"The conversation explores competing philosophical claims about biological determinism versus social construction."
Because philosophy is, of course, the go-to discipline for empirical rigor and democratic accountability—right?
Maybe the real problem is that we ceded enormous cultural power to philosopher theorists who answer to no one—not voters, not peer-reviewed evidence, not even common sense. They spin abstract arguments in cloistered seminars, then watch as their pet theories metastasize into policies and programs that reshape institutions, fracture families, and confuse children. When philosophers become norm-makers without constraints, the result isn’t enlightenment—it’s social engineering without a professional license, a political mandate or scientific consensus.
> "Because philosophy is, of course, the go-to discipline for empirical rigor ..."
Exactly. Feminist "philosophy" in particular. I'm reminded of a classic observation, and a rather damning indictment, from a review of "Professing Feminism" -- by a pair of women in fact, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge:
Feminist Critics: "The authors, however, demonstrate that these problems have existed since their ideology’s inception, and were particularly common within Women Studies programs. The authors wrote of the isolationist attitude that dominates many of the programs, along with a virulent anti-science, anti-intellectual sentiment driving many of the professors, staff and students."
And while Holly has her good points, "empirical rigor" certainly isn't one of them. For instance, she once had quite a thorough and workman-like analysis of the question, "Is it possible to change sex?":
Though, in passing, one is "amused" to note that Medium has deleted all of her posts, and those of Kathleen Stock -- and suspended them both -- for, one assumes, running afoul of the "Tranish Inquisition". But of particular note from that article of hers:
HLS: "Whenever you chat to a biologist about what they understand ‘sex’ to be – and I have chatted to a few – they tend to talk about large and small gametes. Human sexual reproduction proceeds through the combination of sex cells of two different sizes (this is known as anisogamy): small gametes (sperm) and large gametes (ova). Males produce sperm, and females produce eggs. Almost no definitions that we give in philosophy have a single necessary condition, but sex is one of the few instances where such a definition works well. If a human individual produces sperm then he’s male, and if a human individual produces ova then she’s female. This is a definition that researchers in many different academic disciplines take as foundational to their work."
However, I'm sad to say, she subsequently snatches defeat from the jaws of victory with this absolute howler (sorry about that Holly):
HLS: "But it’s far from clear that we should accept the ‘not male’ part of the reasoning. It’s not as though every male person is such that he actually produces sperm. The best way to understand the ‘sperm or ova’ binary is that it’s true all going well. Of course an individual man could end up with testicular cancer and have to have his testicles removed. Does that mean he’s no longer male? Of course not. He’s the kind of individual who, all going well, produces sperm. He’s not the kind of individual who, all going well, produces ova. There’s no reason why we should treat the person who loses the capacity to produce sperm involuntarily any differently from the person who loses the capacity to produce sperm voluntarily."
Sure would like to see the scholarly discussions and debate on that "all going well" principle, a rather magical one that seems to supersede and override that "single necessary condition" that she, much more reasonably, had touted as the sine qua non for sex category membership. "motivated reasoning" doesn't begin to cover the intellectual dishonesty entailed by that "principle" of "all going well".
The fact of the matter is that, for example, transwomen who cut their nuts off are -- in fact or at least by the standard biological definitions she started off with -- sexless, neither male nor female. Technically speaking and by those definitions, there are many others who are in that same "sexless" category -- the prepubescent and most of the intersex for examples. An interpretation endorsed by US biologists PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, as well as by a trio of German biologists writing in the Wiley Online Journal:
PZM: “ ‘female’ is not applicable -- it refers to individuals that produce ova. By the technical definition, many cis women are not female.”
Wiley Online Library: "For instance, a mammalian embryo with heterozygous sex chromosomes (XY-setup) is not reproductively competent, as it does not produce gametes of any size. Thus, strictly speaking it does not have any biological sex, YET. [my emphasis]."
It seems blatantly obvious to me that men and women are different due in part to our differing biology that evolved for successful reproduction as a species. We are animals regardless of if we want to acknowledge that fact.
The problem in my eyes is that in striving for equality, we seem to have used the male way of being as the standard for women to achieve, as opposed to raising the female way of being into equivalent value in society.
Women are the ones who must bear children, that fact isn’t changing. Men will never have to take on the physical and emotional burdens that childbearing entails. Women are not just oppressed men. If we were not oppressed in society, we still would not be able to live the lives men lead because of our biology. We need to stop trying to be like men and start valuing and rewarding what we actually are.
Women are smaller and weaker on average physically, but we are highly intelligent and excellent leaders and organizers. We see and experience the world and the community in a different way to men. We have something important to offer the world that is different to men.
This fact should be celebrated. Men and women evolved to work together as a species to survive. We are not the same. We never will be. And I think that should be celebrated. Our differences balance each other out. One is not superior to the other. Start valuing female biology and female instincts as highly as male biology and male instincts and the world will change for the better.
I agree with the guest that gender is what society imposes on us. But I don’t think that society is what makes males and females different to each other on the whole. I think that is down to biology and our evolved reproductive roles.
> "The Philosopher Who REJECTS Gender Identity ..."
You may wish to consider interviewing another "feminist" philosopher -- Kathleen Stock -- who doesn't see gender identity as being entirely beyond the Pale -- and into that "lawless and uncivilized area" of Ireland .... But a relevant passage from her Material Girls book:
KS: “I’m going to suggest [that] having a gender identity misaligned with sex is something comprehensible, to which society should pay respectful attention – though not the degree of uncritical acceptance we currently see. ....
The Identification model involves the general idea of someone subconsciously and consciously ‘identifying’ WITH another. ....
Applied to gender identity, then, an identification model says that [for a male] to have a misaligned female [feminine] gender identity is to identify strongly, in this psychological sense, either with a particular female or with femaleness as a general object or ideal. [Likewise with a female having a male [masculine] gender identity.]” [pgs. 127-137]
Though I think Stock kind of drops the ball in not providing much in the way of a coherent or workable definition for "gender" in the first place. But that model may be of particular interest to one of your panelists, Bret Alderman (?).
However, "incoherent, unworkable, inconsistent, and contradictory" definitions for "gender" and "gender identity" seem the hallmarks of pretty much everyone -- feminists in particular -- who has put their oars into those increasingly murky waters. Del Giudice's "Ideological Bias in the Psychology of Sex and Gender" seems to provide an adequate summary and description of the problem:
Apropos of which, Holly's own "bias" is apparently due to a "reluctance" to consider that personality and behavioural differences between men and women -- on average -- are, at least, partly the result of bedrock biological difference between males and females. Apparently, or presumably, because she and many others in her tribe are "horrified" that such differences constitute something of a straightjacket. Clearly not the case as "gender non-conformance" suggests. Though, of course, no man is ever going to give birth to a baby, nor be likely to express or feel the emotions typical of the experience.
But relative to those behavioural differences by sex, you might have some interest in a paper co-authored by Colin Wright -- who I see was also a contributing author to your "Gender Framework"; any plans afoot to publish an updated version? But that other paper, while ostensibly taking a run at gender identity, gives some solid evidence to justify those behavioural differences -- on average -- by sex:
Of particular note is the rather illuminating graph of those differences and their significant degree of overlap -- a point that Holly seems unaware of -- which I had extracted and incorporated into my post on "A Multi-Dimensional Gender Spectrum":
But those differences are largely the source of various stereotypes, positive and negative, about men and women: for examples of the latter, there are more neurotic women than there are neurotic men, but there are also more "rapey" men than there are "rapey" women. And those stereotypes then are probably or apparently the basis for various social norms: "principles of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior".
As Stock puts it [pg. 134], "social stereotypes are not in principle regressive". Sadly, too many "feminists" seem to think they were only hatched in the inner sanctums of "The Patriarchy!!11!!" for the sole purpose of "oppressing women" 🙄. Not too helpful nor particularly accurate.
Something which Stock elaborated on in her own Substack, arguing that "radfems" were, more or less, "barking mad" to want to "abolish gender":
One might reasonably argue -- as Mari Mikkola did in an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -- that, to a first approximation, gender is just feminine and masculine personality traits, expressions, roles, and behaviours -- some parts of which may be "bred in the bone" and some of which are entirely "socially constructed"; some of which may be regressive and some of which qualify as commendable "norms":
I have finally got round to listening to this and I am increasingly frustrated at your failure to push back against this nonsensical notion that we can blame social constructs for poor male behaviour such as violence. This is precisely the argument made by the gender identity theorists who argue that a child "assigned male at birth" can be socialised as a girl and then effectively becomes a girl and then a woman, so much so that it is unreasonable to object to "her" presence in female spaces. I have heard this nonsense so often from my left-wing friends -- that I am just kowtowing to gender stereotypes when I suggest that natal females are more vulnerable to violence by natal males. A true feminist will not insist on being protected from dangerous males. This sort of nonsensical argument is a direct corollary of radical feminism. We have to push against it.
Unfortunately, it is probably true that there are biological reasons why patriarchy is a thing in anarchic parts of the world. Because women and children and others who are physically weak depend more on law and order for their safety. This is not a reason to promote patriarchy. Patriarchy exists in failed states. This phenomenon is a reason to support the rule of law, which is what makes it possible for women to live freely and not to rely on patriarchy for our physical safety.
Yes you did point out cross-cultural trends in male violence etc. but you really treated her with kid gloves. Why? How about a good debate between her and Kathleen Stock? (who would wipe the floor I am sure)
Holly Lawford-Smith and Kathleen Stock share similar views on feminism, particularly regarding gender identity and its implications for women's rights. Both are gender-critical feminists who emphasize the importance of biological sex in defining categories like "woman" and "man," and they express concerns about the impact of gender self-identification policies on women's spaces and rights.
There is a huge difference. Lawford-Smith promotes the radical feminist (and dangerously wrong) idea that most male violence and other behavioural differences between the sexes result from socially constructed differences between the sexes and can therefore be eliminated by a change in socialisation. Stock rejects this. That is a HUGE difference.
"The conversation explores competing philosophical claims about biological determinism versus social construction."
Because philosophy is, of course, the go-to discipline for empirical rigor and democratic accountability—right?
Maybe the real problem is that we ceded enormous cultural power to philosopher theorists who answer to no one—not voters, not peer-reviewed evidence, not even common sense. They spin abstract arguments in cloistered seminars, then watch as their pet theories metastasize into policies and programs that reshape institutions, fracture families, and confuse children. When philosophers become norm-makers without constraints, the result isn’t enlightenment—it’s social engineering without a professional license, a political mandate or scientific consensus.
> "Because philosophy is, of course, the go-to discipline for empirical rigor ..."
Exactly. Feminist "philosophy" in particular. I'm reminded of a classic observation, and a rather damning indictment, from a review of "Professing Feminism" -- by a pair of women in fact, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge:
Feminist Critics: "The authors, however, demonstrate that these problems have existed since their ideology’s inception, and were particularly common within Women Studies programs. The authors wrote of the isolationist attitude that dominates many of the programs, along with a virulent anti-science, anti-intellectual sentiment driving many of the professors, staff and students."
https://web.archive.org/web/20090807234859/http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2009/07/27/professing-feminism-noh/
And while Holly has her good points, "empirical rigor" certainly isn't one of them. For instance, she once had quite a thorough and workman-like analysis of the question, "Is it possible to change sex?":
https://web.archive.org/web/20190502004710/https://medium.com/@aytchellis/is-it-possible-to-change-sex-8d863ce7fca2
Though, in passing, one is "amused" to note that Medium has deleted all of her posts, and those of Kathleen Stock -- and suspended them both -- for, one assumes, running afoul of the "Tranish Inquisition". But of particular note from that article of hers:
HLS: "Whenever you chat to a biologist about what they understand ‘sex’ to be – and I have chatted to a few – they tend to talk about large and small gametes. Human sexual reproduction proceeds through the combination of sex cells of two different sizes (this is known as anisogamy): small gametes (sperm) and large gametes (ova). Males produce sperm, and females produce eggs. Almost no definitions that we give in philosophy have a single necessary condition, but sex is one of the few instances where such a definition works well. If a human individual produces sperm then he’s male, and if a human individual produces ova then she’s female. This is a definition that researchers in many different academic disciplines take as foundational to their work."
However, I'm sad to say, she subsequently snatches defeat from the jaws of victory with this absolute howler (sorry about that Holly):
HLS: "But it’s far from clear that we should accept the ‘not male’ part of the reasoning. It’s not as though every male person is such that he actually produces sperm. The best way to understand the ‘sperm or ova’ binary is that it’s true all going well. Of course an individual man could end up with testicular cancer and have to have his testicles removed. Does that mean he’s no longer male? Of course not. He’s the kind of individual who, all going well, produces sperm. He’s not the kind of individual who, all going well, produces ova. There’s no reason why we should treat the person who loses the capacity to produce sperm involuntarily any differently from the person who loses the capacity to produce sperm voluntarily."
Sure would like to see the scholarly discussions and debate on that "all going well" principle, a rather magical one that seems to supersede and override that "single necessary condition" that she, much more reasonably, had touted as the sine qua non for sex category membership. "motivated reasoning" doesn't begin to cover the intellectual dishonesty entailed by that "principle" of "all going well".
The fact of the matter is that, for example, transwomen who cut their nuts off are -- in fact or at least by the standard biological definitions she started off with -- sexless, neither male nor female. Technically speaking and by those definitions, there are many others who are in that same "sexless" category -- the prepubescent and most of the intersex for examples. An interpretation endorsed by US biologists PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, as well as by a trio of German biologists writing in the Wiley Online Journal:
PZM: “ ‘female’ is not applicable -- it refers to individuals that produce ova. By the technical definition, many cis women are not female.”
https://x.com/pzmyers/status/1466458067491598342
https://culturewarblues.substack.com/p/on-the-natural-order-of-things/comment/109175786
JC: "Those 1/6000 individuals are intersexes, neither male nor female."
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/06/04/sf-chronicle-sex-and-gender-are-not-binaries/#comment-2048737
Wiley Online Library: "For instance, a mammalian embryo with heterozygous sex chromosomes (XY-setup) is not reproductively competent, as it does not produce gametes of any size. Thus, strictly speaking it does not have any biological sex, YET. [my emphasis]."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202200173?af=R
It is insane to use philosophical tools to answer biological questions. The sheer hubris of it all is stunning..
It seems blatantly obvious to me that men and women are different due in part to our differing biology that evolved for successful reproduction as a species. We are animals regardless of if we want to acknowledge that fact.
The problem in my eyes is that in striving for equality, we seem to have used the male way of being as the standard for women to achieve, as opposed to raising the female way of being into equivalent value in society.
Women are the ones who must bear children, that fact isn’t changing. Men will never have to take on the physical and emotional burdens that childbearing entails. Women are not just oppressed men. If we were not oppressed in society, we still would not be able to live the lives men lead because of our biology. We need to stop trying to be like men and start valuing and rewarding what we actually are.
Women are smaller and weaker on average physically, but we are highly intelligent and excellent leaders and organizers. We see and experience the world and the community in a different way to men. We have something important to offer the world that is different to men.
This fact should be celebrated. Men and women evolved to work together as a species to survive. We are not the same. We never will be. And I think that should be celebrated. Our differences balance each other out. One is not superior to the other. Start valuing female biology and female instincts as highly as male biology and male instincts and the world will change for the better.
I agree with the guest that gender is what society imposes on us. But I don’t think that society is what makes males and females different to each other on the whole. I think that is down to biology and our evolved reproductive roles.
> "The Philosopher Who REJECTS Gender Identity ..."
You may wish to consider interviewing another "feminist" philosopher -- Kathleen Stock -- who doesn't see gender identity as being entirely beyond the Pale -- and into that "lawless and uncivilized area" of Ireland .... But a relevant passage from her Material Girls book:
KS: “I’m going to suggest [that] having a gender identity misaligned with sex is something comprehensible, to which society should pay respectful attention – though not the degree of uncritical acceptance we currently see. ....
The Identification model involves the general idea of someone subconsciously and consciously ‘identifying’ WITH another. ....
Applied to gender identity, then, an identification model says that [for a male] to have a misaligned female [feminine] gender identity is to identify strongly, in this psychological sense, either with a particular female or with femaleness as a general object or ideal. [Likewise with a female having a male [masculine] gender identity.]” [pgs. 127-137]
Though I think Stock kind of drops the ball in not providing much in the way of a coherent or workable definition for "gender" in the first place. But that model may be of particular interest to one of your panelists, Bret Alderman (?).
However, "incoherent, unworkable, inconsistent, and contradictory" definitions for "gender" and "gender identity" seem the hallmarks of pretty much everyone -- feminists in particular -- who has put their oars into those increasingly murky waters. Del Giudice's "Ideological Bias in the Psychology of Sex and Gender" seems to provide an adequate summary and description of the problem:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346447193_Ideological_Bias_in_the_Psychology_of_Sex_and_Gender
Apropos of which, Holly's own "bias" is apparently due to a "reluctance" to consider that personality and behavioural differences between men and women -- on average -- are, at least, partly the result of bedrock biological difference between males and females. Apparently, or presumably, because she and many others in her tribe are "horrified" that such differences constitute something of a straightjacket. Clearly not the case as "gender non-conformance" suggests. Though, of course, no man is ever going to give birth to a baby, nor be likely to express or feel the emotions typical of the experience.
But relative to those behavioural differences by sex, you might have some interest in a paper co-authored by Colin Wright -- who I see was also a contributing author to your "Gender Framework"; any plans afoot to publish an updated version? But that other paper, while ostensibly taking a run at gender identity, gives some solid evidence to justify those behavioural differences -- on average -- by sex:
https://4thwavenow.com/2019/08/19/no-child-is-born-in-the-wrong-body-and-other-thoughts-on-the-concept-of-gender-identity/
Of particular note is the rather illuminating graph of those differences and their significant degree of overlap -- a point that Holly seems unaware of -- which I had extracted and incorporated into my post on "A Multi-Dimensional Gender Spectrum":
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/a-multi-dimensional-gender-spectrum
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47258d61-a6f8-4064-8afd-0e8a65a04bb7_770x553.jpeg
But those differences are largely the source of various stereotypes, positive and negative, about men and women: for examples of the latter, there are more neurotic women than there are neurotic men, but there are also more "rapey" men than there are "rapey" women. And those stereotypes then are probably or apparently the basis for various social norms: "principles of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior".
As Stock puts it [pg. 134], "social stereotypes are not in principle regressive". Sadly, too many "feminists" seem to think they were only hatched in the inner sanctums of "The Patriarchy!!11!!" for the sole purpose of "oppressing women" 🙄. Not too helpful nor particularly accurate.
Something which Stock elaborated on in her own Substack, arguing that "radfems" were, more or less, "barking mad" to want to "abolish gender":
https://kathleenstock.substack.com/p/lets-abolish-the-dream-of-gender
One might reasonably argue -- as Mari Mikkola did in an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -- that, to a first approximation, gender is just feminine and masculine personality traits, expressions, roles, and behaviours -- some parts of which may be "bred in the bone" and some of which are entirely "socially constructed"; some of which may be regressive and some of which qualify as commendable "norms":
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/
Which is why we can reasonably talk about "gender non-conformance", about masculine females, and feminine males.
I have finally got round to listening to this and I am increasingly frustrated at your failure to push back against this nonsensical notion that we can blame social constructs for poor male behaviour such as violence. This is precisely the argument made by the gender identity theorists who argue that a child "assigned male at birth" can be socialised as a girl and then effectively becomes a girl and then a woman, so much so that it is unreasonable to object to "her" presence in female spaces. I have heard this nonsense so often from my left-wing friends -- that I am just kowtowing to gender stereotypes when I suggest that natal females are more vulnerable to violence by natal males. A true feminist will not insist on being protected from dangerous males. This sort of nonsensical argument is a direct corollary of radical feminism. We have to push against it.
Unfortunately, it is probably true that there are biological reasons why patriarchy is a thing in anarchic parts of the world. Because women and children and others who are physically weak depend more on law and order for their safety. This is not a reason to promote patriarchy. Patriarchy exists in failed states. This phenomenon is a reason to support the rule of law, which is what makes it possible for women to live freely and not to rely on patriarchy for our physical safety.
Yes you did point out cross-cultural trends in male violence etc. but you really treated her with kid gloves. Why? How about a good debate between her and Kathleen Stock? (who would wipe the floor I am sure)
Holly Lawford-Smith and Kathleen Stock share similar views on feminism, particularly regarding gender identity and its implications for women's rights. Both are gender-critical feminists who emphasize the importance of biological sex in defining categories like "woman" and "man," and they express concerns about the impact of gender self-identification policies on women's spaces and rights.
There is a huge difference. Lawford-Smith promotes the radical feminist (and dangerously wrong) idea that most male violence and other behavioural differences between the sexes result from socially constructed differences between the sexes and can therefore be eliminated by a change in socialisation. Stock rejects this. That is a HUGE difference.