As many others have, Dr. Bogardus points out that originally “gender” was a grammatical term, used for, say, the “masculine” and “feminine” nouns in Spanish, or the “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neuter” words in German. Obviously, words don’t have sex; they can’t literally be male or female. But they can be associated somehow with one of the sexes. And I guess that is how, in the mid 20th century, various theorists started to use “gender” to refer to some aspect of the human realm, as Bogardus says, “typically the social features of sex.” (Section 1.1)
It is pointless, Bogardus points out, to criticize any stipulated definition. A stipulated definition is not a common use of a term, but a rather specialized, artificially precise definition for some specific purposes. For example, in ordinary English “obese” just means “fat,” which is a vague term. But for medical purposes, the doctors have stipulated that one is “obese” if and only if one’s BMI (Body Mass Index) is 30 or higher. For other purposes, one might stipulate some other definition.
But our philosopher Dr. Bogardus is not challenging any stipulated definition. Rather, he’s challenging
. . . the claim that manhood and womanhood are not to be defined even partially in terms of [the terms or concepts] male and female, which refer to biological sex, but rather in terms of something like social position, a particular set of experiences, self-identification, and the like.
(Section 1.1)
As his title suggests, it is the distinction that he’s criticizing, not really some word or dictionary definition. He’s disputing that our concepts of what it is to be man, and what it is to be a woman, are gender concepts, having to do with something other than biology or what sort of body one has. This is in contrast, he says, to a traditional position, on which
. . . a woman is an adult female human, and a man is an adult male human.
(Section 1.1)
As feminist philosopher Mari Mikkola puts it,
Most people ordinarily seem to think that sex and gender are coextensive: women are human females, men are human males.
(Source)
Bogardus also quotes another feminist philosopher observing that
On the face of it, the definition [of “woman” as] ‘female, adult, human being’ really does seem right. Indeed, it seems as perfect a definition as one might have ever wanted.
Bogardus, Section 1.1, quoting T.M.Bettcher, “Trans identities and first person authority,” in You’ve Changed, edited by L. Shrage, p. 105.
Bogardus quotes a number of other sources, including the Oxford English Dictionary, to illustrate that this is the “traditional” understanding of manhood and womanhood. But Bogardus points out that now, at least in feminist philosophy and some other circles, it is basically orthodoxy (required and socially enforced belief or confession) that any such traditional understanding is dead wrong. Put in terms of language,
. . . [the ordinary words] man and woman are gender terms that are not defined in terms of biological sex.
Section 1.1
But should we accept this “revisionary” view? Why think it is true? On the face of it, we should ask for some compelling argument showing that manhood / being a man and womanhood / being a woman are a matter of something other than sex.
Are there any such arguments? Bogardus thinks not. Now that we’ve got the dispute firmly in mind, we can look at his evaluation of these arguments.
