WIP Talk: Rebecca Caithamer
Work in Progress
September 23, 2026
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Location
1430 UH
Calendar
Download iCal FileAristotle’s Non-Aristotelian Account of Gender
Abstract: Aristotle claims in Politics 1.5 that women are inferior “by nature,” yet neither his biological nor metaphysical accounts of sexual difference straightforwardly support this conclusion. In this paper, I examine Aristotle’s biological and metaphysical texts to ask whether his account of sexual difference actually entails this political hierarchy. I argue that it does not. While Aristotle identifies biological and metaphysical differences between men and women, these differences alone fail to establish the inferiority he claims in Politics. Instead, I suggest that the problem lies in Aristotle’s scientific methodology: gender ideology seeps into his interpretation of biological difference and begins to function as though it were a natural explanatory principle. Drawing on feminist scholarship about gender ideology, I argue that Aristotle mistakes socially habituated gender norms for nature itself. Thus, Aristotle’s account of gender is “non-Aristotelian” insofar as it involves the sort of dogmatic assumptions his science aims to avoid.
Date posted
Sep 13, 2026
Date updated
Sep 13, 2026