THE CRISIS OF GENDER IDENTITY IN THE MODERN WORLD

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THE CRISIS OF GENDER IDENTITY IN THE MODERN WORLD

Journal Title: Філософські обрії - Year 2018, Vol 0, Issue 39

Abstract

The article gives a philosophical understanding of the concept of “gender identity”, reveals its structure, place and role in the formation of a person’s social identity. The gender identity phenomenon is disclosed through the concept of “gender”, which affects the socio-cultural gender. Gender identity is interpreted as a person’s inner self-image as a representative of a particular gender. The article argues that gender identity is the basic structure of social identity and aims at identifying a person with the image of a socio-cultural entity. Like the concept of gender, it is considered to be a socio-cultural phenomenon, having its symbolic designation. Based on the history background of development of philosophical ideas about gender, it shows evolution of the statement of gender identity problem. When covering the normality of gender identity, attention is drawn to its correlation with the biological sex. It is noted that, being connected with the latter, the gender identity is not the same. The assessment of this discrepancy as a norm or as a pathology depends on the gender system established in the society. In this regard, this article shows the difference between binary and non-binary gender systems; covers influence on their formation of religious and political factors in traditional and non-traditional societies.The article also discloses the notion of the crisis of gender identity and analyzes the main approaches to its understanding, produced both in classical, non-classical (philosophical anthropology) and post-non-classical philosophy (postmodernism and poststructuralism). On the basis of their comparison, it is proved that, according to classical ideas, the crisis of gender identity is a conflict between the biological and social, and in the post-non-classical paradigm it appears as a struggle of discourses for “possession of the body.”When discussing current debates in social philosophy about the decisive factors of influence on the formation of gender identity and the onset of a crisis, there is a special discussion of the controversy about the role of technological factors therein. We are talking, first of all, about the latest technologies in science, engineering, medicine and informatics. The article presents the main shifts that take place in these spheres, and analyzes their influence on the formation and crisis state of gender identity in the modern world.Understanding the crisis phenomena of gender identity leads the author to conclude that in today’s philosophy there exist three main approaches in assessing the role of technological factors in their occurrence (neo-luddism, transhumanism and co-evolutionism). Rejecting the technological determinism of transhumanism and biological determinism of neo-luddism, criticizing them for anti-humanistic and anti-social orientation, the author defends the intermediate position of “peaceful” coexistence of different worlds, i.e. biological, social, and technological. This implies the development of effective mechanisms for the person’s social adaptation to technological innovations in the field of gender relations, which, in turn, should be adequate to the human biological nature.To sum up, the work concludes that the preservation of gender identity in all its forms and dimensions should be based on responsible and society-controlled use of the latest technologies in the field of gender relations.

Authors and Affiliations

Олена Володимирівна ІЛЬЇНА

Keywords

EP ID EP502336
DOI 10.5281/zenodo.1296502
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