Understanding gender and its relation to the philosophy of personal identity

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to establish that there is no metaphysical account of personal identity that requires us to regard gender as essential to our identities. I shall begin by examining forms of essentialism as well as rejections of essentialism, relating these theories to the issue at hand.
Secondly, I shall evaluate the social existence of gender and the impact it has upon individual lives and communities. I shall go on to evaluate psychological accounts of identity to determine how
gender adheres with understandings of personal identity as a psychological continuity. I will then look to the antithesis of such views and examine physiological accounts of identity, again relating
these to the issues of gender. Finally, I shall compare what each of these theories tells us about the
existence of gender in our lives and conclude that gender is a social construct, and that since no legitimate metaphysical account of identity encourages belief in gender essentialism, harmful prevalent attitudes to gender within society are ultimately irrational.