Feminist metaphysics aims to question how inquiries and answers in the field of
metaphysics have supported
sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...
.
Feminist metaphysics overlaps with fields such as the
philosophy of mind and
philosophy of self
The philosophy of self is the study of wisdom as self at a conceptual level. Many different ideas on what constitutes self have been proposed, including the self being an activity, the self being independent of the senses, the bundle theory of th ...
.
Feminist metaphysicians such as
Sally Haslanger
Sally Haslanger () is an American philosopher and professor. She is the Ford Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She held the 2015 Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at t ...
,
Ásta, and
Judith Butler
Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler b ...
have sought to explain the nature of gender in the interest of advancing feminist goals. Philosophers such as
Robin Dembroff and
Talia Mae Bettcher have sought to explain the genders of
transgender and
non-binary people.
Social construction
Simone de Beauvoir was the first
feminist theorist to distinguish sex from gender, as is suggested by her famous line, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
In her seminal work ''
The Second Sex
''The Second Sex'' (french: Le Deuxième Sexe, link=no) is a 1949 book by the French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, in which the author discusses the treatment of women in the present society as well as throughout all of history ...
,'' de Beauvoir argues that, although biological features distinguish men and women, these features neither cause nor justify the social conditions which disadvantage women.
Since de Beauvoir, many feminists have argued that constructed categories re-enforce social hierarchies because they appear to be natural.
Later theorists such as
Judith Butler
Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler b ...
would challenge de Beauvoir's commitment to the pre-social existence of sex, arguing that sex is socially constructed as well as gender.
Feminist metaphysics has thus challenged the apparent naturalness of both sex and gender.
Another aim of feminist metaphysics has been to provide a basis for feminist activism by explaining what unites women as a group. These accounts have historically centered on
cisgender
Cisgender (often shortened to cis; sometimes cissexual) is a term used to describe a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth. The word ''cisgender'' is the antonym of ''transgender''. The prefix '' cis-'' is La ...
women, but more recent accounts have sought to include
transgender women as well.
Robin Dembroff has introduced a metaphysical account of
non-binary genders.
References
Further reading
* Battersby, Christine. ''The Phenomenal Woman: Feminist Metaphysics and the Patterns of Identity.'' New York: Routledge, 1998.
* Howell, Nancy R. ''A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics.'' Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2000.
* Raschke, Debrah. ''Modernism, Metaphysics, and Sexuality.'' Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 2006.
* Witt, Charlotte. ''Feminist Metaphysics Explorations in the Ontology of Sex, Gender and the Self.'' Dordrecht: Springer, 2010.
* Schües, Christina, Dorothea Olkowski, and Helen Fielding. ''Time in Feminist Phenomenology.'' Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.
* Witt, Charlotte. ''The Metaphysics of Gender.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
{{Metaphysics
Feminist philosophy
Feminist theory
Metaphysical theories