Charlotte Witt, “The Metaphysics of Gender” (Oxford University Press, 2011)
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What is gender essentialism and why does it matter?
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Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel in the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdur and I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talice. Our bi monthly podcasts feature interviews with philosophers about their ideas as expressed in their newly published books. Today's interview is with Charlotte Witt, author of The Metaphysics of Gender, just published with Oxford University Press. Professor Witt is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at the University of New Hampshire. Is your gender essential to who you are? If you were a man instead of a woman or vice versa, would you be a different person? Professor Whit found that most people answered that obviously they'd be different if their gender differed.
Even though many feminist philosopher friends considered gender essentialism to be false. Thus a philosophical inquiry was born. What is gender essentialism? Why might it be true if it is true? And what consequences does the answer have for ourselves and for our societies? In this engaging volume, Witt argues that a certain form of essenti gender essentialism is true. Gender is the social role that unifies us as social individuals, an ontological category distinct from both human organisms and persons. By distinguishing social individuals from persons, It hopes to promote the idea that the point of feminism is not giving women more choices, but about reconfiguring the social roles so that they no longer oppress and exploit women.
Let's turn to the interview. I have with me here today uh Professor Charlotte Witt from the University of New Hampshire. Um hello Charlotte. Hi Carrie. Hi. And welcome to New Books in Philosophy. Well, thanks for inviting me. Um, so we'll be talking about your book, The Metaphysics of Gender, which just came out from uh Oxford University Press. Um, and before we get into the um the details of your argument for a kind of uh gender essentialism, um maybe you can give us a little idea about um, you know, generally how you got interested in philosophy, um and what interested you in the particular topics that you work with and and then how this book came about.
Okay, I'd be glad to. Um, I got interested in philosophy. Uh as a freshman in college I went to Saint John's College in Annapolis where they have the so called Great Books program. And I had been sort of an indifferent student in high school. And I immediately was attracted to philosophy and um I don't know whether you know about the program, but they start at the beginning of the Western tradition and so we started with Plato and I just became immediately interested and drawn uh into philosophy I stayed at Saint John's for two years and into classics and then I transferred to Swarthmore College where I was a classics and philosophy major.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is gender essentialism and why does it matter?
0:00–11:48
2
How does Witt distinguish between biological sex and social gender?
11:48–20:27
3
What are “social individuals” and how do they differ from persons?
20:27–29:09
4
Why does Witt argue that gender provides the principle of normative unity?
29:09–37:26
5
How does the concept of “engendering” shape social reproduction?
37:26–46:13
6
What role does the self play in Witt’s metaphysics of gender?
46:13–53:52
7
How does Witt connect her theory to feminist political goals?
53:52–1:02:28
8
What future research directions does Witt plan after this book?
1:02:28–1:11:34
Speakers
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