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Gender essentialism is a theory which attributes distinct, intrinsic qualities to women and men. [1] [2] Based in essentialism, it holds that there are certain universal, innate, biologically (or psychologically) based features of gender that are at the root of many of the group differences observed in the behavior of men and women.
There is an ongoing debate on whether a feminist critique should be incorporated in the sciences, especially biology. Some argue [weasel words] that feminist biology is a form of politicization of science, calling to question the legitimacy of feminist biology altogether. On another level, there is debate even within the feminist community on ...
Winsor, Ron Amundson and Staffan Müller-Wille have each argued that in fact the usual suspects (such as Linnaeus and the Ideal Morphologists) were very far from being essentialists, and that the so-called "essentialism story" (or "myth") in biology is a result of conflating the views expressed and biological examples used by philosophers going ...
Biological essentialism may refer to: Biological determinism, the belief that human behavior is biologically predetermined; Gender essentialism, the belief that human genders are biologically innate; Essentialism#Biological essentialism, the belief that species are unchanging throughout time
The idea that gender is something that individuals actively 'do' was largely inspired by the social psychological approach taken by Erving Goffman in "Gender Display". [1]: 129 Goffman theorizes that humans make the assumption that each has an "essential nature," which can be interpreted by reading "natural signs given off or expressed by them".
Gender is used as a means of describing the distinction between the biological sex and socialized aspects of femininity and masculinity. [9] According to West and Zimmerman, is not a personal trait; it is "an emergent feature of social situations: both as an outcome of and a rationale for various social arrangements, and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of society."
By 1980, most feminist writings had agreed on using gender only for sociocultural adapted traits. Feminist theory is a broad term for a variety of theories which all emphasize women's experiences and the belief that society is subordinate to women.
In philosophy, essentialism is the belief that "(at least some) objects have (at least some) essential properties". [14] In the case of sexual politics, essentialism is taken to mean that "women" and "men" have fixed essences or essential properties (e.g. behavioral or personality traits) that cannot be changed.