ABSTRACT
This chapter questions whether Hume thought that the minds of women were fundamentally different from those of men. We address this question with particular consideration of whether Hume’s account of women and gender roles is indicative of a gender essentialism or a gender constructivism. We find that Hume’s account is mixed. While there are many examples in his writing of a sophisticated awareness of the ways in which ideas about gender are culturally constructed, he is also clearly committed to certain beliefs about fundamental, particularly physical, differences between men and women, and this results in a clear thread of gender essentialism. We argue that Hume’s gender essentialism can be usefully linked to his commitments to certain physiological theories of mind of his day, particularly those of sort espoused by Nicholas Malebranche. Were his commitments to this false physical science of mind removed, we argue that Hume would be left with a largely constructivist account of gender roles, and a picture of mind without sex-specific characteristics.
