Gender equality 2/2
Can the oft-misogynistic philosophers teach us something about gender equality?
Saying that some come from Mars, others from Venus (or Neptune or even Pluto) suggests diversity, appeal, difference, perhaps complementarity or whatever else comes to mind, but any differences that do exist on a cognitive level are statistically very minor, as their effect size is near nil. Such differences cannot justify differentiated policies, they do not legitimize any of the absolute judgements groups make about women and men, and above all else, they say nothing about people as individuals.
What I came across on my FB feed were two ads one right after the other, that to quote Paul McCartney go together well, yet they aroused user reactions as split as the San Francisco Fault:
The first ad is for an admirable little scientific work everyone should get their hands on — and the inspiration for some of my earlier remarks on statistical concepts, whose only use to public policies, at the end of the day, is proving they can be of no use other than perhaps combating stereotypes… ideally without simultaneously reinforcing them. His “brain become masculine” details current research on the impact of hormones on sex, gender and identity and truly makes, almost inadvertently, a pro domo plea for equality, same-sex marriage, etc. The book is filled with recent discoveries in biology, endocrinology, and neuro-endocrinology, being the study of brain hormones.
Reactions on FB, evidently from people who did not read the book and accordingly seem to believe it lays down the scientific groundwork for male superiority, generally banter on as though the very mention of difference were an invitation to compare worth, in which women would of course lose (snicker, snicker! That should get a few noses out of joint…”).
Gynophobes who haven’t so much as cracked the book rub their hands with excitement. Exhausting, I repeat.
Very next on my FB feed was an ad from an impeccably designed and wonderfully creative poster campaign, relayed by the School of Feminism, a “non-profit platform that aims to bring Feminism to society through education and communication”:
How could you not like both, I ask? Both the ad promoting a work that explains the fundamental differences between the male and female brains, the findings from the latest research in endocrinology, and the ad driving forward equal treatment, consideration, rights, etc. for men and women, since it goes without saying?
There is no contradiction between the two.
Quite the contrary.
Several causes give rise to the rather distressing kaffufling so frequently seen in debates. The first is the amalgam made between identity and equality: we are only equal when identical and all differences flag evident inequality. But if we can only be considered as equal in rights if we are identical in substance, it’s hard to see just what legal theory and the practice of ethics are still trying to elucidate, or what good they could do.
Can the oft-misogynistic philosophers teach us something about gender equality?
Essential and accidental
If from a philosophical standpoint there is a difference between men and women, we should be able to express it in terms of substance. The Greek oὑσἱᾳ (ousia) is a philosophical concept that can be descried as the “essence” or the “substance.” This translation won’t get you very far given that, in everyday English, the meanings that once conveyed the sense of oὑσἱᾳ have been largely lost over time. “Substance” now designates a type of matter or composite, something rather undefined that makes up an object: a strange, soft, cold, hard (etc…) substance. The Latin “sub-stare,” “what stands underneath,” the matter of which something is made, has gradually and very pragmatically inflected the abstract Greek meaning.
Plato and Aristotle
To Plato, oὑσἱᾳ meant “that which is neither in a subject nor can be said about a subject.” For instance, all the horses that exist are not essences, but they all contribute to a shared, unique and eternal essence, something very abstract we could call “horsitude” if we had to give it a name, that constitutes a sort of superior model of the existing horses, which Plato viewed as being separate from this horse Concept. This is something that Aristotle, a student of Plato’s, criticized in his mentor’s works. Being much less of a metaphysicist, he made a clean break from this depiction of essence, which he deemed detached from existing things and unfit to advance our knowledge. Aristotle considered both substance and essence as realities corresponding to the permanent elements in things, their invariable nature, as opposed to the accidental: as opposed to what happens to things but could very well not have happened. Essence is a unifying principle, the unique nature that relates all modes of a being. It is the being of a thing, in the basic and fundamental sense.
Could this detour into ontological considerations (what is a being?) be of use? As you can see, I don’t shy away from extra effort (no special treatment for my readers), or setting out on a quest for what, philosophically and from an ontological standpoint, could have accounted for the differences between the sexes and, in turn, substantiated the misogyny of philosophers, or given just a little justification for their disdain. But it seems obvious enough: there’s nothing to find on that front. If there is a philosophical dimension to the gender war (to word it strongly), it’s in power relationships, in Hegel, Rawls, Bentham and Byung Chul Han that we can hope to find it, to understand how in nearly all societies, women have been used as “adjustment variables” (understand: women, suddenly deemed capable of leading society and keeping industries running while the men were away to war, sent back into the home as soon as peace returned). There’s nothing to find on the ontological front because there are no men without women or the other way around, because their characteristics and skills closely overlap, and because there is no humanity without this winning pair. Yet I’m unable to come up with another firewall against those who persist in believing, with a stirring tenacity, that the “substantial” and “essential” differences between men and women legitimize the establishment of a policy on the matter. I’m also at a short as to how to get through to those who shudder at the idea that a neuro-endocrinological genetic difference could affect men and women’s behaviours, and instantly suspect the researchers working on such issues and those who take interest in their findings of sitting far-right on the political chessboard. There are differences we cannot say much about regarding individual identities, and on which we cannot built either a philosophical or a political discourse.
Genesis of the brain in the foetus
We now know that when the brain begins to form in an embryo, it is undifferentiated. No, it’s not neutral. It’s feminine. Let’s knock down the misconceptions once and for all (a girl’s gotta dream), since Spinoza’s works on the Bible did not suffice to see it admitted as what it truly is, that is to say a composite literary text, the fable of Adam and his rib. Science shows that Eve was not created from one of Adam’s ribs. Adam is the one who developed from Eve when nature decided to promote sexual reproduction, more dependable than parthenogenesis, a simple duplication of female gametes. That’s one. And two, the female brain in future young males only masculinizes in the few weeks leading up to and following birth, under the effect of a hormonal hurricane largely due to high testosterone influxes. Does this mean (a historic turn of the tables) woman is first and man is second? Perhaps, but that is no more interesting or significant than the reverse hypothesis. The evolution of our kind brought about differentiation, which consequently and rightfully belongs to the human species. The human species is a composite of two sexes that allows for its perpetuation. Test tubes and other forms of IVF change nothing to the fact that our species, the very substance of humanity lies in this differentiation. No young males without the female dimension of our species. And vice versa.
That should be the opening line, and the closing line too.
