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The Between Sex And Gender

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How would you define your sex? Would you define it the same as you would your gender? In this paper, I will be discussing the common misconception associated with the relationship between sex and gender, and answering the question: “Is gender real?” I will also be relating the answer to this question to the epistemic virtue of wisdom. First, I will begin by giving the definitions of gender and sex, while pointing out the obvious differences between them, and explaining the realist’s, anti-realist’s, and skeptic’s approach to these two terms. I will also give the definition of what a natural kind is in order to make these approaches clearer. After I’ve given the three approaches, I will explain why the anti-realist’s approach is the most …show more content…

Before I explain these approaches, I feel that it will be helpful for me to give you the definition of a ‘natural kind’ because it plays a huge role in all three of the previously mentioned approaches. A natural kind is natural clear-cut grouping of real things – it is a way to naturally categorize a group of things that have one or more specific things in common. Keeping in mind the definition of natural kinds, you will be able to see how they will play a role in the differences of these approaches.
The realist approach is very demanding and traditional. Realists set out to find natural kinds and believe that these natural kinds are real. The reason realists believe in natural kinds is because, being a realist, they are required to demand two things: whatever they’re looking for needs to accurately describe the world, and whatever they’re looking for needs to accurately predict the world. Natural kinds form a sort of natural boundary that shows what is inside and outside of its boundary, and by doing this, it is accurately describing the world through categorizations; this is the reason realists believe in natural kinds. Because they believe in natural kinds, they believe that there is one thing that all women or all men have in common that make them who they are. They also only believe in two gender categories - the two genders being male and female.
The second approach that I will discuss

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