5 Comments

Until the Spanish brand Zara arrived, the selection in UK men’s clothing stores was dire.

Expand full comment

Yes. There are several contexts to masculine v feminine.

To name a few:

Psychologically Archetypal

Behavioral - biology based

Behavioral - socially conditioned

Biological Gender

Sexual Orientation

You raise only the Halloween “socially conditioned” one in your article. Which imho is a very narrow perspective on the topic.

You also mention “feminist philosophy”. As if there was any sort of consensus in that arena.

While I appreciate your anecdotal “walk through the costume shop” observations, I believe the entire “gender studies” space could use a more useful framing, taxonomy, and definitional “level setting” to engage any productive dialogue.

Expand full comment

There's certainly always room for enlarging the context and further detailing competing points of view. Inevitably the essay is a limited medium for communicating ideas. However I will say that there are points of consensus within feminist theory. The notion that human beings, be they male, female or intersexed, are not biologically determined by their reproductive sex is one such point of agreement. There are many differences of opinion on other matters of course. In any case I appreciate you taking the time to both read the peace and share your perspective

Expand full comment

Dr. Nall,

I would be curious about your interpretations and opinions of Dr. Carl Jung’s study of the masculine Animus archetype within a woman, and the feminine Anima archetype within a man.

Expand full comment

My understanding is that Jung's notion of the masculine and feminine refer to symbolic archetypes and human potentialities and not reproductive biological categories. If that is correct then to speak of the masculine and feminine is really to speak of different constellations of human characteristics. If this is true and people are not being essentialized based on their chromosomes and primary sexual characteristics, then I think there would be no immediate objection other than recognizing that most people will presume that to speak of masculine and feminine is to speak of biology. The other matter raised by feminist philosophy is wherher or not it makes sense to group characteristics like logic and leadership together under the name masculine or some other name, and grouping characteristics like compassion and sensitivity or emotion under the name feminine or some other name, I think is open for debate. A range of thinkers from Rolling May to Alison Jaggar have helped us see that reason and emotion are not as radically distinct as we, through a patriarchal worldview, have been led to believe. Here I find Erich Fromm particularly helpful in helping us recognize that reason is in many ways activated by care and concern. And there is plenty of logic that goes into empathy though it may sometimes occur at an intuitive level which may deserve to be recognized as distinct from conscious reasoning.

Expand full comment