“You’re reducing People to their biology”

Argument Submitted by: D.B., PhD

Ah, the all-too-common Accusation of Reductionism. Reductionism is when a complex entity is defined as nothing but one or more of its parts, aspects, or functions. A person reduces X to Y when a person treats X as nothing more than Y or believes that one has wholly accounted for what X is by saying it is or does Y.

However, merely noting that a person is male does not entail that someone is reducing him to his sex. Likewise, noting that a person is female does not entail that someone is reducing her to her sex. A man doesn’t reduce a woman to a sex object simply by being sexually attracted to her. A boyfriend does not reduce his girlfriend to a sex object by wanting to make love to her. A man reduces a woman to a sex object if he views her as nothing other than a thing existing for sex. Those who wish to Straw Man feminists by claiming they hate men or sex frequently fail to comprehend this distinction. To give another example outside the realm of sexual politics, the fact that I say I am made of atoms does not mean that I think I am nothing but a ball of atoms. I don’t have to deny that I’m made of atoms to claim that I’m more than a clump of atoms and entitled to ethical treatment etc. To say that I’m made of atoms is just an empirical fact. To say that I’m nothing more than a ball of atoms would be a metaphysical claim. It would mean that I have a reductionist ontology (“ontology” is a fancy word for the philosophy of what is/being).

What’s interesting about the accusation of reductionism is that it reveals that the speaker acknowledges biological sex. Some adherents of gender identity theory appear to believe that sex itself can be changed, while others appear to believe biological sex cannot change but gender can such that sex may be incongruous with gender. You might note to them upfront that they are implicitly acknowledging your statement of biological fact in their very accusation. Afterall, how could you reduce a transwoman to being male if that person were not, in fact, male?

You could also respond to someone accusing you of reductionism by saying that a description does not entail reductionism. Calling a person “male” does not reduce him to his sex anymore than observing that I am right-handed reduces me to my hand. You might also mention that the terms and phrases we use depend on context. Referring to a student as a “left-hander” would be extremely relevant when seating her/him at a desk for a test, while referring to the same student as a “left-hander” when discussing how good of a conversationalist she is would be bizarre. Therefore, you won’t necessarily refer to the same thing or person with the same word depending on the question you are answering or the issue you are addressing. If you are talking about filing taxes, it will be highly relevant to talk about whether a person is married or unmarried, but it would be uncouth to refer to your professor as an “unmarried woman.” There are contexts in which you might refer to a woman as a mother and contexts in which you would refer to her as a sister, as a mammal, as a dog-owner, as right-handed, as a coin collector, or as a janitor, etc.

Furthermore, the same term can take on a different meaning in a different context. If a member of INCEL refers to women as “females” the term is derogatory because he’s using it specifically to dehumanize women. His language conveys an animalistic view of women as sexual objects, not as equal persons worthy of intersubjective relationship. When feminist uses the term “female” in a discussion of women’s sports, the term takes on an entirely different meaning. She’s not viewing women animalistically, she’s bringing up the relevance of biology to fairness in sports.

You might also ask the person accusing you of reductionism if (s)he believes it is likewise reductionist to refer to women as “menstruators,” “birthing bodies,” “chest-feeders,” etc. as many trans rights activists have proposed we do. You can add reasons why you believe those terms feel reductionistic. For example, you could say that the phrase “menstruating woman” does not feel objectifying while “menstruator” does because in the first instance menstruation is a thing happening to a person while in the second instance the person becomes menstruation—she is identified with a physical event rather than being treated as a person who is experiencing a physical event.