Do Women Have a Distinct Nature Philosophy 224 An Operative Suspicion Holmstrom begins by noting that women have good reason to be suspicious of attempts to specify a distinct feminine nature to ID: 276497
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Slide1
Holmstrom, “Do Women Have a Distinct Nature?”
Philosophy 224Slide2
An Operative Suspicion
Holmstrom
begins by noting that women have good reason to be suspicious of attempts to
specify a distinct, feminine nature (to
essentialize
them)
esp. when that essentialism is biological in nature.
After
all, the presumed norm
of such
attempts is usually a masculine one.
Even
when there is talk of
“different
but equal
,”
the fact remains that the characteristics usually attributed to the two sexes are evaluated differently (289).
She makes the important observation that
if there are differences, they are differences from one another, not from one standard/ideal
.Slide3
Metaphysical Realism
Given this suspicion,
Holmstrom
is going to dispute the conclusions of
sociobiologists
like Wilson.
In
a
move
that
we saw in Bracken’s discussion of race,
in refusing a basically empiricist approach,
Holmstrom
takes up a quasi-rationalist
position.
She offers a version of
metaphysical
realism
: essences
exist as
underlying
law-like
structures with an important explanatory
function.
She
explains how she's using the term essence by referring to biology, in particular the theoretical disagreements motivating different taxonomic schemes (290-1). Slide4
Social Forces
The essences
Holmstrom
specifies leave
a great deal of room for the influence of social forces, and on this basis,
Holmstrom
insists that, though there are fundamental differences between men and women, these differences are determined primarily by social forces (290)
.
Holmstrom
recognizes that the question of the relation between nature and behavior ultimately settles on the psychological (the
“interface” between
the two
.)
What
she wants to know is,
“Are
there psychological differences between men and women
?” and
“
What
is the source of these differences
?”Slide5
2 Questions
After noting some conceptual limitations of many studies of this issue (statistics, differences relative to similarities, theoretical suppositions),
Holmstrom
answers the first question by accepting
without
argument
the claim that there are a significant number of
general personality differences between men and women.
The second question gets most of her attention. Acknowledging the speculative character of her assertions,
Holmstrom
argues that these differences are caused by predominantly social factors rather than biological/genetic ones. Slide6
Justification
In support of her claim,
Holmstrom
points to a number of justifying resources.
First, she highlights a range of experimental
results (295
) which offer confirmation of the significance of social factors.
Second, she looks to the findings of anthropology which reveal
significant cross-cultural differences in
sexed personality
.
The conclusion of this analysis is that we
have clear evidence for social determination, and no clear evidence for significant biological determination
Read summary and inferences (296-7).Slide7
Sex/Gender
This analysis leads
Holmstrom
to a distinction that has been crucial for
feminism: the sex
/gender distinction (298).
Holmstrom
goes on to provide a possible theoretical foundation for her analysis (historically and socially specific forms of human nature/ woman's nature)
.Slide8
Implications
What are the implications if there are real, socially determined differences?
Not every women has to embody
the feminine type.
Indeed, rather than there being a type, the ‘nature of men and women
’
is best understood as a
"cluster concept
.”
This approach makes it much easier
to understand
the (relatively) frequent disconnect
between sex and gender
(for example, as experienced by transgendered
individuals).
There are no
evaluative implications of
the differences that can be specified between the male and female nature clusters.