Subject-Contextualism and the Meaning of Gender Terms

In this paper, I engage with a recent contextualist account of gender terms (particularly, “woman”) proposed by Díaz-León, E. 2016. “Woman as a Politically Significant Term: A Solution to the Puzzle.” 31 (2): 245–58. Díaz-León’s main aim is to improve both on previous contextualist and non-contextua...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of social ontology Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 69 - 83
Main Author Zeman, Dan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Vienna De Gruyter 02.10.2020
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
University of Vienna
Subjects
attributor-contextualism
Contextualism
Feminism
Gender
gender terms
Medicine
Politics
semantics
trans women
Transgender persons
Women
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Summary:In this paper, I engage with a recent contextualist account of gender terms (particularly, “woman”) proposed by Díaz-León, E. 2016. “Woman as a Politically Significant Term: A Solution to the Puzzle.” 31 (2): 245–58. Díaz-León’s main aim is to improve both on previous contextualist and non-contextualist views and solve a certain puzzle for feminists. Central to this task is putting forward a view that allows trans women who did not undergo gender-affirming medical procedures to use the gender terms of their choice to self-identify. My goal is to investigate Díaz-León’s proposal, point out (what I take to be) several shortcomings of the view and discuss possible replies on her part.
ISSN:2196-9655
2196-9663
DOI:10.1515/jso-2020-0026