essentialism
-
Featured
The Troubles with Gender
There is, as some of you may have noticed, a debate going on in the skeptics community about the – how shall I put this – status of trans women. I’m very busy writing a book on the subject of gender diversity, so I spend little time on Facebook and Twitter these days, but from what I have seen there are a…
Read More » -
Featured
Let’s Talk About Gender Baby*
There’s been an uptick in discussions about gender theory in the atheoskeptosphere lately, and I’ve noticed a not insignificant number of people throwing around ideas about gender theory in ways that clearly demonstrate they don’t know what they’re talking about. Rather than wading into the specific discussions that have inspired this post, I want to try to clarify some key…
Read More » -
Science
Another Sex/Gender Controversy
In a recent blog post, Gia Milinovich responds to some of the heat she’s received for a panel she chaired for SohoSkeptics on gender. Though I don’t doubt Gia is well intentioned, her post is unfortunately filled to the brim with many misconceptions about gender stemming from what appears to be an adherence to a biological essentialist understanding of sex/gender.…
Read More » -
Feminism
Why Did Almost All Questions on Quora Make My Head Explode? (Part One)
Over on Slate, there is an article that was cross-posted from an answer to this question on Quora’s Feminism category: “Why did almost all societies believe that women were inferior to men?” Quora is basically like a glorified Yahoo! Answers, and it is premised on the idea that people can pose questions and random other people “with first-hand experience” will…
Read More » -
Feminism
Essentialist Neuroscience
Despite the best efforts of a few awesome scholars, essentialism is alive and well in the neurosciences. An article posted on Salon on August 5 describes the results of a study in Behavioral Brain Research wherein the authors reviewed research done on sex/gender (they conflate the two) differences in a decision-making experiment known as the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The…
Read More »
