Maybe it is just the psychology major in me coming out, but I immediately thought of different attatchment styles and the assocaitions between self perception. Heres a really interesting study done by the NIH on this topic!

In some pre-colonial societies all matter was imbued with a sort of animism or spiritual properties that made them sacred. This extended to what we would now consider objects. The process of objectification became acute with civilization seeing nature as separate from society and then treating it as an object. All of the criteria Nussbaum describes for objectification (instrumentality, denial of autonomy, inertness, fungibility, violability, ownership, and denial of subjectivity) are all systematized and accelerated in this newly emerging industrialized way of thinking about things as separate from us and allowing us to use objects (and people as objects) as private property.

Murray Bookchin proposed that domination (which meets all of the criteria of Nussbaum’s definition of objectification) of the natural world started with humans dominating other humans. Kurdish philosopher Abdullah Öcalan drawing on the work of socialist archaeologist V. Gordon Childe took this analysis a step further and believed that the first colony in history was women and therefore a feminist praxis must be the guiding principle of any revolutionary movement.

In the Middle East in the Kurdish region in North and East Syria known as “Rojava”, an armed movement lead by women guided by these ideas has emerged over the past 40+ years. They are united against patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism, ecocide, genocide/ethnic cleansing, and other forms of domination. I have known a number of friends and comrades who have went there from anywhere between one and four years to learn from the women’s movement.

Attached is a photo from the revolution that has been happening since 2012 and includes the Women’s Protection Unit (YPJ) which is made up of women and genderqueer people, the village of Jinwar that is comprised of only women escaping patriarchal violence, and women revolutionaries who have sacrificed so much in the fight against patriarchy and fascism.

Based on the body of evidence I believe that research linking larger amygdalas to conservative ideology is not phrenological or psychocultural because it is based on modern neuroscience, which uses empirical methods like brain imaging to study neural activity and structure. Phrenology, in contrast, was a pseudoscience that inaccurately tried to link skull shape to personality traits without any scientific evidence. Current research on the amygdala focuses on its role in processing fear and emotion, using measurable brain functions rather than outdated theories about physical skull features predicting behavior or beliefs.

Furthermore, the directionality of cause is important in distinguishing phrenological or psychocultural associations from those based on empirical evidence. If we were to claim that large amygdalas cause conservative ideologies, it would echo phrenology by implying a fixed, inherent biological basis for complex beliefs. However, if the relationship is framed as correlational—with environmental and cognitive factors shaping both brain structure and ideology—then the explanation remains grounded in modern neuroscience rather than outdated, deterministic views.

My primary criticism of Alcoff is her omission of gender expressions in pre-capitalist and pre-colonial societies. In many of these societies, gender roles were either almost non-existent or vastly different from how they are now.

For example, in Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch, she writes, “[w]ith the demise of the subsistence economy that had prevailed in pre-capitalist Europe, the unity of production and reproduction which has been typical of all societies based on production-for-use came to an end, as these activities became the carriers of different social relations and were sexually differentiated [emphasis mine]” (p. 74).

Federici hints at much less differentiated gender relations, and this quote specifically highlights that gender and gender roles were not particularly integral to pre-capitalist Western Europe. The ruling class introduced gender difference as a mechanism to create and enforce the emerging gender binary to subjugate the lower classes, and especially women, under their authority.

Additionally, other literature points to Indigenous societies where gender was understood as fluid or more than a binary. Even the roles of men and women in these societies differed significantly from the constructions imposed by colonial powers.

Moreover, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that women in some prehistoric societies did not perform the gender roles later projected onto them. This reflects a bias in popular interpretations of prehistory, which tends to impose presentist, patriarchal views.

Anthropologists Sarah Lacy and Cara Ocobock have published research based on archaeological and physiological evidence, showing that women—despite distinct phenotypic characteristics—did not assume passive roles in society based on physiological differences. On the contrary, individuals with XX chromosomes likely hunted and defended themselves and their communities, much like their XY counterparts.

My question to Alcoff would be: If we are to believe that biological sex differences create gender, then why don’t we see consistent expressions/interpretations of sex and gender across all societies throughout history?

DOI: 10.1111/aman.13914

DOI: 10.1111/aman.13915

At first, I thought that Koyama had written her text in a way that is easy to digest simply for accessibility reasons, and while I do think this is true, I think that it mainly has to do with the fact that she does not have the MTF trans experience to draw upon. I think that recognizing this about the author's identity clarifies how one ought to read her manifesto. While I do share similar feelings regarding the critiques of this text, such as failing to provide an adequate intersectional analysis, Koyama aimed to connect trans issues to feminist discourse as a push towards inclusivity rather than provide a surface-level overview of an experience that isn't her own. With that, I think it was impossible from the get-go for Koyama to produce a 'complete' manifesto, but I also think that is a strength of this text because it invited other voices and ideas into a conversation that was, at the time, relatively limited in its diversity and representation. Overall, I do think she displays well how an ally can engage in identity-specific discourses without overstepping and simultaneously expand the scope of an important dialogue in a meaningful way.

To this post I have attached an article that dissolves common misconceptions about ABA therapy in modern-day practice for your reference if you are interested! Cheers.