Pronouns and Personhood

Exploring the Construction of Gender Identities from the Feminist Perspective

Abstract

This paper argues that that to have gender is not having certain reproductive anatomy, but is instead the social meaning of sex. Gender has now become a social construct imposed upon the human person, thwarting their ability to identify as the social gender they subscribe to. Because we seek to identify and organize persons into socio-sexual hierarchy, the gender revolution of the twenty-first century, especially through the identification of personal pronouns, poses al arger question, greater than one of gender orientation. While sociologists are addressing the recent effects of personal pronoun usage, the purpose of this inquiry is to acknowledge the lack of new research material in philosophy and gender/queer theory, an interdisciplinary field that requires attention. I propose a reevaluation of the problems of gender identity along with the intersection of free will and biological determinism and to fill in the gaps in previous thinking surrounding social construction, the self, and personhood—all questions prompted by the gender revolution.