Abstract
Individuals who are women are members of a group, “women,” yet they are also very different from each other. Is there one womanness or many? Realists say that there is one womanness whereas nominalists say that there are many. Although nominalism is the more popular position among feminists, and realism is usually dismissed, Mari Mikkola has recently proposed that gender realism should be treated as a serious metaphysical option. In this chapter I evaluate the arguments for nominalism. I identify five separate arguments and conclude that, although not all of the arguments are successful on their own, the combined effect of the ones that are successful is to make a strong case for gender nominalism. Feminists are right therefore to reject realism and adopt nominalism. At the end of the chapter, I briefly address the question “Why does this debate matter?” If the debate between gender realists and gender nominalists is no more than metaphysical or theoretical bookkeeping, why should feminists care about adopting one side or the other?
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Notes
- 1.
For an extended discussion of race nominalism, see Sundstrom.
- 2.
Sally Haslanger says that “nominalism” and “skepticism” are “by far the preferred positions” in feminist theory (“Feminism in metaphysics” 117). She defines nominalism as “maintaining that the basis of being a type is non-objective, i.e., dependent on us” (“Feminism in metaphysics” 117). This definition of “nominalism” has a different emphasis from the one that I will be adopting here (see below).
- 3.
The realism-nominalism debate should be distinguished from a closely related debate in feminist theory over essentialism and anti-essentialism. Essentialism in feminist theory is often taken to be the Platonic idea mentioned above, namely that members of the class woman have a common nature that both binds them into a class and is essential to their individual identity. The main focus of this chapter is on the question of how to unify the class “woman,” not on the question of the essential properties of the individuals within the class. For further explanation, see Stoljar, “Essence, Identity” and Stoljar, “The Politics of Identity.”
- 4.
Sally Haslanger criticizes this general position in her “Feminism in Metaphysics.”
- 5.
Locke seems to disagree with this. He describes mixed modes, which include geometrical figures as well as social concepts like adultery or suicide, and for which real and nominal essences coincide: “ …a Figure including a Space between three Lines is the real as well as the nominal Essence of a Triangle; it being not only the abstract Idea to which the general Name is annexed, but the very Essentia, or Being, of the thing it self ” (III, 3, #18). I am suggesting that Locke has overlooked a possibility, namely that our definitions of social terms may not always correspond to social reality itself. See Haslanger’s distinction between manifest and operative concepts, described below.
- 6.
See Jennifer Saul’s careful explanation of Haslanger’s position.
- 7.
These comments are discussed by Mikkola (85).
- 8.
Mikkola says that “our imaginative limitations when thinking about womanness do not entail anything about gender realism as a metaphysical position. Imaginative limitations simply suggest that there may be some epistemic problems in thinking about gender and its interconnections with race and class” (86).
- 9.
Several authors have mentioned the possibility of analyzing gender in this way, e.g., Green and Curry; Nicholson; Stoljar, “Essence, Identity.” See also the discussion of natural kinds as clusters in Mallon, “Human Categories.”
- 10.
As Armstrong notes, even if “game” does not refer to a universal, Wittgenstein’s argument does not show that there are no universals. Suppose that chess has properties FGH, bridge has properties GHI, soccer has properties HIJ, etc. They do not share a single property yet all the properties they instantiate could themselves be universals (“Universals” 86). Since for the purposes of this chapter, I am assuming that there are universals, resemblances among women need not be primitive, but could in principle result from shared features that are universals.
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Stoljar, N. (2011). Different Women. Gender and the Realism-Nominalism Debate. In: Witt, C. (eds) Feminist Metaphysics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3783-1_3
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