Philosophy of Gender

This article examines how non-linear time and circularity are deployed in the historical novel Nehanda, written by Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera. Using Adriana Cavarero’s work on inclination...

This article marks a decisive step towards the recovery of the French woman writer, journalist, and aviation pioneer Louise Faure-Favier, who today is virtually forgotten. The article begins by sit...

This essay examines the relationship between traditional, or aesthetic, modernism and modernity as a way to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of race and gender as these have been addresse...

The year 2022 is the centenary of the annus mirabilis of modernism, at least in an Anglo-American context. The year 1922 is the year of publication of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in London and Jame...

This 2022 edited collection marks the centenary of the annus mirabilis of modernism. Here we are, after modernism. Yet critics, writers, artists, readers and audiences now encounter modernism after...

Social categorizations regarding gender or age have proven to be relevant in human-robot interaction. Their stereotypical application in the development and implementation of robotics in eldercare is even discussed as a strategy to enhance the acceptance, well-being, and quality of life of older people. This raises serious ethical concerns, e.g., regarding autonomy of and discrimination against users. In this paper, we examine how relevant professional stakeholders perceive and evaluate the use of social categorizations and stereotypes regarding gender and age in (...) robotics for eldercare. Based on 16 semi-structured interviews with representatives from technology development, industry, and nursing science as well as practice, we explore the subjects’ awareness, evaluations, and lines of argument regarding the corresponding moral challenges. Six different approaches of dealing with categorizations and stereotypes regarding gender and age in care robotics for older people are identified: negation, functionalistic relativization, explanation, neutralization, stereotyping, and queering. We discuss the ethical implications of these approaches with regard to professional responsibility and draw conclusions for responsible age tech in pluralistic societies. (shrink)

The article addresses the problem of gender inequality in Ukrainian periodicals today. A detailed analysis of Ukrainian and foreign studies on the issue in question shows that women mostly deal with gender psychology. Besides, the article clarifies such concepts as “gender”, “gender psychology”, “gender equality”, “sexism”, and “feminism” and “gender inequality”. In 2021, a Swedish-Ukrainian project was signed that marks the campaign for overcoming inequality of rights between men and women. There is also the project initiated by the European Union. (...) Furthermore, emphasis is placed on linguistic sexism and gender inequality in the Ukrainian government, politics, jurisprudence, healthcare. Considerable attention is paid to the most common violations of rights of women psychologists. Another issue is gender inequality in the family and its possible consequences. Quite noteworthy are findings on gender roles in European countries, sexism, and, most importantly, the significance of gender equality. One can see that the main reasons behind gender inequality for women are the dominance of men and, interestingly, the Covid-19 pandemic outburst. The article proves that the media cover men more often than women. Finally, it indicates that men find it hard to struggle with “the male crisis”. (shrink)

While some might consider epistolary novels of the long-eighteenth century as the sentimental purview of women readers, this research proposes that many of these epistolary novels serve as powerful markers in the gender wars of this era. While an overall sense of optimism pervaded Britain’s long-eighteenth century, people still grappled with foundational moral questions. These questions came to be addressed in increasingly secular ways by moral philosophy. As these philosophers occupied influential government, law, and publishing positions, their ideas and works (...) greatly influenced the public imagination. The publications of moral philosophers—such as John Locke, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Joseph Butler, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Jeremy Bentham—sparked the imaginations of some of the era’s top epistolary novelists who dramatized their philosophical theories in fictional moral experiments. This project investigates how and why the novelists Aphra Behn, Samuel Richardson, Sarah Fielding, Frances Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Shelley literalized the dialectics of certain moral philosophers. This research asserts that the novelists adopted the structure of the three-stage moral dialectic found in moral sentiment theories and patterned their novels and their characters’ psychological processes to be a literalization of the moral-philosophical dialectics. As the novelists use the realist epistolary genre, they capture real-world settings and complex psychologies with startling accuracy, prompting interpretive questions regarding character ethics and credibility. Literary analysis reveals that the novelists designed fictional plotlines that facilitate inevitable moral dilemmas for the characters to contemplate and determine their moral actions. These plotlines and character dilemmas follow a three-stage moral dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. While no one to one pairing of novelist and moral philosopher is identified or argued for, the literary analysis reveals undeniable mutual influences and metatextual responses across the works chosen for this project. In the thesis stage, novelists have their characters literalize the philosopher’s process of contemplation. For example, Aphra Behn designs her characters to dramatize John Locke’s focus on applying experience-based knowledge in the process of refuting received social customs. This novelist-philosopher connection also appears in Samuel Richardson’s characters who emulate Shaftesburean principles when they depend upon their innate moral sense to ascertain the virtuous path in a precarious situation. After the contemplative thesis stage is played out, the novelists move to the antithesis stage, which expresses a state of skepticism wherein the characters are unwilling or unable to bridge the gap from moral knowledge to moral behavior. The novelists then dramatize the synthesis stage, which resolves the unstable condition of the antithesis state, through some external regulatory structure. The specifics of the resolution vary across the novels depending on which moral philosopher’s stance is adopted. For instance, Frances Burney’s warning novel of The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties, literalizes the importance of everyone adhering to David Hume’s General Rule and of respecting class boundaries. This project uses narratology focused on diegetic framing levels and voice styles to analyze how the novelists shift first-person epistolary voices and third-person omniscient voices to convey their perspectives regarding the social benefits of living out these moral philosophies. Specifically, the novelists assert how the external regulatory structures impact women, eliciting praise or criticism from the various authors. In these designed fictional worlds, this research asserts that several novelists develop narrators who emulate a moral philosopher’s specific concept of an “imagined internal entity.” This entity functions as a self-reflexive tool for thinking and assessing a situation’s holistic moral implications and potential actions. For example, this entity refers to Shaftesbury’s “critical self,” Butler’s “conscience,” and Smith’s “Impartial Spectator.” This project ultimately asserts that the stage three synthesis presents the most significant social commentary posed by the novelists. In this stage three turn to external regulatory structures, such as marriage in particular or the law in general, some of the novelists—such as Samuel Richardson, Sarah Fielding, and Frances Burney—applaud the philosopher’s proposal for regulating social harmony. However, other novelists—such as Aphra Behn, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Shelley—use their fictional works to dramatize how this turn to external regulatory structures led to gender and class discrimination, to the point of women experiencing social condemnation, unjust imprisonment, and capital punishment. (shrink)

Human rights in the Indian Constitution are the pillar of the Indian Administration. Every people and state in India is mandated to uphold and respect the Constitution. Unfortunately, in the present context, people have abused the Constitution by misusing and misinterpreting it. Minorities are often suppressed and oppressed by the higher class/caste people. Likewise, Naga Community, a migrant and minority in Bangalore, frequently faces discrimination. Thus, this research based on Human rights violations will be assessed in the light of the (...) Indian Constitution to tackle problems. (shrink)

The constant and significant presence of queer motifs in Latin American literature of the last thirty years should not be glossed over. Of course, the recruiting of yet another imported label, trafficked from the geographical, economic and academic “North” into a third-world context should not be taken for granted; and it will also be important to vigilate over the modes and circumstances of a theoretical landing which will have to negotiate its ambiguous conquests with the specificities of a peripheral context. (...) However, it is just as important to signal that the theory’s antinormative and destabilizing potential seems to find the “natural” context in which to unfold in a continent which, from a number of viewpoints, in the overlapping of its manifold wildcards, emerges into the history of Modernity without being able to fully dwell in any of its categories. In Latin America queer becomes the emblematic catalyst of the locally active difference in all possible inflections, the ideal trigger of the apocryphal versions of the apparently already written story of the plausible relationships between bodies and territories, versions which pour forth not only from the incongruencies of gender and sexuality, but also from the ethnic, sociopolitical, and epistemic discontinuity which is written in characters of blood in the mind-blowing chronicle of these lands. So that it comes to work as a powerful mechanism of contemporary interpellation of the old and deceitful story of “Latin American identity”. (shrink)

Gender reassignment surgery is a difficult, heavy and irreversible risky plastic surgery operation that results in the deprivation of some organs of individuals. In Turkey, the Civil Code No. 4721 contained provisions regarding gender reassignment, regulated that individuals undergo gender reassignment surgery under certain conditions and that their name and gender records be corrected. The article is criticized on the grounds that the prohibitive and coercive provisions contained in the relevant regulation limit the right of individuals to make decisions about (...) their body integrity and sexual identity. In particular, the provisions on forcing individuals to undergo attempts to end their reproductive ability and to undergo gender reassignment surgeries have been the subject of lawsuits. In our article, the provisions related to these topics and some judicial decisions are examined in terms of the right to decide on body integrity and sexual identity in the gender transition processes. (shrink)

Women continue to remain underrepresented in STEM, and this gender disparity is particularly pronounced in leadership positions. Through in-depth, qualitative interviews of 39 women leaders in STEM, we identify common gender microaggressions they experience, and explore how these microaggressions affect their leadership experience and outcomes in the workplace. Our findings highlight five types of gender microaggressions women most often encounter, and how and when these microaggressions occur. We explore the negative impact that microaggressions can have on women’s work identities and (...) how they can trigger a cycle of rumination and self-doubt that may ultimately result in women choosing to leave STEM. Importantly, we surface the interventional and empowering role that allies play in triggering a redemptive sensemaking process that can support women leaders to build resilience and counter the negative effects of microaggressions. (shrink)

This research aspires to represent the subversion of pre-defined gender roles in the novels; The Shadow of the Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto, Butterfly Season by Natasha Ahmed, and Stained by Abda Khan. The researchers aim to depict the destabilization of gender-based stereotyped identity from the Pakistani perspective. The selected method of study is Feminist Analysis by Tyson, which examines literature as a medium to represent feminist issues, whereas; the theoretical angle of “Matrix of Domination” from Collins’ Feminist/Gender theory is (...) used as a principle to analyze and depict the subversion of pre-defined gender roles in the selected novels. This study aims to establish the notion of gender as a social construct that could be subverted through literary discourses that have the potential to challenge the power-based gender roles within a patriarchal society. In this regard, different critical works of prominent theorists and writers have been discussed briefly in the literature review to project the significance of the works by contemporary Pakistani women writers as a medium to subvert identities formed by their society. Gender is also a means of power through which the dominant seeks to control the subordinate. The objective of this research is to suggest that gender is socially constructed, therefore, it can be deconstructed through literature. The selected novels exemplify the current gender inclinations of today’s Pakistan with the pen of female writers. Stereotyped gender identity is a socially constructed vice that divides humans into segments, hence it is required of the contemporary discourses to decenter such power discourses that perpetuate hegemonic boundaries and restrict the women into social shackles of imposed identities. (shrink)

Advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality in agriculture is a recognised development goal, also within crop breeding. Increasingly, breeding teams are expected to use ‘market-based’ approaches to design more ‘demand-led’ and ‘gender-responsive’ crop varieties. Based on an institutional ethnography that includes high-profile development-oriented breeding initiatives, we unpack these terms using perspectives from political agronomy and feminist science and technology studies. By conceptualising the market as an ongoing, relational performance made up of discourses, practices and human and nonhuman actors, we trace (...) how the market is understood as an effective socioeconomic institution for soliciting demand, but also becomes a normative agenda. Construed as a demand variable, the relational and structural dimensions of gender are rendered less visible, which might strengthen rather than transform power relations’ status quo. On the other hand, a feminist science and technology perspective broadens the field of vision not only to the gendered dimensions of crop breeding, but also to the nonhuman actors, such as the crops and traits falling outside the market sphere of interest. By putting political agronomy and feminist science and technology studies into conversation, the article contributes to the development of a feminist political agronomy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article offers an account of cis sense in order to draw attention to the relation between meaning-making and cisnormativity. By drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s notion of institution and phenomenological considerations of habit, it is argued that cis sense is a mode of perception that institutes and sediments an individual and social habit of the third-person conferral of gender that occludes gender variance and creates the social conditions necessary for transphobia. This consideration of cis sense challenges the mainstream conception of (...) cis as an identity category, highlighting instead that it is a habitual disposition, and gestures to the significance of trans sense as an alternative institution of gendered meaning. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 3, Page 777-789, July 2022.

This essay applies Charles W. Mills’s notion of the domination contract to develop a Kantian theory of justice. The concept of domination underlining the domination contract is best understood as structural domination, which unjustifiably authorizes institutions and labour practices to weaken vulnerable groups’ public standing as free, equal, and independent citizens. Though Kant’s theory of justice captures why structural domination of any kind contradicts the requirements of justice, it neglects to condemn exploitive gender- and race-based labour relations. Because the ideal (...) of civic equality must position all persons as co-legislators of the terms of political rule, the state must dismantle exploitive race- and gender-based labour relations for all persons to command political power as civic equals. (shrink)

The article reveals the features of the contemporary periodicals conceptual sphere for women and men (based on examples from magazines of all-Ukrainian and regional purposes. The study made it possible to determine which interpretations of the concepts of "woman" and "man" can be found on the pages of modern gender-labeled periodicals, and thus analyze in detail the gender conceptual sphere through the prism of the specific characteristics of the concepts. The features of the use of gender concepts in modern periodicals (...) for women and men were determined. The most frequently used derivatives of these macroconcepts were identified and analyzed in detail. It has been found that publications for women and men are full of various gender concepts that are used in different contexts. In general, the analysis of the concept-maximums and concept-minimums of gender and their characteristics is carried out in the context of gender stereotypes that have been formed and function in the society, systematizing the actual presentations. (shrink)

A Discussion about the Problems of Institutionalization of Feminist Theory and the Gender Studies at the University of Vienna.

Gender mainstreaming has been prioritised within the national agricultural policies of many countries, including Nepal. Yet gender mainstreaming at the national policy level does not always work to effect change when policies are implemented at the local scale. In less-developed nations such as Nepal, it is rare to find a critical analysis of the mainstreaming process and its successes or failures. This paper employs a critical gender analysis approach to examine the gender mainstreaming efforts in Nepal as they move from (...) agricultural policies to practices. The research involved a structured review of 10 key national agricultural policy documents, 14 key informant interviews, and two focus group discussions with female and male smallholder farmers. Results suggest that gender mainstreaming in national agricultural policy and practice has largely failed. The creation of the Gender Equity and Social Inclusion section within the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development is paradoxical to gender-responsive agricultural innovation because it has received limited human and financial resources with an expectation for women to manage this policy development in informal and largely unrecognized ways. At the regional and local levels, implementation of fundamental gender equity and social inclusion procedures—such as gender-responsive planning and budgeting—has become staff responsibility without requisite formal training, gender sensitization, and follow-up. In Nepal, women as smallholder farmers or agricultural labourers are recognized as a vulnerable group in need of social protection, but the welfare approach to gender mainstreaming has achieved little in terms of gender equity, social inclusion, and agricultural sustainability. This paper concludes that what is generally missing is a systemic transformation of gender roles and relations in agriculture, with policies that would support rural women's empowerment through the provision of economic and political rights and entitlement to productive resources. (shrink)

Introduction. Space acts as a basic category for many phenomena of the human world. Therefore, a full understanding and analysis of space is possible only when we take into account the presence of a person in it. The purpose of the study is the need to trace the close interrelation of human existence and space, their mutual influence and interdependence. The relevance of the paper is connected with the need to enlarge the category of space in the gender aspect of (...) being. The research novelty consists in the attempt to systematize the accumulated knowledge in the field of the study of the category of space and its gender characteristics.Methodology and sources. The methodological basis of the work are philosophical analysis and cultural analysis. The main approach in the work is interdisciplinary. We used as sources philosophical works related to the problem of space and gender, theoretical works on architecture, as well as some sociological works. Separate works on semiotics and the issues of metaphorization in culture provided tangible assistance in the preparation of this text.Results and discussion. Being a fundamental ontological category, space is explored in various aspects of humanitarian discourse. The history of culture shows us the mobility of the categories “masculinity” and “femininity”, therefore, a natural question arises about the regular revision of these concepts, that affect the spatial characteristics of being in a specific historical epoch. In the course of the study, the following results were obtained. Based on the analysis of works from the field of anthropology, the study of the body and gender, as well as by identifying the features of the formation of architectural space, we can say that there is a close relationship between space and person. Our research shows that the body is the background of cognition of the world and the individual oneself, therefore it acts as the basis for the formation of a gender metaphor. We have studied the works of architects, and it was concluded that it is impossible to “catch” a specifically feminine or masculine manner in the professional activity of an architect. The reason is that, first of all, the architect is faced with a specific order and certain technical tasks.Conclusion. As a basic characteristic of human existence, space appears in human existence also as a communicative sphere. The primary bodily experience of space, that a human being gets from birth, largely determines the background of cognition of the world. Moreover, the space can carry gender-marked or gender-neutral information, and that gives us a reason to talk about the problem of perception and influence on a person. This can be traced through the metaphor of the architectural language, the ways of space organizing, highlighting with color, shape and construction. Therefore, architecture is distinguished from other types of art by its great dependence on social reality that generates it, since it is a part of the human living environment. (shrink)

This paper is a book review of the volume Bărbatul și femeia. Imaginea unei polemici cu privire la echitatea de gen [The man and the woman. The image of a controversy over gender equity], authored by Iulian Apostu and Cristina Petrescu and published by Lumen Publishing House from Iași, Romania, in 2017. The book addresses issues like the psycho-social dynamic of the marital couple, the emancipation of women within the couple, solidarity and conflict between men and women, while placing the (...) debates at the crossroads of modernity and postmodernity, as social paradigms marking the couple’s formation, evolution and separation. (shrink)

Transgender healthcare faces a dilemma. On the one hand, access to certain medical interventions, including hormone treatments or surgeries, where desired, may be beneficial or even vital for some gender dysphoric trans people. But on the other hand, access to medical interventions typically requires a diagnosis, which, in turn, seems to imply the existence of a pathological state—something that many transgender people reject as a false and stigmatizing characterization of their experience or identity. In this paper we argue that developments (...) from the human enhancement debate can help clarify or resolve some of the conceptual and ethical entanglements arising from the apparent conflict between seeking medicine while not necessarily suffering from a pathology or disorder. Specifically, we focus on the welfarist account of human enhancement and argue it can provide a useful conceptual framework for thinking about some of the more contentious disagreements about access to transgender healthcare services. (shrink)

This study investigated the effect of the distance of the object of the compliment from the complimentee on compliment responses in Persian. A further aim of the study was to understand whether gender of the complimentee made a difference to the response pattern. To this end, 2652 Persian compliment responses were elicited through Discourse Completion Tasks from 563 BA students majoring in twenty disciplines at a university in Iran. The findings revealed that the distance of the object of the compliment (...) did not influence the degree of acceptance or rejection of the compliment. It was also found that Iranian university students’ compliment response behavior, mostly characterized by the rejection or evasion of compliments was shifting toward accepting compliments. This observation is attributed to increasing chances of exposure to and interaction with foreign media such as satellite TV, the Internet, foreign films, series, etc. among Persian university students. (shrink)

Meta-analytic results show that board gender diversity is modestly associated with firm performance, but there is notable heterogeneity among findings. Board gender diversity allows access to women’s perspectives, potentially helping boards, but diversity can also trigger biases that exclude women directors, such that boards do not integrate meaningful perspectives. Addressing this problem, we leverage the categorization-elaboration model, contact theory, and critical mass theory to build new theory as to how men directors can serve as allies to women directors to better (...) leverage diverse perspectives. We empirically test how considerations that reduce out-group categorization and bias against women moderate the board gender diversity-firm performance relationship. Our results show that gender diverse boards perform better with more formal contact among men and women director colleagues, and that gender diverse boards with more men directors who only have prior experience working with token-women, perform worse. Our work helps explain how and why board gender diversity can improve or detract from firm performance. This extends the literature by illustrating the important consequences that occur when firms do have men directors who are likely to be allies of gender diversity. (shrink)

This Article discusses BLAs as tools of global labor migration governance, with a specific focus on gender. Drawing on our global database of 582 bilateral labor migration agreements, we investigate the extent to which these governing instruments connect and align with relevant international normative frameworks, in particular the extent to which they represent gains, gaps or gaffs in terms of gender equality and the human and labor rights protection of women migrants. In the context of the Global Compact for Safe, (...) Orderly and Regular Migration, which stresses a gender-responsive approach to migration governance as one of its guiding principles, we ask: Do the BLAs which are increasingly being used as instruments to govern labor migration contribute toward sustainable gender equality, decent work and reduced inequalities for women and gender-diverse migrants? (shrink)

In August 2017, Google executives found themselves in a difficult position. An internal memo written by a disgruntled software engineer, James Damore, had just gone viral. In this memo, Damore claimed that the relatively small number of women in the tech industry was partly due to biological factors, and that many of Google’s diversity efforts were therefore counterproductive. The contents of this memo were offensive to many (and thus were having a negative impact on the overall workplace environment), but the (...) executives were aware that the wrong reaction to it would at least partially vindicate Damore’s claims about the lack of open discussion at Google. In the end, after two days of controversy, Google leadership decided to fire Damore on the grounds that he had violated the company’s code of conduct. This case gives students an opportunity to explore the numerous issues raised by Damore’s memo and the controversy surrounding it. Did Google handle this case properly? Was firing Damore the right thing to do? How could the situation have been handled more effectively? (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 6, June 2022.

This study investigates the theoretical extension of moral development theory from the strictly human, anthropocentric context to the environmental or ecological context in terms of Care and Justice orientations of moral development theory. A theoretical conceptualization of moral orientation to the environment was developed, based on the framework of Lyons' conceptualization of self and morality, and designed to fit her scoring method. This allowed for the testing of moral orientations in an environmental context to determine if moral orientation would remain (...) the same in spite of contextual differences. A new scoring method, the Flood Relative Presence Scoring Method, was developed. This research serves as the theoretical basis for this new scoring method, which is designed to more accurately assess the relative presence of moral orientations among subjects than previously reported methods of Predominance of Orientations or Presence of Orientations. Gender differences in moral orientation which were found in subjects' responses to Human dilemmas were also found in their responses to Environmental dilemmas. This research looked at contextual variations of moral orientations and contains strong evidence that the present view of moral development theory is incomplete, as well as unnecessarily limited to the human domain. These findings underlie the need for further research to reconceptualize our models of moral development to include relationships not only to humans, but also to the environment; empirically derive within a framework of moral considerations concerning the environment; examine how these orientations may be related to each other within the context of environmentally responsive behavior; determine whether and how the relationship between these orientations and environmental ethical behavior varies over the life cycle; investigate cross-cultural differences between moral orientation and environmentally responsive behavior. (shrink)

Zygon®, Volume 57, Issue 2, Page 297-298, June 2022.

In this article, I advance how the work of transfeminist artistic collective Quimera Rosa formulates new understandings of gender and sexuality in the attempt of ‘becoming plant’. I will first analyse their earlier post-porn work and the use of hacked devices for the formulation of human/nonhuman erotic connections. I will then move to their most recent Trans*Plant project, which involves a human ‐ plant transition. In relation and comparison to the notion of ‘ecosexuality’, I will finally draw an anti-capitalist, posthuman (...) sex/gender practice that radically escapes legibility and identity formulations to create open-ended planetary erotic alliances. (shrink)