Review of MATERIAL GIRLS

A few thoughts on Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls

Anyone who is even lightly paying attention to current culture is aware of the divisive, hyperbolic, and suffocating discourse about sex and gender currently taking place in nearly every corner of our institutions. These debates about sex, gender, and feminism are everywhere: in schools, campuses, business, politics, and sport. It’s nearly impossible to get away from.

I’ll be honest: I considered skipping writing about this book on here. When I posed on twitter that I got my copy of Kathleen Stock’s controversial Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, I lost followers and was promptly called a “TERF” (meaning “trans exclusionary radical feminist” -- a hyperbolic insult hurled at anyone who does not wholesale subscribe to the “correct” views in the gender ideology space). I’ll probably get many ‘unsubscribes’ from publishing this newsletter as well.

I’ve made the deliberate choice to minimally participate in public discussions on sex, gender, and feminism in the current cultural context. I do actively follow discussions, read what I can, and happily discuss these topics with real people, in person where discussion is easily had. I admire those who wade publicly into this area.

That said, I’ll keep my thoughts brief on this one. I thought Material Girls was an excellent book, for a few key reasons. First, I only took a handful of gender studies courses in undergraduate, but none of them provided a clear history of philosophical thought in this area. Stock provides a clear, understandable, and balanced overview of the major phases of academic though over the late twentieth and early twenty first century that have led to where we currently are culturally on the topic of sex and gender.

Second, Stock does a great job discussing and explaining the varied perspectives on ‘what is sex’ and ‘what is gender identity’, again clearly laying out the frameworks that underlie the naturally oversimplified popular narratives that most are familiar with.

It’s not until chapter 6, 7 and 8 that Stock begins to put it all together to advocate for her specific perspective on why sex matters for feminism, and for a coherent, logical, and practical understanding of men, women, non-binary, and trans individuals.

She has received incredible backlash, as expected, for writing this book. It’s a good book, and people should absolutely read it. I feel more educated for doing so.

Published: November 2021

Format: Hardcover

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If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:

• T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us by Carole Hooven (2021)

• Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier (2020)

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