Name: Eytan Deener-Agus
Major: Philosophy, Philosophy and Science concentration
Graduation Year: May 2020
Faculty Supervisor: Karen Detlefsen
Project Title: “Men Cannot Get Pregnant” and Other Falsehoods You Were Always Told: A Marxist Critique of the Western Gender Binary
Abstract:
It is clear that the gender binary as two distinct and mutually exclusive gender categories fails to make room for the lives of those who outwardly defy the binary like nonbinary, genderqueer, and transgender folk. In this paper I will argue that the gender binary fails even those who have never questioned their gender (like cisgender folk) because adherence to strict gender roles frustrates the possibility of self-actualization. To demonstrate this phenomenon and provide a basis for critique, I will engage with a Marxist theory of alienation from labor within an ideology of Capitalism. I will abstract Marx’s distinct analytic method of critique from the content of labor and Capitalism then reapply the same basic structure of analysis to the gender binary ideology to demonstrate how the gender binary alienates individuals from their authentic selves. I will conclude that we must abandon the gender binary as a system of social categorization to create the possibility of living in accordance with our authentic selves.