Metaphysics of Race, Gender, and Sex

Catalog description

What is it to be a female or male animal? Or to be a female or male human being? What is it to be a woman? To be a man? Or to have some other gender? And how are all these questions connected? This course will explore answers to these and other questions about sex and gender from a philosophical perspective, drawing along the way on relevant research in biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. We begin by considering how the sexes evolved across the living world, i.e., in both animals and plants. With this history in hand, we ask, given persisting disagreement about their nature, how the categories 'male' and 'female' should be understood and evaluated, both in humans and other living things. Next we explore the gender categories such as woman, man, boy and girl. How are American gender categories similar to or different from those found in other cultures? And how are gender categories generally related to, or distinct from, the sex categories previously investigated? Having considered a variety of philosophical approaches to gender--some tying gender directly to sex, others to social characteristics like oppression--we conclude by evaluating these options for ourselves.