Regarding Gender: Essentialism, Constructionism, and Feminist Psychology
- 1 March 1993
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Psychology of Women Quarterly
- Vol. 17 (1) , 5-21
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1993.tb00673.x
Abstract
This article attempts to clarify two alternative understandings of gender—the essentialist and the constructionist—and to discuss the implications of each for feminist psychology. Essentialist construals of gender, represented by recent “cultural feminist” positions, are critiqued for the theoretical, empirical, and political concerns they raise. A constructionist position is offered as ameliorative, and lingering questions raised by this analysis are discussed.Keywords
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