Difference between revisions of "Question: Is gender a social construct?"

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Question: Is gender a social construct?

Introduction to Question

It’s a common refrain among the cultural left of Western politics that gender is a social construct.^[1] A social construct is any category of thought that is created and imposed onto reality through and because of human, social interaction. Key to the idea of a social construct is that the category of thought is not extracted from reality but imposed onto reality. For instance, we can all agree that the boundaries of nations are good examples of a social construct. At a finite moment in time, someone had to come along and say "here is where the boundaries of what we'll call the United States are going to be!" From that moment on, we have acted as if the boundaries of the United States have an objective, primitive existence when, they don't.

The view of gender as a social construct stands in stark contrast to the ideas of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."^[2]

When saying gender in the statement “gender is a social construct”, most are referring to the idea that there are sex-specific, biologically-determined, psychobehavioral differences between men and women. According to these people, there are no substantive differences in preference or behavior between men and women. Postmodern-adjacent philosopher Judith Butler refers to gender as conceived here as a “performance”.^[3] This performance is an outward showing or demonstration of the expectations that have been imposed onto a person through speech acts in their cultural environment. In other words, what we call “femininity” and “masculinity” is just people conforming to how society says that a man or woman “should act” and nothing more. There is no biological, neuroanatomical basis for any cognitive or behavioral differences between men and women.

When others say gender in the statement "gender is a social construct", they mean to say that the biological sex binary of male and female itself is a social construct. Butler in a 1994 book chapter regards the immutability of the body as pernicious since “successfully buries and masks the genealogy of power relations by which it is constituted”.^[4] “In short,” summarizes social conservative philosopher Ryan T. Anderson, “‘the body’ conceived as something in particular is all about power.”^[5]

Some people refer to both the male-female sex binary and cognitive-behavioral differences when saying gender.

The theory that gender is a social construct is the brainchild of second-wave feminism. Simone De Beauvoir is thought to be the mother of the movement. She is famous for the saying from her 1949 book The Second Sex that "[o]ne is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine."^[6] Second-wave feminism "broadened the debate [from merely about the ownership of property and suffrage, such as under first-wave feminism] to include a wider range of issues: sexuality, family, domesticity, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities. It was a movement that was focused on critiquing the patriarchal, or male-dominated, institutions and cultural practices throughout society. Second-wave feminism also drew attention to the issues of domestic violence and marital rape, created rape-crisis centers and women's shelters, and brought about changes in custody laws and divorce law." Key to undermining the conception of female as interested in domestic affairs was "undoing the myth" that there were sex-based, biologically-determined, psychobehavioral differences between men and women. Thus, second-wave feminists, and especially those involved in neuroscience and psychology, have been vocal for many years that gender is a social construct, and that there are no substantive brain differences between men and women that lead to differences in cognition and behavior. All of this theorizing and scholarship was toward the end of providing greater political equality for men and women. The claim that gender is a social construct now dominates most halls of academic learning in the West. While we can recognize the substantial and wonderful differences that have been made in society because of feminism including greater learning, financial, and professional opportunities for women as well as greater political power and influence, we can also recognize the deficiencies in the social constructionist theory of gender and theorize about new ways that themes of equality, equity, justice, fairness, sexism, and misogyny can be potentially reworked and retooled with our understanding of brain differences.

This article will respond to the social constructionist theory of gender under both meanings of gender as well as provide some resources for understanding other themes better.

Response to Question

The Two Sex Gametes and Their Implications for the Male-Female Sex Binary

As explained by the atheist, lesbian neuroscientist, sex researcher and columnist Dr. Debra Soh:

Biological sex is either male or female. Contrary to what is commonly believed, sex is defined not be chromosomes or our genitals or hormonal profiles, but by gametes, which are mature reproductive cells. There are only two types of gametes: small ones called sperm that are produced by males, and large ones called eggs that are produced by females, There are no intermediate types of gametes between egg and sperm cells. Sex is therefore binary. It is not a spectrum.^[7]

It is because of the existence of the two and only two gametes that we are genetically evolved and constructed as human beings to be a segment of the population that carries and produces one gamete or the other: males or females. It is also by reason of the existence of the two gametes that intersex conditions are considered disorders of sexual development. A person was meant to develop and be born as either male or female.

As Soh already stated, sex is determined by the gametes you produce and not by anything else. Thus, from a biologist's perspective, you can actually be genetically intersex, produce only one gamete, and then be considered male or female.

The male-female gender binary exists.

Evidence For Neuroanatomical and Correlative Psychobehavioral Differences Between Men and Women

There is a lot of evidence for neuroanatomical and correlative psychobehaviorla differences between men and women cited below.^[8]

Notes

1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, all quotations and citations from the feminist authors below come from Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018).
2. ↑ "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," 2nd paragraph.
3. ↑ Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 2006), 171–80.
4. ↑ Judith Butler, “Bodies That Matter,” in Engaging with Irigaray, ed. Carolyn Burke, Naomi Schor, and Margaret Whitford (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 148.
5. ↑ Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally, 153.
6. ↑ Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex , trans. H.M. Parshley (London: Jonathan Cape, 1953; 2009), 294.
7. ↑ Dr. Debra Soh, The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths About Sex and Identity in Our Society (New York: Threshold Editions, 2020), 17.
8. ↑ Bruce Goldman, "Two minds: the cognitive differences between men and women," Stanford Medicine, Stanford University, May 22, 2017, https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html; "'Two Minds' two years later: Still curious about sex differences in cognition? Here are some resources," Stanford Scope Blog, October 24, 2019, https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2019/10/24/two-minds-two-years-later-still-curious-about-sex-differences-in-cognition-here-are-some-resources/; John Stossel, "The Science: Male Brain vs Female Brain," YouTube, October 15, 2019, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTEi2-FAEZE; David C. Geary, "The Real Causes of Human Sex Differences," Quilette, October 20, 2020, https://quillette.com/2020/10/20/the-real-causes-of-human-sex-differences/; "The Ideological Refusal to Acknowledge Evolved Sex Differences," Quillette, September 1, 2022, https://quillette.com/2022/09/01/the-ideological-refusal-to-acknowledge-evolved-sex-differences/; Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences, 3rd ed. (Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2020). Indeed, every single cell of our body is influenced by our sex. See Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding the Biology of Sex and Gender Differences; Theresa M. Wizemann, Mary-Lou Pardue, eds., Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter? (Washington D.C.: National Academies Press (US), 2001), Executive Summary, 2, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222291/#!po=1.11111. For further info on male-female neuroanatomy and psychobehavior, see Amber N. V. Ruigrock et. al, “A meta-analysis of sex differences in human brain structure,” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 39 (2014): 34–50; Larry Cahill, “A Half-Truth is a Whole Lie: On the Necessity of Investigating Sex Influences on the Brain,” Endocrinology 153 (2012): 2542; “His Brain, Her Brain,” Scientific American, October 1, 2012. For a paradigm of gender compatible with the Gospel, see Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter, 2017), chap. 7. For the most thorough coverage of the literature exploring sex differences in neuroanatomy and psychobehavior in one book that the author has seen, see Charles Murray, Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class (New York: Twelve, 2020), 11–127.