AHF
Just a quick paper recommendation in the metaphysics of gender.
Mason (2024) is a response to Alex Byrne’s case for thinking that women are adult human females. The argumentative structure is amazingly clear.
My argumentative strategy is to consider several ways of analysing the property of being female: in terms of chromosomal properties (having XX chromosomes), gametic properties (producing ova), phenotypic properties (having breasts, having a vagina, having a uterus, etc.), and various combinations of these. I show that there are counterexamples to each analysis: for every way of analysing the property of being female, either there are some women who fail to have that property (thus it is false that necessarily, S is a woman only if S is an adult human female), or some men who have it (thus it is false that necessarily S is a woman if S is an adult human female). (180-181)
The paper is short (13 pages), direct, and politically significant. There have been arguments like this before, but Mason is coming from a social ontology background, so she puts it into ontological form.
I appeal to some of Mason’s arguments in my book. I recommend reading this paper or assigning it in a grad seminar on the metaphysics of gender.