Table Of ContentCategories We Live By
Studies in Feminist Philosophy is designed to showcase cutting-e dge monographs and collections that display the
full range of feminist approaches to philosophy, that push feminist thought in important new directions, and that
display the outstanding quality of feminist philosophical thought.
STUDIES IN FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY
Linda Alcoff, Hunter College and the CUNY Serene Khader, Brooklyn College and CUNY
Graduate Center Graduate Center
Elizabeth Barnes, University of Virginia Helen Longino, Stanford University
Lorraine Code, York University, Toronto Catriona Mackenzie, Macquarie University
Penelope Deutscher, Northwestern University Mari Mikkola, Humboldt University, Berlin
Ann Garry, California State University, Los Angeles Sally Scholz, Villanova University
Sally Haslanger, Massachusetts Institute of Laurie Shrage, Florida International University
Technology Lisa Tessman, Binghamton University
Alison Jaggar, University of Colorado, Boulder Nancy Tuana, Pennsylvania State University
Published in the Series:
Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law
Philosophers Elizabeth Brake
Cheshire Calhoun Out from the Shadows: Analytic Feminist Contributions
Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self to Traditional Philosophy
Linda Martín Alcoff Edited by Sharon L. Crasnow and
Women and Citizenship Anita M. Superson
Edited by Marilyn Friedman The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial
Women’s Liberation and the Sublime: Feminism, Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant
Postmodernism, Environment Imaginations
Bonnie Mann José Medina
Analyzing Oppression Simone de Beauvoir and the Politics of Ambiguity
Ann E. Cudd Sonia Kruks
Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Identities and Freedom: Feminist Theory Between
Location Power and Connection
Lorraine Code Allison Weir
Self Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist
Normalized Bodies Philosophy
Cressida J. Heyes Edited by Catriona Mackenzie, Wendy Rogers, and
Susan Dodds
Family Bonds: Genealogies of Race and
Gender Sovereign Masculinity: Gender Lessons from the War
on Terror
Ellen K. Feder
Bonnie Mann
Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics,
Second Edition Autonomy, Oppression, and Gender
Margaret Urban Walker Edited by Andrea Veltman and Mark Piper
The Moral Skeptic Our Faithfulness to the Past: Essays on the Ethics and
Politics of Memory
Anita M. Superson
Sue Campbell
“You’ve Changed”: Sex Reassignment and Personal
Edited by Christine M. Koggel and Rockney Jacobsen
Identity
Edited by Laurie J. Shrage The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression
Shannon Sullivan
Dancing with Iris: The Philosophy of Iris
Marion Young Disorientation and Moral Life
Edited by Ann Ferguson and Mechthild Nagel Ami Harbin
Philosophy of Science after Feminism The Wrong of Injustice: Dehumanization and Its Role
in Feminist Philosophy
Janet A. Kourany
Mari Mikkola
Shifting Ground: Knowledge and Reality, Transgression
and Trustworthiness Beyond Speech: Pornography and Analytic Feminist
Philosophy
Naomi Scheman
Mari Mikkola
The Metaphysics of Gender
Equal Citizenship and Public Reason: A Feminist
Charlotte Witt
Political Liberalism
Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide? Christie Hartley and Lori Watson
Anita L. Allen
Categories We Live By: The Construction of Sex,
Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment Gender, Race, and Other Social Categories
Serene Khader Ásta
C ategories We Live By
The Construction of Sex, Gender,
Race, and Other Social Categories
Ásta
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sveinsdóttir, Ásta, author.
Title: Categories we live by : the construction of sex, gender, race, and other
social categories / Ásta.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017059872 (print) | LCCN 2018020333 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190256821
(online course) | ISBN 9780190256814 (updf) | ISBN 9780190256807 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780190256791 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Group identity. | Population.
Classification: LCC HM753 (ebook) | LCC HM753.S94 2018 (print) | DDC 305—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059872
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Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
Handa Dore, Þóru yngri, Þóru eldri, Sveini, og Sally
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Permissions xi
Introduction: Social Categories 1
CHAPTER 1 The Conferralist Framework 7
CHAPTER 2 Social Construction as Social Significance 34
CHAPTER 3 Sex and Gender: From Beauvoir to Butler 54
CHAPTER 4 Conferralism about Sex and Gender 70
CHAPTER 5 Conferralism about Other Social Categories 93
CHAPTER 6 Identity as Social Location 114
Conclusion— Categories We Live By: Systematicity and
Oppression 127
Bibliography 129
Index 135
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Ia m indebted to many people for feedback, support, and conversations re-
lated to material in this book. I would like to thank Linda Alcoff, Elizabeth
Barnes, Erin Beeghly, Aaron Bentley, Talia Bettcher, the late Kalman Bland,
Garrett Bredeson, Sylvain Bromberger, Åsa Burman, Alex Byrne, Cheshire
Calhoun, Rachel Cooper, Ann Cudd, Robin Dembroff, Esa Díaz-L eón,
Andy Egan, Jeanna Eichenbaum, the late Iris Einheuser, Brian Epstein,
Matthew Eshleman, Eyja Margrét Brynjarsdóttir, Barbara Fultner, Ann
Garry, Nathaniel Goldberg, Rebecca Groves, Carol Gould, Kim Q. Hall,
Kristin Hanson, Haraldur Ólafsson, Elizabeth Harman, Dana Harvey, Kattis
Honkanen, Jennifer Hudin, Andrew Janiak, Ada Jaarsma, Marija Jankovic,
Katharine Jenkins, Stephanie Kapusta, Abigail Klassen, Beatrice Kobow,
Colin Koopman, Rae Langton, Francesca Lattanzi, Hilde Lindemann,
Jamie Lindsay, Kirk Ludwig, Rebecca Mason, Mary Kate McGowen, Sarah
McGrath, Fiona Macpherson, Katalin Makkai, Ishani Maitra, Ron Mallon,
Kate Marshall, Jennifer McKitrick, Mari Mikkola, Uma Narayan, Ian
Newman, Olga Bergmann, Jeffrey Paris, Caroline Perry, Elizabeth Potter,
Lucy Randall, Agustín Rayo, Katherine Ritchie, Joshua Rivkin, Adina
Roskies, Abraham Roth, Dennis Rothermel, Jocelyn Saidenberg, Cat Saint-
Croix, David Sanford, Marya Schechtman, Michael Schmitz, John Searle,
Paul Sherwin, Laurie Shrage, Anita Silvers, Walter Sinnott-A rmstrong,
Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir, Rebecca Solnit, Alice Sowaal, Natalie Stoljar,
Abraham Stone, Robert Stalnaker, Christopher Sturr, Sveinn Einarsson,
Jacqueline Taylor, Brian Thomas, Amie Thomasson, Bas van Fraassen,
Marga Vega, Blakey Vermeule, Catherine Wearing, Ralph Wedgwood,
