ABSTRACT
The feminist focus on gender has its own problems. Periodically, social scientists notice that the life circumstances, experiences, or behaviors of women and men are not always identical. Since the 1970s, academics have debated various tenets of feminism. Indeed, the very term seems to hold numerous, sometimes contradictory meanings among those of different scholarly traditions. Despite the squabbles, every academic researcher appears to accept one central tenet of feminism: Gender constitutes a fundamental category of analysis. The most serious is essentialism, or the tendency to think that all women are essentially the same as each other. In looking at the differences between the genders, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and others can lose sight of the variations among women. The very category “woman” means that different women’s experiences— and their conditions of living— are essentialized, at least to some degree.
