Biological essentialism, in the context of gender differences, refers to a belief that men and women are cognitively & psychologically distinct. There is a female nature & a male nature. Whereas, in reality, we are strongly overlapping populations with much individual variation. https://twitter.com/ashishkjames99/status/999737040324345857 …
It can and often is used to make that argument but must it be? What would you call the argument that biology produces a male nature - assertive, analytical, reasoning - and a female nature - agreeable, intuitive, emotional.
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Individuals of the human species are the natural substrate of society, but a social order is of another dimension to animal behaviour. You can no more reduce society to biology than you could reduce biology to chemistry - not without setting aside just what you are explaining.
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Yes, I know that but what do we call people who say we can if not 'biological essentialists?' Biological determinists? Is there a word for people who believe biology produces a distinctly male and a distinctly female nature?
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Biological determinists. Sociological illiterates. Victims of a category error. The reasoning is mostly circular btw. Nobody ever predicted social behaviour by reasoning from nature. They only retrospectively attribute trends to biology.
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You have to notice behavioural differences first, yes, before you can look for causes in hormone levels or brains.
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I’m not an expert, but it sure sounds like some abbreviated reasoning. Having hung around in social sciences I am irked that natural scientists are so confident in asserting things about social behaviour without studying society.
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It;s not scientists I've ever heard say it. They tend to understand the whole variation thing because they actually know how evolution works. It's far-right loons who don't who keep telling me this.
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I’d call it stupid. Or biological essentialism even. Just so long as you know that there is s Post-modern turn implicit in the concept.
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I do from having been called a biological essentialist by them many times for saying things like 'sexual selection exists.'
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