Haslanger

Charlotte Harlow
PHI 297
Blog Post 2

            In Haslanger’s piece, Gender and Race, she defines gender as a social class. She believes that being a woman is being treated a specific way by one’s society. Haslanger says that, “Gender categories are defined in terms of how one is socially positioned...” (Haslanger 38) she then goes on to say that, “...gender is not defined in terms of an individual’s intrinsic physical or psychological features.” (Haslanger 38) I agree with Haslanger’s position. I believe that gender is not defined based on natural physical or physiological features and instead is shaped in large part by society.

            To say that someone is not a woman because they don’t act, feel or even have a female body is defining them based off of intrinsic physical and psychological features which is not how Haslanger defines gender. Under Haslanger’s view, if that woman is subordinated along some dimension of society, regardless of intrinsic features, she is in fact a woman due to hierarchies present in society. I don’t think that whether or not you have ovaries or other female characteristics should characterize you as a woman or not. It is clear that men are superior to women in society and if a person who is simply marked as a woman, regardless if she possesses feminine characteristics, is okay or understands she is subordinate to men it shouldn’t matter if she has breasts, reproductive organs or other feminine characteristics.

            Someone opposing Haslanger’s view might say that simply identifying as a woman is sufficient to being a woman. For example, Hale reported dominant views of the characteristics of the category woman in his piece, Are Lesbians Women?, one of which identified this point that self identifying as a woman is a characteristic of the category woman. Although, I think that this opposition makes a good point because people should have the right to identify themselves how they want, I don’t believe it’s valid. Gender as a class is about a scripted identity and what groups other people put you in. From a feminist point of view being a woman is intertwined with oppression. If you are not viewed as a woman by your society, you’re not facing oppression in your everyday life. Therefore, I believe Haslanger’s definition of a woman is stronger because it excludes intrinsic factors that characterize women, while including the fact that women are subordinated and hence oppressed in society because they are viewed as women. In the opposing view, identifying as a woman doesn’t necessarily mean your society will view you as one. If you’re not viewed as a woman, you’re not going to be subordinated or oppressed for being one, therefore, in feminist terms, you’re not a woman because you’re not oppressed by your society in some way, shape or form.

            Furthermore, in today’s society someone can be considered a woman regardless of femininity if she is in fact subordinated economically, politically, legally, socially, and in many more different ways. I believe Haslanger recognizes that there are many different types of human bodies, and possessing feminine characteristics doesn’t have to define what gender you are but your society does have to recognize you as a woman in order for subordination and oppression to occur which is why the opposing view is not valid.