Material Girls
Why Reality Matters for Feminism
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
'A clear, concise, easy-to-read account of the issues between sex, gender and feminism . . . an important book' Evening Standard
'A call for cool heads at a time of great heat and a vital reminder that revolutions don't always end well' Sunday Times
Material Girls is a timely and trenchant critique of the influential theory that we all have an inner feeling known as a gender identity, and that this feeling is more socially significant than our biological sex.
Professor Kathleen Stock surveys the philosophical ideas that led to this point, and closely interrogates each one, from De Beauvoir's statement that, 'One is not born, but rather becomes a woman' (an assertion she contends has been misinterpreted and repurposed), to Judith Butler's claim that language creates biological reality, rather than describing it. She looks at biological sex in a range of important contexts, including women-only spaces and resources, healthcare, epidemiology, political organization and data collection.
Material Girls makes a clear, humane and feminist case for our retaining the ability to discuss reality, and concludes with a positive vision for the future, in which trans rights activists and feminists can collaborate to achieve some of their political aims.
Customer Reviews
Material Girls: Kathleen Stock
I have to take issue with the earlier reviewer. This is a brave and necessary book. I reecently heard someone say that Stock is a Kantian analytic philosopher and not a specialist in the field of gender studies, as if that somehow disqualified her from writing on the subject of gender. Far from it. What is needed more than ever in this field is the application of cool, clear and logical thinking, all of which Stock supplies with an intellectual detachment that perhaps only an analytic philosopher, trained in the fundamentals of logical thinking can supply. Essential reading on the subject I would say.