Jan Bergstra & Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team
On Feb. 24, physicist and journalist Arnout Jaspers posted a critical piece about “woke” on Wynia’s Week.
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Read Arnout Jaspers’ piece on Wynia’s Week:
On an MRI scan you can see a clear difference between women’s and men’s brains, but that may not be true according to wokists
Apart from relevant information about recent research in the field of new brain physiology and its FMRI imaging, the text contains some misunderstandings that we would like to point out.
1. Is gender merely skin deep according to “wokists”?
Jaspers writes that “according to wokists” sex is merely skin deep and is limited to trivial differences in the sex organs. All other male/female differences would be a matter of gender.
Now we do not know who “the wokists” are in Jaspers’ eyes, but we do not encounter this anywhere in the literature on gender theory. People do distinguish between the biological sexes and usually do not claim at all that those differences are limited to external characteristics. Chromosomal typing, for example, is not a matter of external characteristics. Nor are distinctions concerning the relative size of gonads and gametes.
In gender theory, an important current is what we call co-essentialism. This is the idea that whether one is male or female is determined solely by one’s so-called gender identity. The latter is a concept about which you can find little content, but it is logically completely independent of lichemical gender. The bottom line in practical terms is that according to co-essentialism, a person can choose whether one is a man or a woman.
We agree that co-essentialism is in the “woke” corner, even though woke is often defined vaguely. Co-essentialism is certainly radical, and sharp criticism of it is justified. The debate on gender in the Netherlands could well use more gender-critical voices (see also blog AGTRT-BF16). But that does not mean that any view that might be called woke can simply be linked to co-essentialism.
Read more about the importance of a gender critical movement in the Netherlands:
Netherlands needs a gender-critical movement
Jaspers would do well to phrase his criticism of woke more carefully. First, by explaining more clearly what positions fall under “wokism” in his experience. Second, by indicating who defends that wokism (and then more specifically than “the wokists”). And third, by ensuring that authors who work so precisely that they do not fall under “the wokists” also do not face false accusations (e.g., that they cannot tell sex and gender apart properly).
2. Is it evident that man and woman differ substantially?
Then Jaspers reports that “any normal person” knows that men and women differ substantially. Let us assume that what is meant here is bodily male and bodily female.
On this point, the research is far from clear. But the classic view that “men” are stronger at math than “women” is now not so evident. Surely there appear to be all sorts of socially determined factors behind this that play a larger role than originally thought. The situation is not yet completely clear, but in astronomy and the medical sciences, for example, women are now doing very strongly.
We agree that certainly in the social sciences more attention may be paid to the innate differences between (physically) male and (physically) female, even if those differences are often subtle. In any case, it should not be a taboo in science to seriously investigate differences that cannot be explained by socialization. But it is not enough at this point to refer, as Jaspers does, to some kind of general consensus to make the essential difference between men and women plausible. There are too many examples of misjudgments in that area.
3. Does functional MRI of the brain turn gender theory on its head?
That biological gender can be approached in different ways was already known, and so now an approach is being added: AI-based analysis of functional MRI of the brain.
This matters less to gender theory than Jaspers seems to think. The fact that in addition to looking at chromosomes, looking at gonads and gametes, looking at hormone levels, you can now look at MRI brain scans, and always with high correlation between them, is not of very great importance to gender theory.
However, functional MRI does carry potential for gender theory. It may thus prove in the future that suspected correlations between physical gender and observed behavior find a cause in mental structures already present at birth, rather than being a side effect of socialization (which is certainly also conceivable).
We must keep open the possibility that science will reveal differences between male and female physical gender more strongly than it has so far, and that MRI of the brain will play a decisive role in this. The research Jaspers discusses will not turn gender theory on its head, but it does have relevance. Not wanting to hear anything about this in principle because such a thing as a story is ideologically undesirable is a form of “wokism” that, like Jaspers, we can only speak out against.
4. According to woke, should essentialism be eradicated?
Then Jaspers argues that essentialism, according to wokists, should be eradicated. And this, he says, is strange, because it denies evidences that were common as recently as 10 years ago.
But essentialism only wants to be lost in the definition of male and female (and possibly neutral) as socially useful terms. Everyone knows that bodily gender exists in addition and can have different meanings, even in co-essentialist gender theory. Yet the question that arises here is whether Jaspers wants to defend essentialism itself. If not, he wants to get rid of it himself, right? If so, the question in point 5 below arises.
5. What is a transgender person?
It is relevant to know how Jaspers describes a transgender person. That cannot be based on what he writes in this piece. Of course, we do not require him to acknowledge the existence of transgender persons, but if he is transexclusive (i.e., denies the existence of transgender persons) then it is only fair to add that. There is then solid retort to that, just as there is to TERF ideologues (see our blog AGTRT-BF43) and TEFC ideologues (see AGTRT-BF44).
Conclusion: the gender debate must be conducted more carefully
Jaspers makes far too easy a case in this piece, in our opinion. We agree that criticism of “woke” is important, but it needs to be phrased more precisely. The same goes for Jaspers’ opponents, by the way. Jaspers’ text immediately prompted an “X” from Asha ten Broeke with little constructive content:
It is unfortunate that it is so common on X to respond in such nonsensical and indecent ways. It certainly would not have been out of place for a journalist from the Volkskrant to simply address that text in terms of content. The Volkskrant should be ashamed of such connections, because from Ten Broeke himself, unfortunately, one cannot expect such shame. From the looks of it, Ten Broeke is unfamiliar with the concept of discussion and with the fact that one does not have to agree with her to participate in a reasonable debate.
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