The normativity of gender

Bibliographic Data

ID21364243
AuthorsRach Cosker‐rowland (School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science University of Leeds, United Kingdom, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume58
Issue1
Pages244-270
Publication date2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNoûs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-4624 • E-ISSN: 1468-0068
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/nous.12453
OpenAlexW4323041775
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited42

There are important similarities between moral thought and talk and thought and talk about gender: disagreements about gender, like disagreements about morality, seem to be intractable and to outstrip descriptive agreement; and it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be a woman in terms of particular social, biological, or other descriptive features, just as it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be good or right in terms of any set of descriptive properties. These similarities give us reason to investigate the idea that, like moral thought and talk, gender thought and talk is inherently normative. This paper proposes a normative account of gender thought and talk in terms of fitting treatment. On this fitting treatment account, to judge that A is gender G is just to judge that it is fitting to treat A as a G. This account is a descriptive or hermeneutical account of our gender thought and talk rather than an ameliorative account of our gender concepts or a metaphysical account of gender properties in social metaphysics. This paper argues that other descriptive accounts of gender thought and talk face problems that the fitting treatment account overcomes

Descriptive research · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept) · Metaphysics · Morality · Normative · Set (abstract data type) · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Social Psychology

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