Abstract

That aristotle should have been inclined to think of women as defective men is, Perhaps, Overdetermined. But the psychological and sociological factors that contributed to his male chauvinism should not be allowed to obscure the role his metaphysics played in the way he conceived gender difference. Basic metaphysical constraints left aristotle with no entirely satisfactory way of understanding gender identity. Since we today are still so strongly influenced by aristotle's ways of thinking about essence and classification, His problem with gender difference is also our problem