The issue of gender has never been shrouded in more error or confusion. But Abigail Favale’s new book, “The Genesis of Gender,” offers a lucid analysis that does not shy away from boldly (though lovingly) defending the truth.
The central issue, as with so many issues of our time, concerns truth itself, and whether it is something we create or something we discover. In this case, are categories like “male” and “female” revealed through our natures, or have we simply invented them? As someone who has gone from Evangelical Christianity, to progressive feminism, to Catholicism, and who taught gender theory for many years, Professor Favale has unique insight into the matter.
Of course, modern theorists argue that gender is a social construct, meaning that we can choose our gender rather than simply conform to our male or female natures. To understand this view, Favale acquaints the reader with a brief history of feminism. As she notes, the earliest women’s rights movement grew out of the movement to abolish slavery. In fact, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and the famed slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass were involved in both abolitionism and the push for female suffrage, which was achieved in 1920. This “first wave” of feminism emphasized legal representation for women. Thirty years later, a “second wave” led by Betty Friedan emerged in the 1960s. The vision of this wave was not simply legal parity, but political and social equality. This meant seeking equal opportunity in the workforce as well as sexual, or “reproductive,” freedom. Whereas the first-wave feminists generally opposed abortion, seeing it as anathema to their vision, the second-wave feminists ended up largely embracing it in the name of a new notion of personal freedom. By the 1990s, a third wave had surfaced, which accelerated the momentum toward unrestrained sexual license and individual choice, and which cemented feminism’s embrace of abortion. Furthermore, it was during this time that the term “gender” came into vogue, when it was detached from the notion of biological sex. Thus, by the late 2000s this detachment had not only been mainstreamed within feminism, but it helped enable the fourth and current wave to challenge the very idea that there are fixed meanings behind the terms “male” and “female” and “man” and “woman.” This modern iteration of feminism sees these terms as vestiges of institutional power and oppression that must be eradicated for the sake of our freedom to choose our gender identities.
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Now, upon reading this account one cannot help but wonder why feminism evolved so radically from its origins. Why, after all, did the fight for legal, social and political equality evolve into a fight for the abolition of the meaning of the terms “man” and “woman”? While the story is complex, a major reason lies in the philosophical currents that feminism imbibed as the 20th century unfolded. The key figures who shaped these currents were philosophers Friedrich Nietszche, Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucalt, who refashioned concepts of freedom and purpose in light of the brands of atheism they espoused. For Nietszche, the death of God meant that there was a vacuum where God once provided a sense of purpose, and this vacuum could now be filled by an individual’s “will to power,” or self-determination. No longer must we conform ourselves to objective reality. Instead, we are free to create our own reality. In a similar vein, Sartre reversed a key philosophical assumption and further promoted this revised understanding of freedom. Traditionally, philosophers maintained that a thing’s “whatness” or essence signified its nature and purpose. In other words, the essence of a thing was thought to precede its existence. But Sartre flipped this equation, arguing instead that “existence precedes essence,” that is, that human beings determine their own natures and invent their own purposes. This, he argued, is the key to achieving real freedom. Completing this “postmodern” picture, Foucalt added the claim that there is no such thing as “truth.” Rather, any truth claim is merely a disguised attempt for power. That is, the ideas and paradigms that dominate society are simply those that have received the most institutional power. This means that the task of changing a key framework–for example, the framework that posits there are only two genders–requires tremendous political and social leverage. Hence the mass coordinated effort to “educate” us on the proper use of pronouns at major corporations and academic institutions, and on popular websites and social media platforms.
These, then, are the confused, contradictory and ultimately self-defeating crossroads at which modern gender theory stands. If the reader wonders whether this theory is in fact self-refuting, simply ask the following question about one of its central claims: Is it objectively true that “there is no objective truth”? If so, then there is in fact objective truth, namely, the objective truth that “there is no objective truth.” If, on the other hand, it is false that “there is no objective truth,” then it is self-defeating. Of course, gender theorists tend to cast doubt on reason itself, seeing it as a mere tool for power rather than a tool for discerning truth, so pointing out contradictions in their logic may leave them unimpressed. Nevertheless, exposing their errors helps illuminate the truth for those who are not already under their sway. Furthermore, it also helps inoculate those who must undergo “gender training” at their jobs or in school. Still, and as vital as reason is for promoting truth, Favale is quick to stress that we must also listen to and engage with gender theorists with dignity and love. For all error is ultimately grounded in truth (otherwise no one would ever be deceived), so understanding where they are coming from not only helps us more effectively convey the truth, but it also helps us treat those who differ with us with the compassion and care that all human beings deserve.
And as anyone who reads it will discover, the insights, personal stories and life lessons in this book profit the reader immensely in this regard. Not only does Favale offer a powerful defense of the truth, but her compassionate tone and personal story are bound to move anyone who picks it up, which makes it an essential antidote to the mass confusion on this issue in our time.
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