@Philosophim's discussion post about transgenderism got me thinking about gender theory; and I wanted to give my account of its faults and offer a neo-Aristotelian alternative.

Gender theory views 'sex' as 'the biological characteristics of a being that defines its procreative role in the species', whereas 'gender' is 'the socially constructed roles, identities, and expressions of people'.

The problems with this theory are as follows:

1. The divorcing of sex and gender renders gender as merely a personality type that someone could assume, which is an ahistorical account of gender.

2. The very social norms, roles, identities, and expressions involved in gender that are studied in gender studies are historically the symbolic upshot of sex: they are not divorced from each other. E.g., the mars symbol represents maleness, flowers in one's hair is representational of femininity, etc.). If they are truly divorced, then the study collapses into a study of the indefinite personality types of people could express and the roles associated with them.

When conjoined with liberal agendas, it becomes incredibly problematic because it is used to forward the view that we should scrap treating people based off of their nature and instead swap it for treating them based off of their personality type; which is an inversion of ethics into hyper-libertarianism.

How do we account, then, for gender and sex that is congruent with basic biology and essence realism?

Sex is 'a distinct type of substance which serves a specific role in the procreation of the species'; and gender is 'sex' in this sense. This is semantically most connected with the historical usages and avoids confusing socially or psychologically constructed personality types with the expressions and symbolism of procreative natures: it avoids conflating the symbol representation of something with that something. The outward expression of gender, which grounds the social roles and identities of people, comes in to legitimate types: gravitational and symbolic. A gravitational expression of gender is any expression that a healthy member of that gender would gravitate towards (e.g., males gravitating towards being providers and protectors); and a symbolic expression of gender is any expression which represents some idea legitimately connected to the gender-at-hand (e.g., the mars symbol representing maleness). Both types of gender expression are grounded ontologically in the sex (gender) inscribed in the nature (essence) of the given substance; and, consequently, express something objective (stance-independent). Any expression of a substance that does not express something objective in this manner is not a gender expression: it is a social and/or psychological expression akin to a personality type. Personality types can be, though, an expression of gender; such as men gravitating towards jobs dealing with things (e.g., engineering, architecture, etc.) whereas women gravitate towards jobs dealing with people (e.g., nursing, daycaring, etc.). Likewise, a personality type, though, can be something which is not the upshot of gender; such as being short fused in anger, being an avid basketball player, etc.

Interestingly, all tendencies and expressions that a substance with a gender will be an admixture of both gravitational gender expression and more loosely connected personality traits that are influenced by their upbringing, culture, etc. However, it is still important to separate them conceptually to avoid collapsing gender into personality traits; and, subsequently, from collapsing social norms and roles into cultural prejudices.

What are your guys' thoughts?