Conservative cultural commentator Ben Shapiro makes quick work of the "gender question:" "Science is certainly not divided on whether gender differences are rooted in biology or culture - the answer is both, but with a heavy emphasis on biology." (The Left's Doomed Crusade To Erase Gender Differences', National Review, 2018) Meanwhile, the feminist philosopher Judith Butler has made a now-classic statement of the other side of the argument:
"Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of a substance, of a natural sort of being. A political genealogy of gender ontologies, if it is successful, will deconstruct the substantive appearance of gender into its constitutive acts and locate and account for those acts within the compulsory frames set by the various forces that police the social appearance of gender..." (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, p.33, 1990)
In other words, to Butler and others, gender is more of social construction than it is a biological fact. The 'gender question', then, this aspect of the so-called culture wars, is a matter of opposing views about the relative responsibility of society and biology for gendered behavior. The first view says that biological sex largely defines gender, the other that society or culture largely defines it. I will call this opposing pair of views the twin views.
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.