What does trans mean?..............................................................................................................20
Importance of trans-inclusivity in feminism................................................................................20
What does it mean to be trans-inclusive?...................................................................................21
Multiple-meanings account of gender........................................................................................22
,Intersectionality...............................................................................................................23
What is intersectionality?...........................................................................................................23
Why is it important?......................................................................................................................................24
Origins............................................................................................................................................................25
Inter categorical vs intra categorical.............................................................................................................25
Identity politics..............................................................................................................................................25
Is intersectionality a problem for feminism?...............................................................................26
Problem.........................................................................................................................................................26
Not a problem................................................................................................................................................29
Problem for feminist solidarity?..................................................................................................29
Problem.........................................................................................................................................................29
Not a problem................................................................................................................................................30
Epistemic privilege...........................................................................................................31
What is epistemic privilege?.......................................................................................................31
Knowledge vs wisdom...................................................................................................................................32
Stand-point theory......................................................................................................................32
Situated knowledge....................................................................................................................33
Epistemic privilege for everyone.................................................................................................33
How might women have epistemic privilege?.............................................................................34
Depends on how define women!..................................................................................................................34
Knowledge of feminine areas of expertise....................................................................................................34
Standpoint on capitalist patriarchy...............................................................................................................35
Insider-outsider knowledge...........................................................................................................................35
Develop ways of understanding people........................................................................................................36
Better understanding of oppression.............................................................................................................37
Understanding and sympathy for oppressed................................................................................................37
Less attachment to prevailing knowledge.....................................................................................................37
Arguments against women’s epistemic privilege........................................................................38
Ignorance and oppression................................................................................................40
Definitions..................................................................................................................................40
Is ignorance blameworthy?.........................................................................................................41
Passive ignorance..........................................................................................................................................41
Active ignorance............................................................................................................................................41
What role does ignorance play?..................................................................................................41
Ignorance on the part of the oppressor........................................................................................................42
Ignorance on the part of the oppressed.......................................................................................................43
Epistemic oppression.....................................................................................................................................45
Ignorance of the oppressed...........................................................................................................................46
What role does oppression play in ignorance?............................................................................46
Testimonial injustice......................................................................................................................................46
Stops people from speaking out....................................................................................................................47
Creates systemic ignorance...........................................................................................................................48
Sexual liberation..............................................................................................................48
, What does sexual liberation mean?............................................................................................48
Can sexual liberation be achieved under the patriarchy?.............................................................................48
Why should sexual liberation be a goal of feminism?.................................................................48
Why shouldn’t sexual liberation be a goal of feminism?.............................................................50
False consciousness and socially constructed desires..................................................................................50
May mean that certain issues are ignored....................................................................................................52
Problematic desires....................................................................................................................55
What is meant by problematic desires?........................................................................................................55
How do people tend to respond to problematic desires?............................................................................55
How should we respond to problematic desires?.........................................................................................55
Is consent a necessary and sufficient condition for non-problematic sex?..................................55
Necessary.......................................................................................................................................................55
Sufficient........................................................................................................................................................55
Feminism
What is feminism?
Mikola ‘a political movement to end sex and/or gender-based oppression and injustice’
Asks the question how do we end oppression on the basis of gender
Feminism is a political movement which aims to eradicate oppression based on gender and sex
o Feminism is a social movement with the aim of achieving full equality between the
genders. Full equality between the genders entails full equality of opportunity between
the genders, equal rights regardless of gender and no expectations based on gender.
What is feminist philosophy?
Rejects the idea that philosophy must be politically neutral and claims that political neutrality is
itself a stance
How does philosophy relate to practice?
Bettcher offers a model on which we distinguish between what we think is useful in theory and
how we think it is useful to proceed in practice
Sex and Gender and Social constructionism
What is it for something to be natural?
Biological
Deterministic- impossible to alter natural properties
Normative (undesirable to meddle with nature)
Demonstrate some statistically relevant uniformity (i.e. more xs than yx have F; having F is more
natural to x)
Explanatory (x behave certain way due to their nature)
Independent of its environment
o Objection- Nothing is independent of its environment so can’t define natural as such
E.g., can only start period or develop breasts with appropriate nutrition
(Finlayson)
Fixed
o Objection- Sex characteristics can often be changed by human intervention
, What obtains or should obtain in the normal running of things
o Objection- Adds normative dimension
Means that use of natural for normative arguments is necessarily question
begging
Costly to change
o Avoids normative language and problems with fixed
o Can be emotional, physical or financial cost
Objections to natural
All categories somewhat socially constructed
Biological determinism
Biology causes all social, cultural, psychological and behavioural differences and justifies the
social arrangements typically oppressive to women
So, women are not socially constructed as they are simply a product of their physical and natural
properties
E.g., Geddes and Thompson (1891)
o took facts about the metabolic rate to explain behavioural differences e.g., women
conserve energy and men surplus energy leading women to be passive and uninterested
in politics and men to be energetic, passionate and interested in politics
o From this they argue that it would be both futile and inappropriate to grant women
rights because women are both unsuited to them and uninterested in exercising them
St. Thomas as quoted by Simone de Beauvoir
o ‘we should regard women’s nature as suffering from a natural defectiveness’
Objections to biological determinism
Problem with the category of nature (see section)
Why would pressure be necessary to get people to live in a way which is natural to them?
(Finlayson)
Inadequate as some women don’t fit this definition
o e.g., transwomen and intersex women who are classed, treated and oppressed as
women in everyday life (Finlayson)
Mistaking social kind for natural kind
o Commonality between members relates to social rather than natural properties
(Finlayson)
o E.g., race is not a genetic profile but rather how people with bodily markers relating to
recent ancestry from geographical regions are treated (Haslanger, 2012)
Sex is not as dichotomous and simple as it seems
Sex itself is socially constructed
Sex is not a dichotomy
Complex category made up of a cluster of properties such as genitals, chromosomes, hormones
etc.
o Tend to line up but not always
Existence of intersex people calls this dichotomy into question
o A person may be born with characteristics that do not clearly fit the usual definition of a
male or a female body.
o Intersexuality forces a change in this understanding of sex as a clear dichotomy. This is
the case even if intersexuality is extremely rare, though, as the case may be, it is not,
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