Economics Dictionary of Arguments

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Gender: Gender is a social construct that refers to the roles, behaviors, expressions, and identities that a society associates with being male, female, or someone outside of the gender binary. See also Gender roles.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Anti-Essentialism on Gender - Dictionary of Arguments

Gaus I 284
Gender/Anti-Essentialism/Mottier: From an anti-essentialist perspective, the a priori categorization of certain issues as relevant to either gender - men or women - is in fact problematic.
While emphasizing an anti-essentialist understanding of the category of women, feminist political theory has at times been guilty of essentializing the category of men.
Terrell Carver: As Carver (1996) points out, the theorization of masculinity is crucial not only for understanding the origins of gender inequalities but also for identifying the possibilities for change, which would be minimal if we stop at the idea that men are always and necessarily only oppressors.
Feminism: Feminist authors tend to conceptualize the citizen within traditional political theory as simultaneously degendered and male. Although Carver agrees that the subject of traditional political theory is certainly 'not a woman' , he points out that what is degendered cannot at the same time be male. He further criticizes feminist theorists for being inconsistent. With respect to female identity, theorists such as Susan Mendus and Phillips share his anti-essentialist view (contrary to others such as Walby and the maternalist thinkers, who consider the female body as an essential com- ponent of gender identity). But when it comes to theorizing masculinity, Carver argues, even anti-essentialist feminist theorists fall back upon a 'crypto-biological' and homogenizing essentialist perspective. Indeed, men are defined primarily through their lack of capacity to bear children. As Carver points out, recent writings on masculinity show how problematic it is to treat the dominant and stereotypical representations of masculinity as a universal model of gender identity.
>Gender roles
, >Feminism, >Essentialism, >Maternalism,
>Paternalism.

1. Carver, Terrell (1996) Gender Is Not a Synonym for Women. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

Véronique Mottier 2004. „Feminism and Gender Theory: The Return of the State“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.
Anti-Essentialism
Gaus I
Gerald F. Gaus
Chandran Kukathas
Handbook of Political Theory London 2004


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