PHILOSOPHY 224
HOLMSTROM, “DO WOMEN HAVE A DISTINCT
NATURE?”
AN OPERATIVE SUSPICION
• Holmstrom begins by noting that women have good
reason to be suspicious of attempts to specify a distinct,
feminine nature (to essentialize them) esp. when that
essentialism is biological in nature.
• After all, the presumed norm of such attempts is usually a
masculine one.
• Even when there is talk of “different but equal,” the fact
remains that the characteristics usually attributed to the
two sexes are evaluated differently (289).
• She makes the important observation that if there are
differences, they are differences from one another, not
from one standard/ideal.
METAPHYSICAL REALISM
• Given this suspicion, Holmstrom is going to dispute
the conclusions of sociobiologists like Wilson.
• In a move that we saw in Bracken’s discussion of
race, in refusing a basically empiricist approach,
Holmstrom takes up a quasi-rationalist position.
• She offers a version of metaphysical realism: essences exist
as underlying law-like structures with an important
explanatory function.
• She explains how she's using the term essence by
referring to biology, in particular the theoretical
disagreements motivating different taxonomic
schemes (290-1).
SOCIAL FORCES
• The essences Holmstrom specifies leave a great deal of
room for the influence of social forces, and on this basis,
Holmstrom insists that, though there are fundamental
differences between men and women, these
differences are determined primarily by social forces
(290).
• Holmstrom recognizes that the question of the relation
between nature and behavior ultimately settles on the
psychological (the “interface” between the two.)
• What she wants to know is, “Are there psychological
differences between men and women?” and “What is
the source of these differences?”
2 QUESTIONS
• After noting some conceptual limitations of many
studies of this issue (statistics, differences relative to
similarities, theoretical suppositions), Holmstrom
answers the first question by accepting without
argument the claim that there are a significant
number of general personality differences between
men and women.
• The second question gets most of her attention.
Acknowledging the speculative character of her
assertions, Holmstrom argues that these differences
are caused by predominantly social factors rather
than biological/genetic ones.
JUSTIFICATION
• In support of her claim, Holmstrom points to a
number of justifying resources.
• First, she highlights a range of experimental results (295)
which offer confirmation of the significance of social
factors.
• Second, she looks to the findings of anthropology which
reveal significant cross-cultural differences in sexed
personality.
• The conclusion of this analysis is that we have clear
evidence for social determination, and no clear
evidence for significant biological determination
• Read summary and inferences (296-7).
SEX/GENDER
• This analysis leads Holmstrom to a
distinction that has been crucial for
feminism: the sex/gender distinction
(298).
• Holmstrom goes on to provide a
possible theoretical foundation for her
analysis (historically and socially
specific forms of human nature/
woman's nature).
IMPLICATIONS
• What are the implications if there are real, socially
determined differences?
1. Not every women has to embody the feminine type.
2. Indeed, rather than there being a type, the ‘nature of men
and women’s is best understood as a "cluster concept.”
3. This approach makes it much easier to understand the
(relatively) frequent disconnect between sex and gender
(for example, as experienced by transgendered
individuals).
4. There are no evaluative implications of the differences that
can be specified between the male and female nature
clusters.