critical thinking and gender

Judith Butler: their philosophy of gender explained

Lecturer in Gender Studies, University of Adelaide

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Anna Szorenyi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler, both for intellectuals and for queer communities. There are scholarly books, university courses, fan clubs, social media pages and comics dedicated to Butler’s thinking.

They (Butler’s preferred pronoun) did not single-handedly invent queer theory and today’s proliferation of gender identities, but their work is often credited with helping to make these developments possible.

In turn, political movements have often inspired Butler’s work. Butler served on the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission , spoke at the Occupy Wall Street protests, has defended Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns, and famously declined a Civil Courage Award in Berlin because of racist comments made by the organisers.

This has at times led to controversy. Some right-wing movements and religious figures who are attached to conservative gender roles have seen Butler as a threat to society. This is ironic, given Butler’s work has always maintained a commitment to justice, equality and non-violence.

Gender performativity

The most influential concept in Butler’s work is “gender performativity”. This theory has been refined across Butler’s work over several decades, but it is addressed most directly in Gender Trouble (1990), Bodies That Matter (1993) and Undoing Gender (2004).

In these works, Butler sets out to challenge “essentialist” understandings of gender: in other words, assumptions that masculinity and femininity are naturally or biologically given, that masculinity should be performed by male bodies and femininity by female bodies, and that these bodies naturally desire their “opposite”.

Living in gay and lesbian communities, Butler had seen how even in feminist circles, these assumptions often resulted in unliveable lives for those who did not follow gendered expectations.

Butler therefore set out to challenge the way descriptions of current ways of performing masculinity and femininity are usually also taken to be values about the right way to do gender. Butler uses the concept of gender “norms” to describe this confusion of what “is” with what “should be”, a confusion that prevents us seeing other possible ways of life as legitimate, or even imagining such possibilities at all.

Instead, Butler proposes that gender is not biological, but “performative”. The term “performativity” does not simply mean performance. We can think of it in terms of the linguist J.L. Austin’s concept of the “performative utterance”, which refers to a statement that brings about that which it states. The classic example is “I now pronounce you man and wife”. Spoken by a person socially approved to do so, these words create a married couple.

Butler argues that gender works in this way: when we name a child as “girl” or “boy”, we participate in creating them as that very thing. By speaking of people (or ourselves) as “man” or “woman”, we are in the process creating and defining those categories.

Some gender theory distinguishes between biological “sex” and social “gender” , but Butler finds this counterproductive. For Butler, it makes no sense to talk about biological “sex” existing outside of its social meanings. If there is such a thing, we can’t encounter it, because we are born into a world that already has a particular understanding of gender, and that world then retrospectively tells us the meaning of our anatomy. We can’t know ourselves outside of those social meanings. In fact, much of Butler’s work reminds us we cannot fully know ourselves at all.

At this point, Butler is often accused of thinking gender is entirely caused by language and has nothing to do with bodies, or that we can simply decide what gender to be when we wake up in the morning.

But this is not what they mean. Butler argues that we reproduce gender not only through repeated ways of speaking, but also of doing. We dress in certain ways, do certain exercises at the gym, use particular body language, visit particular kinds of medical specialists, and so on. Through such repetitions, gender is reinforced, layer by layer, until it seems inescapable.

However, this work of creating and redefining gender is never finished – for gender norms to hold, they must be constantly repeated. This means in the longer term, gender norms are intrinsically open to change. We can never get them exactly “right”, and if we stop doing them, or do them differently, we participate in changing their meaning. This opens up possibilities for gender to change.

These are not easy ways to think, because they challenge some of our most familiar assumptions about what a person is, what gender is, and how language works. This is one reason why Butler’s writing has been notorious for being “difficult”. But the popularity of their work shows there are many people who feel their lives are not adequately described by “common sense” ways of thinking.

Read more: Explainer: what does it mean to be 'cisgender'?

Grievable life, vulnerability and non-violence

Over the past 20 years, Butler’s writing has expanded beyond gender into other areas of political exclusion and oppression. An underlying theme across much of this more recent work is a concern about the ways some people are discounted as “human”.

Butler summarises this through the concept of “grievable life”, which draws attention to the ways in which some lives are not publicly mourned, because they were never publicly acknowledged as being properly alive in the first place. For example, Butler points out that AIDS victims rarely receive obituaries in mainstream US newspapers, nor do prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, Black people killed by US police, or refugees and stateless people who die crossing borders.

These populations can be abandoned to unliveable, precarious lives and unnoticed deaths without any serious public accountability. In our contemporary globalised, neoliberal world, more and more people are living in such situations, without adequate social support, health care, sustainable environments or access to the public sphere. Butler calls this situation “precarity”.

Often this exclusion is justified through “frames of war”, which position certain groups of people as threats to “security”. To defend this security, it is tempting to violently impose precarity on others, as the US administration did after 9/11 in the “war on terror”.

To counter such frames of war, Butler proposes an ethics of non-violence, based on the understanding that we become ourselves only in relation to others. This means that no life is fully secure, self-contained or independent. We cannot choose who shares the planet with us, and they can always hurt us. Ultimately, if we are to survive together, we must learn to acknowledge and live with mutual vulnerability, as challenging as that may be.

This may sound idealistic, but it is not an ethics that assumes people are “nice”. It starts from the proposition that they are not. Performing non-violence will always be ambivalent and difficult, especially in a violent world. But it is in our own interests to realise that our own capacity to live a “liveable life” depends on life-sustaining conditions that also allow others (human and non-human) to live.

Butler finds performative enactments of this approach in some collective protests, such as the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York and the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey, in which people from different backgrounds gathered to call for a more just and equitable world.

Butler reminds us that vulnerability is not all bad; it is what makes life possible. All bodies must be in some way open to the world and to others. They must be able to take in and give out: to eat, breathe, speak, be intimate. A body unable to do this could not be alive. Ultimately, Butler reminds us, often poetically, that to be fully ourselves, we need each other.

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How critical thinking can help advance gender equality and why you should ‘test everything you hear’

"We can definitely get way ahead in gender equality with a lot of these discussions.”

By Kate Kachor

Critical thinking can help break down gender bias in the workplace, but only if leaders encourage others to feel comfortable to “question everything”.

This was the broad takeaway from an expert panel at this week’s Future Women Leadership Summit 2022.

“Diversity of thought is really good in producing different outcomes. So, the value of critical thinking is – it’s basically what’s often referred to as cognitive discernment,” Vitae co-founder and CEO Shelley Laslett said.

“It allows us to make sense of what’s going on both in our own minds, our internal processes, and also our external processes.”

Laslett said critical thinking is particularly valuable in the workplace because it increases EQ and IQ – at both the individual and group level.

“We know that the most profitable and most successful firms have high levels of diverse thinking because they have high levels of diverse views,” she said.

Amanda Rose, the Founding Director of Western Sydney Women, said the way she described critical thinking, in its simplest form, is “test everything you hear”.

“I think if you want to break any bias in any way, we need to put in the effort and we need to encourage others to feel comfortable to be able to disagree with you, to be able to ask questions,” she said.

“With gender bias, the problem is, and those women who work with men will know this, you sit in a room you have a conversation and things are said and they are taken as word. As gospel – ‘yep, that’s just the way it is’.”

She said women have been conditioned not to ask questions, and not to disagree.

“I had someone say ‘sorry, I don’t agree with that’. I said why are you sorry for having a different opinion? We should be embracing that, and leaders should be embracing that,” she said.

“So, I think we need to encourage our teams, whether male or female, to ask someone in the room ‘what do they think?’”

Aparna Sundararajan, a senior research strategist with ADAPT senior research, agreed.

Amanda Rose (left) Aparna Sundarajan (centre left) Kiera Peacock (centre right) and Tarang Chawla (right) discussed critical thinking at Future Women’s Leadership Summit 2022

“I think we all are conditioned to think in a pre-set way, influenced by our culture and tradition and if we have the curiosity to find objective reasoning then we might be able to get to the back alleys and nooks and crannies and find information that has probably been hidden,” she said.

“So, in that way we can definitely get way ahead in gender equality with a lot of these discussions.”

Kiera Peacock, a partner at Marque Lawyers, said in her experience with critical thinking involved a level of vulnerability.

“In professional services it’s quite an interesting one dealing with critical thinking because clients come to you and they want the answer – and they want one answer,” she said.

“So, there’s a certain vulnerability in applying critical thinking in that context so I think the important thing in the professional services field is to create that sense, by critically thinking I’m trying to get you the best outcome. And while that may not lead you to a yes or no answer, this is the journey you’re coming with me on, and this is where I’m trying to get you to.”

Laslett said it was important to also understand is that critical thinking is inherent to being human.

“When it comes to being too critical – if we’re looking at only the negative or only the risk or only the downside, and we’re not open to possibility and open to ideas, open to difference, open to any form of innovation – that’s when we’re going to get caught in that box of being too critical,” she said.

The expert panel on critical thinking and solving complex problems at Future Women’s Leadership Summit 2022

Rose offered that when people are being overly critical it usually comes from a place of fear.

“They fear change, they fear being wrong, they fear what they’ve been working on or what they believed in is wrong,” she said.

“So, when someone is very critical to you, find out why. What’s the fear behind that? It happens a lot with generational workplaces where someone is younger is the boss of someone who’s older and there’s that resistance and that fear.”

She also pressed while critical thinking “is brilliant”, it’s important to remain true to who you are.

“Don’t budge from your morals. Your core belief system should not change,” she said.

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Evaluating Sources

Biological gender vs. gender identity: gender critical feminists, society views of gender: gender reveal parties.

• Critical Thinking: Gender and Sport
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Although librarians have carefully compiled these sources, there is no substitute for your own evaluation . Use the following guides to help you.

• CARS Evaluation Checklist CARS = Credibility, Accuracy, Reasonableness, and Support
• The CRAAP Test CRAAP = Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose
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Gender Critical is the belief that someone’s sex is biological, unchanging, and cannot be combined with someone’s gender identity (Observer Editorial, 2021). This belief is sometimes paired with a belief that the oppression of women is based on their biological sex, and that women have a right to have single-sex spaces. Some with this viewpoint often question or deny the recognition of trans women as women and may be against changes to gender recognition laws which "allow those who feel they are the opposite sex to change their birth certificate without surgery, hormones or a gender dysphoria diagnosis” (Samuelson, K., 2021).

“Gender-critical feminism, at its core, opposes the self-definition of trans people, arguing that anyone born with a vagina is in its own oppressed sex class, while anyone born with a penis is automatically an oppressor. In a TERF world, gender is a system that exists solely to oppress women, which it does through the imposition of femininity on those assigned female at birth.” (Burns, K., 2019).

• Burns, K. (2019). The rise of anti-trans “radical” feminists, explained. | Vox
• Lawford-Smith, H. (2020). What Is Gender Critical Feminism (and why is everyone so mad about it)? [Blog Post]
• The Observer view on the right to free expression |The Observer Editorial
• Samuelson, K. (2021). What are gender-critical beliefs? Judge-led panel ruled that such views should be protected under the Equality Act | The Week

Those who voice gender-critical views are often labelled as transphobic or as TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) by the Trans communities; even when the speaker doesn't believe themselves transphobic. The view can be as simple as stating that sex exists as a distinctive category separate from a person's gender identity. Using the lens of intersectionality, there may be cases where a person's sex and gender identity are at a cross-roads (Suissa, J. & Sullivan, A., 2021a). However, when a trans woman or man is not considered their gender and denied those gender rights, that crosses into transphobic views.

Gender critical feminists say they support LGB rights and that trans issues have overshadowed the rest of the LGBTQ+ community, which has lead to the creation of the LGB Alliance (Ricketts, A., 2021).

• Flaherty, C. (2019). The Trans Divide | Inside Higher Ed
• Intersectionality LibGuide
• Ricketts, A. (2021). Controversial campaign group registered as a charity despite its 'offensive' social media activity |ThirdSector
• Saul, J. (2020) Why the words we use matter when describing anti-trans activists | The Conversation
• Suissa, J. & Sullivan, A. (2021a). The Gender Wars and Academic Freedom | The Philosophers Magazine

One main view of many gender-critical feminists is the view women are suppressed by their biological sex, and men are the oppressor. Unfortunately, these views of men continue onto Trans Women as it is believed that the masculine way they were raised continues to affect them. This viewpoint does not carry onto trans men.

Trans author Jay Hulme described in a blog post how transphobes interact with trans men differently than trans women. He explains that for transphobes men are dangerous predators and carry that thought process to trans women. On the other hand, they see trans men as “brainwashed victims of the patriarchy” because to them being trans is something they see as fundamentally wrong and we must have been coerced into it (Hulme, J, 2019).

"As a trans man, I am, and always will be, belittled, disrespected, spoken down to, and patronised, by transphobes. After all, they think I have been brainwashed and fooled into “thinking I’m a man” what could I possibly know? What value could my words or experience possibly have? This is the same with all trans men. No matter how old they are, they are treated like children by transphobes. (Hulme, J, 2019)."

• Hulme, J. (2019). Transphobes and Trans Men [Blog Post]

Gender-critical feminists will most often point to the laws and policies around trans women using female bathrooms, changing rooms, or other female-only spaces. “When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside” (J.K. Rowling, 2020). The relaxation of policies has allowed transgender people to change their identity and gender on their identification cards without requiring gender reassignment surgery and this leads gender-critical feminists to believe they will act in dangerous ways. “I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one” (J.K. Rowling, 2020). However, as Zanghellini, points out "a trans person can only obtain a gender recognition certificate after a relatively lengthy process, requiring them to provide evidence of having lived in their acquired gender for at least 2 years, as well as a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria" (2020, p.2).

Dr. Kathleen Stock believes that women-only areas should not allow transgender people who still have male genitalia (Doherty-Cove, J., 2018). Dr. Stock says “Most trans people are law abiding and wouldn’t dream of harming anyone. However, many trans women are still males with male genitalia, many are sexually attracted to females, and they should not be in places where females undress or sleep in a completely unrestricted way.”

“Gender-critical propaganda is almost entirely focused on the supposed depravity of trans women, citing rare cases to paint trans women as threats to women and children” (Burns, K. 2019). One area which does support the gender-critical concerns is assault by trans people within prison. However, the opposite is also true, that there are also assaults on trans people.  In this section, describing cases in prison, I use the terms they use in the articles which is self-identifies as male or female, but legally/physically is a female or male.

One of the largest and most public cases in the United Kingdom, is that of Karen White who began transitioning in a men's prison to a woman but legally remained a man with male genitalia. Karen requested a transfer to a women's prison where she sexually assaulted multiple women in a short period of time (Parveen, N., 2018a). She has been sentenced to life because of these jail assaults. Karen is now at a male prison although is undergoing gender reassignment surgery (Parveen, N., 2018a and 2018b).

The Ministry of Justice (UK) updated their policy in 2016, to allow trans prisoners to transfer to the prison they identify with on a case-by-case basis and with the permission of a transgender board. The Ministry of Justice has apologised for moving Karen White to the women’s prison, saying that her previous offending history had not been considered (Parveen, N., 2018b).

In 2020, most incarcerated trans people in America were still housed in facilities based on the sex they were assigned at birth (Neus, N., 2021). In 1994, the US Supreme Court ruled that “failing protect trans people in custody is unconstitutional because it qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment” (Farmer v Brennan case) (Neus, N., 2021). A 2007 study on California correctional facilities found “s exual assault is 13 times more prevalent among transgender inmates, with 59% reporting being sexually assaulted” (Jenness, V., Maxson, C.L., Matsuda, K.N., & Sumner, J.M., 2007).

Although opponents housing people according to their gender identity fear that men will falsely claim to be transgender so they can assault women in a woman prison. Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality believes that there is no evidence of false claims and that "there are criteria for determining that someone really is transgender... It's not as simple as simply declaring that you are transgender" (Neus, N., 2021).

• Doherty-Cove, J. (2018). 'Trans women are still males with male genitalia' - university lecturer airs controversial views | The Argus
• Jenness, V., Maxson, C.L., Matsuda, K. N., & Sumner, J. M. (2007). Violence in California Correctional Facilities: An Empirical Examination of Sexual Assault [PDF] | UC Irvine Center for Evidence-Based Corrections
• Neus, N. (2021). Trans women are still incarcerated with men and it's putting their lives at risk | CNN
• Parveen, N. (2018a). Karen White: how 'manipulative' transgender inmate attacked again | The Guardian
• Parveen, N. (2018b). Transgender prisoner who sexually assaulted inmates jailed for life |The Guardian
• Shaw, D. (2020). Eleven transgender inmates sexually assaulted in male prisons last year | BBC News
• Zanghellini, A. (2020). Philosophical Problems With the Gender-Critical Feminist Argument Against Trans Inclusion

J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling has been labelled a TERF and anti-trans. She wrote a blog post describing the seemingly innocent journey which led to this description - a few innocent tweets, an accidently liked tweet, and following certain twitter profiles (J.K. Rowling, 2020). She explains that these incidents began as she was learning and researching the concept of gender identity. She lists 5 reasons why she worries about new trans activism and why she is speaking up.

“So, I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.” (J.K. Rowling, 2020).

However, in her blog she questions the amount of youth who are identifying as trans and transitioning. She worries about trans women regretting the transition and detransitioing only to discover their bodies have been altered irrevocably. She is firm that ‘woman’ is not a costume or stereotypical ideas that a man thought up (J.K. Rowling, 2020) and so are many others who are gender critical. But in defining ‘woman’ or ‘trans woman’ even gender critical feminists fall into the trap of using stereotypes – if a trans woman is wearing pink and jewelry they will state that not all women are girly and the tran woman is trying to fit a stereotype. And yet, if a trans woman wears more relaxed clothes – they aren’t trying enough to ‘pass’ or appear feminine. Women come in all shapes, sizes, and styles and there is no one definition that fits all of us.

J.K. Rowling states that most gender-critical feminists do not hate trans people, and most “became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth, and they’re hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply want to live their lives, but who’re facing a backlash for a brand of activism they don’t endorse” (J.K. Rowling, 2020).

However, J.K. Rowling is firmly on the side that believes your sex matters more than your gender, and her experiences as a woman can’t be defined or discussed without that distinction.

"If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth. (J.K. Rowling, 2020a).

• ADEGBEYE, O. (2020). Ignorance is power too: why JK Rowling deliberately repeats untruths about trans people | The Correspondent
• Calvario, L. (2020). GLAAD President says J.K. Rowling's words create dangerous environment for Transgender community (exclusive). | ET
• De Hingh, V. (2020). I’m trans and I understand JK Rowling’s concerns about the position of women. But transphobia is not the answer. | The Correspondent
• GLAAD Accountability Project - J.K. Rowling
• Montgomerie, K. (2020). Addressing The Claims In JK Rowling’s Justification For Transphobia | Medium
• Rowling, J.K. (2020). Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues [Blog Post]
• Rowling, J.K. [@jk_rowling] (Jun 6, 2020a). Tweet. | Twitter

Kathleen Stock

Kathleen Stock was a philosophy professor at the University of Sussex for 18 years. Students protested, created poster campaigns, and called for her resignation. Kathleen Stock began speaking about her gender critical views in 2018 and since then has received bullying from a small group of extreme colleagues which combined with the students protests, lead to her quitting the University of Sussex in 2021 (Barnett, E., 2021). She says that her views are being misconstrued and that she is not a bigot or transphobic - that she is sympathetic to people who feel they are not in the right body (Moorhead, J., 2021). However, Kathleen is concerned and opposes “the institutionalisation of the idea that gender identity is all that matters – that how you identify automatically confers all the entitlements of that sex” (Moorhead, J., 2021).

In 2021, Kathleen published “Material Girls” a book which sought to answer the question “do trans women count as women” (Moorhead, J. 2021). Her view of women is at the biological level, and therefore trans women can have the gender identity of a woman but cannot be a woman (Stock, K., 2022). She worries that trans woman are no longer required to have reassignment surgery, take hormones, or appear as a woman to use woman only space – that a man simply needs to say they feel they have a female gender identity (Stock, K., 2018).  In a review of “Material Girls”, Stock is described as “concerned about harms to non-trans women that ensue when gender identity displaces sex as the criterion for demarcating access to women’s sports and women’s only spaces like locker rooms, bathrooms, shelters, and prisons” (Briggle, A., 2021). Stock points out that not all trans women are bad however in the book most mentions of trans women are not in a positive light. She highlights Karen White who is indeed the transexual pretender, rapist, and violent offender that she worries most trans women are – but is it in fact that White has a penis and is a trans women or is it that White is a convicted pedophile detained for multiple rapes and other sexual offenses against women (Briggle, A., 2021)? She has also written journal articles and blog posts on the topics of biological sex, and academic freedom to discuss gender.

Since quitting the University of Sussex, Kathleen has been using her freedom to voice gender critical views and fighting out against institutional silence over gender discussions and debates. She said she is the voice for many of her colleagues who are unable to speak up about these issues without being censored professionally and by their employer (Women's Liberation Now, 2020 & Barnett, E., 2021). An open article from 12 philosophy scholars are alarmed over recent “proposals to censure or silence colleagues who advocate certain positions in these discussions, such as skepticism about the concept of gender identity or opposition to replacing biological sex with gender identity in institutional policy making” (12 Leading Scholars, 2019).

• (2021). Kathleen Stock: University of Sussex free speech row professor quits | BBC News
• 12 Leading Scholars. (2019). Philosophers Should Not Be Sanctioned Over Their Positions on Sex and Gender | Inside Higher Ed
• Adams, R. (2021). Kathleen Stock says she quit university post over ‘medieval’ ostracism | The Guardian
• Barnett, E. (2021). Women's Hour: Professor Kathleen Stock; Royal Ballet principal Leanne Benjamin; Richard Ratcliffe. | BBC Radio
• Briggle, A. (2021). Which Reality? Whose Truth? A Review Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, Adam Briggle | Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
• Moorhead, J. (2021). Kathleen Stock: taboo around gender identity has chilling effect on academics | The Guardian
• Stock, K. (2018). Changing the concept of “woman” will cause unintended harms | The Economist
• Stock, K. (2022). The Importance of Referring to Human Sex in Language. | Law and Contemporary Problems
• Suissa, J., & Sullivan, A.. (2021b) The Gender Wars, Academic Freedom and Education | Journal of Philosophy of Education
• Women's Liberation Now. (2020) 11 Women in Academia Censored or Threatened [Blog Post]

 Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer wrote “The Female Eunuch”, which became an international bestseller and is considered an important text in the feminist movement. The book describes women as eunuchs or castrates, robbed of their natural energy by the patriarchal society. “Greer famously drew attention to deeply entrenched cultural constructs that linked sex to shame and disgust, calling out the hypocrisy of a society that blamed women for men’s misogyny” (Nelson, C., 2020). Her views on what makes a woman a woman are clear and do not include transgender women. Germaine has stated that men are welcome to have gender reassignment to make them more comfortable in their body, that is fine but that does not make them a woman (BBC, 2015). Although she has backed away from her transphobic views in various interviews, her underlying thoughts of transgender women are the unfairness that “a man who has lived for 40 years as a man and had children with a woman and enjoyed the services—the unpaid services of a wife, which most women will never know... then decides that the whole time he’s been a woman” (Wahlquist, C., 2016). These views match those of the gender critical feminists and Germaine Greer’s book and views may be one of the foundations on which the gender critical movement was created.

• BBC. (2015). Germaine Greer: Transgender women are 'not women' - BBC Newsnight [YouTube]
• GLAAD Accountability Project - Germaine Greer
• Nelson, C. (2020). Friday essay: The Female Eunuch at 50, Germaine Greer's fearless feminist masterpiece | The Conversation
• Wahlquist, C. (2016). Germaine Greer tells Q&A her trans views were wrong, but then restates them |The Guardian

Gender has become a controversial topic as our understanding of the topic has grown beyond a binary system based on biology. Do we allow discussions of gender in academic situations?  Is there a way to hold discussions about gender while maintaining a welcoming and inclusive environment?

Gender has historical significance through the lens of many different disciplines which we should be able to remember and discuss. Grace Lavery, a trans woman and professor of 19 th -century British literature at Berkley, says “Historically speaking, issues around sexuality and gender have been of relatively marginal importance for philosophy departments, and relatively significant importance for humanities departments and the literary or cultural studies” (Burns, K. 2019). However, LGBTQ+ is not a new phenomenon, it is only in the most recent centuries that the choices and lifestyle of LGBTQ+ communities has been allowed to be free. By discussing history as the binary, we mistakenly believed it was some of the LGBTQ+ communities may feel left out, dismissed, or suppressed.

There must be a way to balance understanding our historical gender perspective and the significance that perspective had on literature, historical decisions, politics, and the economy (for example) with respecting our current understanding of gender identities, including LGBTQ+ people and not causing harm to any one. Are difficult conversations appropriate for the academic environment? And how do we make sure difficult conversations can be discussed, fair and yet not harm others?

Informing parents of the sex of their fetus is the step in “reinforcing misinformed sex and gender binaries” which creates expectations and structures which tighten social gender constraints instead of loosening them (Oswald, F., Champion, A., Walton, K., & Pederson, C.L., 2019). The reinforced rigid ideas about gender are “highlighted through these visual thematic representations – girls are pink, boys are blue, and these categories are very distinct” (Oswald, F., Champion, A., Walton, K., & Pederson, C.L., 2019). The mother who sparked the gender reveal trend “now believes the gender-reveal party has helped conservatives create increasingly restrictive pink and blue boxes for children, which support their anit0liberal agenda” (Schiller, R., 2019).

The focus on gender can hurt the transgender and non-binary communities for while society is -becoming more open minded to gender expression, and gender identity in older children, teens and adults – it also is becoming hyper fixated on the gender of fetus’s. “At least when the child is born, you are getting al l the information at once: the sex, the colour of their hair, who they look like, how long they are what their heart rate is. With the gender reveal you have isolated one aspect of this person” (Jenna Myers Karvunidis in Schiller, R., 2019). The parties elevate the gender as central to the fetus’ future identity and begins the journey of stereotypes, bias, and a disconnect with society’s openness to the LGBTQ+ community.

Although they are considered gender reveals, “they actually proclaim the likely sex of the fetus based on the ultrasound scan to detect the presence or absence of a penis and/or a maternal blood test to identify the fetus’s chromosomes” (Jack, A, 2020). As the LGBTQ+ community has shown us, the gender of a fetus is it’s sex, as gender identity and expression are very different things. Jenna Myers Karvundis, the creator of gender reveal parties, says “plot-twist, the world’s first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits” (Wong, B. 2019). A new trend is to hold a redo gender reveal party, for when the baby’s gender no longer matches their older selves. The Gwaltney family created a gender reveal party to show off their non-binary child, their new name and their pronouns correcting the mistaken girl gender reveal they did when they were pregnant (Lee, A., 2020).  Coming out as Trans parties are gaining more popularity and are considered celebratory of gender self-determination in a direct contrast with infant gender reveal parties (Dockray, H., 2019).

There are also concerns growing over the reactions of some parents and the disappointment they feel when a gender they do not prefer is revealed. The evolution of sex-selection technologies adds a layer of complexity to the already fraught social underpinnings of gender reveal parties and the assumed correlation of sex and gender (Jack, A., 2020). Sex-selective abortions or infanticides still occurs in significant numbers globally, although it is seen as unethical worldwide (Jack, A., 2020).

In rebellion against society’s views on gender, some families are raising their children gender-free. Kori Doty believes in giving her child space to identity and present their own gender, based on their own ideas and opinions (in Matei, A., 2020). In the United States, six states allow parents to label their baby’s gender as X on their birth certificates, however this gender-free parenting style still gets a lot of pushback (Bracken, A., 2020). Some forms of this type of parenting include not reveal their child’s gender to the outside world until they are ready to identify for themselves, others allow their child toys, clothes and activities that cross gender lines (Bracken, A., 2020). Gender-free parenting works best in as early as possible, as children are shaped by their early experiences.

• Blunt, R. (2019). The dangers – physical and psychological – of gender reveal parties | BBC News
• Bracken, A., (2020). How to Raise a Gender-Neutral Baby | Parents
• Dockray, H. (2019). Gender reveals are awful. (Trans)gender reveals are a different story. | Mashable
• Feuerherd, B. (2019). Plane crashes after unloading 350 gallons of pink water in gender reveal stunt | New York Post
• Giesler, C. (2018). Gender-reveal parties: performing community identity in pink and blue | Journal of Gender Studies
• Haller, S. (2019). Hungry Hippo gender reveal deemed 'the worse' was 'one of the happiest days' for the couple | USA Today
• How to Raise a Child Without Imposing Gender | The New York Times
• Jack, A. (2020). The Gender Reveal Party: A New Means of Performing Parenthood and Reifying Gender under Capitalism | International Journal of Child, Youth, & Family Studies
• Lapin, T., (2021). New York dad-to-be killed by exploding gender reveal device | New York Post
• Lee, A. (2020). A mom threw a belated gender reveal party for her transgender son 17 years after she 'got it wrong' | CNN
• Licea, M. (2019). Car bursts into flames during gender reveal joyride fail. | The New York Post
• Matei, A. (2020). Raising a theybie: the parent who wants their child to grow up gender-free | The Guardian
• McLaughlin, E.C. (2019). Partygoers thought they'd built a clever gender reveal device. It turned out to be a deadly pipe bomb. | CNN
• Morales, C., & Waller, A., (2021). Gender Reveal Party Wildfire. | The New York Post
• Oswald, F., Champion, A., Walton, K., & Pederson, C. (2021). Revealing more than gender: Rigid gender-role beliefs and transphobia are related to engagement with fetal sex celebrations. | Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity
• Schiller, R. (2019). Why the mother who started gender-reveal parties regrets them | The Guardian
• Smith, R. (2020). The Growing Horror of the Gender Reveal Party | Vogue
• Sparks, H. (2020). Gender reveal goes horribly wrong after sister hit with dart |New York Post
• Steinbuch, Y., (2021). Two killed when plane used for gender reveal crashes in Cancun |New York Post
• Wong, B. (2019). This Woman Helped Popularize Gender Reveal Parties. Now There's A 'Plot Twist.' | Huffpost
• “Raising Baby Grey” Explores the World of Gender-Neutral Parenting | The New Yorker
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Reframing the discourse on race, gender and identity

“I seem these days always to be in search of what is affirming,” said Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie . “I am desperately drawn to what is meaningful, what is human, what is beautiful.”

Upon accepting the USC Norman Lear Center ’s 2019 Everett M. Rogers Award , the Nigerian author, cultural critic and feminist noted how deeply encouraging it was to be in the company of past honorees and their scholarship. 

Adichie is the author of six books, including Americanah , which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of The New York Times’ Top 10 Best Books of 2013. Her “ The Danger of a Single Story ” is one of the most-watched TED talks of all time. A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2015.

On Feb. 7, a crowd of hundreds gathered in the Wallis Annenberg Hall Forum as Adichie was honored for her inspiring contributions to the global conversation about gender, race and identity.

Lear Center Director Martin Kaplan hailed Adichie for her gifts as a storyteller to inspire and empower.

“Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie uses stories to grow our empathy and our aspirations,” Kaplan said. “In her fiction and her essays, in her novels and her talks, she weaves her insights into the narrative of human experience.”

Dean Willow Bay echoed Kaplan’s praise for the impact of Adichie’s storytelling. “We must be deliberate in recognizing and celebrating the power of stories, but we must also be deliberate in naming and celebrating our storytellers ,” Bay said.

Bay also introduced special guest presenter Danai Gurira, an actor, playwright and activist best known for her roles Okoye in the film Black Panther and as Michonne from the television series The Walking Dead .

In introducing Adichie, Gurira spoke of their work together in adapting Americanah into a television miniseries. She also recognized how deeply Adichie’s writing has spoken not only to her own journey, but to countless others.

“Her body of work proves that great storytelling, storytelling that is courageous and unflinchingly pursues the truth, storytelling that delves with specificity and complexity into places both uncomfortable and unexpected,” Gurira said. “That sort of storytelling is universally appealing and shatters seemingly insurmountable walls about whose stories get to be boldly told. That sort of storytelling forms bridges, bringing us all that much closer together on equal footing.”

In Adichie’s own words, here are four takeaways from her remarks, which included an audience Q&A.

Fake news and the what ifs

As a storyteller, I’m interested in the singular and the specific, because from this, I believe springs the universal. And I’m also interested in the idea of what is possible. I read all genres, I like to think of myself as a very catholic reader, but one genre that I’ve had very great difficulty getting into is speculative fiction. And yet I found myself thinking in speculative terms lately. So what if? What if everyone simply refuses to use the expression “fake news”?

Because it is saying that over and over again that gives it legitimacy. There is inaccurate news, there’s biased news, there's incomplete news, but that expression “fake news” is heavy with the ugly connotation that journalism is some kind of deliberate conspiracy. It is not.

And the man who has made that expression, “fake news,” so common really just uses it to mean news that he does not like. Whether it is true or not is irrelevant. What if? What if journalists all over this country decided to burn, forever, that idea of false equivalences?

What if? What if instead of focusing on balance, we focused on truth? What if we stopped pretending that both sides of an issue are equal, when they are not? What if we decided that news should not entertain us, but should inform us and educate us? What if we all agreed that we have to be nimble and alert and clear-eyed and skeptical, that we have to be active rather than reactive?

The link between critical thinking and empathy

There are, today, valid and worrying concerns that face our future as humans. There’s inequality, gender, racial, economic, there’s climate change [and] artificial intelligence, but I find myself most worried about the possible death of critical thinking, and consequently, the death of empathy.

Because both are central to how we understand and deal with all of the other challenges we face. It might seem odd to connect critical thinking and empathy, but the two are related. If we are able to think critically, then we’re more able to exercise empathy. Critical thinking is, quite simply, the ability to think clearly. To hold ideas in your mind, to weigh them. To dissect them. And if we’re able to do this, then we're able to truly see other human beings.

Kalu Makan says that to read a book is to be alive in a body that is not your own. And I would broaden that to storytelling, to listen to stories is to be alive in a body that is not your own.

That, for me, is the best example of that link between critical thinking and empathy. To be alive in a body that is not your own. To hear another person’s story. To truly see another person. And this matters. It matters because empathy and critical thinking are starting points, will radically change the way we deal with everything.

‘Stop canceling people’

On the one hand, there’s something I find very encouraging about activism, about young people who are all really, I think, coming from a well-meaning place, which is that they want better for everybody. What worries me is that … it very often feels quite extreme in the way that it seems like people no longer think of people as complex humans, that one slip and you’re done, right? And people say you’re canceled and you’re no longer relevant, and it seems to me not a very productive way of thinking about these things, and also really not practical because we're all flawed, and in some ways, then it becomes a question of how many flaws can you take?

So, what I would say … is it’s not so much that you shouldn’t call people out … it’s also that maybe you should read a little more. And I’m not kidding. And by read a little more, I mean don’t have an opinion until you look at the primary source…. And maybe just read things that are outside of social media. I think sometimes context is lacking in the way that things are seen….

The people who are canceled are actual human beings who often mean well…. I was talking to a young person the other day and I said, “Well, do you want to know what they really think?” She said, “No, no, no, I already know the world.” So that’s bad. It’s almost as though … there’s no room for nuance, there’s no room for sort of expanding on what one word means.

Listening, reporting and humanizing

[W]henever the foreign journalist is going to Africa and sometimes they sort of think that I have all the answers to things, right? … [T]hey’re like, “So, what should we do when we go to Africa?” And I love having that power, because of course I don’t have all the answers, right? But I kind of pretend I do. I’m like, “Yes, well, the thing to do when you go to Africa...” But really what I say is just if it’s possible to put everything you know about Africa in a backpack, right? And then leave that backpack behind when you go. That’s the way to go. It’s just to have an open mind.

I think that often when you’re reporting on something, you find yourself trying to make your story aligned to what you already have in your mind…. [I]n general, I would say the problem with stereotypes really, again, is not that they’re false ... it’s that they’re incomplete. And I think what's important in, especially covering communities that are powerless, communities that are marginalized, is that the humanizing of those communities has to be, in my opinion, center stage.

[T]he thing that surprises you about people, the thing that doesn’t align with what you expect, often those are the things that humanize people, and in some ways, I think fiction writing is similar…. [I]t’s things that surprise me about humanity that I make note of, and those are the things that I find to be worthy of storytelling. And in some ways, I think journalism is similar, and I think that’s how we ultimately humanize people and end up not making them stereotypes.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: 2019 Everett M. Rogers Award Honoree Internationally acclaimed author and global humanitarian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is being honored with the 2019 Everett M. Rogers Award. Dean Willow Bay and Marty Kaplan of the Norman Lear Center provide opening remarks, followed by Danai Gurira, actor on Walking Dead and Black Panther. Adichie will be honored for reframing the discourse on race, gender and identity. Join #theafricanarrative Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Danai Gurira USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center Posted by USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism on Thursday, February 7, 2019

For more photos from the event, see the Flickr page .

About the Everett M. Rogers Award

Presented since 2007 on behalf of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s Norman Lear Center, the award honors the late USC Annenberg professor Everett M. Rogers, whose  Diffusion of Innovation  is the second-most cited book in the social sciences. The award committee is listed here .

This piece was also published in the Spring 2019 issue  of the USC Annenberg Magazine.

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The Challenge to Critical Thinking Posed by Gender-Related and Learning Styles Research

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Recent national reports on the quality of higher education consistently rank the development of critical thinking skills as a primary objective for university curricula and instructors (Association of American Colleges, 1985; National Institute of Education, 1984). Rare indeed is a curricular reform that does not genuflect in the direction of improved critical thinking. Faculty too are often quick to pay allegiance to the importance of critical thinking for their classrooms. Fortunately, however, such movements typically generate thoughtful skepticism as a byproduct of their success.

Two streams of modern research threaten the popularity of critical thinking, particularly certain forms of critical thinking. This paper attempts to describe the nature and limits of this challenge. The first two sections describe specific criticisms of critical thinking; the final section attempts to respond to those criticisms. Our objective is to examine the extent to which gender-related and learning styles research programs demonstrate the inappropriateness of critical thinking instruction for certain students.

Gender-Related Research and Critical Thinking

Moral development studies by Piaget, Kohlberg, and Erikson define development as movement toward autonomy and autonomous judgment. Women, however, tend to have much more tenaciously embedded relationships with others than do men and to develop a mode of judgement that is contextual. Thus, women are often perceived as deviant or deficient from the perspective of developmental models derived from male subjects (Gilligan, 1987). Developmental models based on male subjects may consequently be misleading for either descriptive or prescriptive purposes.

In an effort to rectify this problem, Carol Gilligan’s In A Different Voice (1982) presents a moral development model more appropriate for women. Gilligan’s model focuses on notions of responsibility and care, in sharp contrast to the morality of rights developed by Kohlberg (1981) and Piaget (1948). According to this argument, just as previous studies of moral development concentrated almost exclusively on the developmental stages of men, conceptions of truth and knowledge have also been shaped throughout history by male-dominated majority culture (Belenky et al., 1986). Men have constructed the prevailing theories, written the history, and established the values that have become the guiding principles for both men and women.

This domination of developmental models by male perspectives has affected several disciplines. In sociology (Smith, 1974), history (Lerner, 19.79), anthropology (Slocum, 1980), and other social sciences (Spender, 1981), women have been studied in terms of their deviance from the male norm, or have been subsumed by the male-biased research paradigm focusing on the pursuit of objectivity and the assumed gap between the knower and the object of study. Relatively little attention or value has been accorded to the modes of knowing, learning, and valuing that may be specific or common to women. Hence, an important objective of gender-related research is to describe habits of mind common to women and to determine ways to approach these differences in the classroom.

At the forefront of such research is Women’s Ways of Knowing (Belenky et al., 1986). This work is based on interviews with 135 women, 90 from colleges and 45 from family agencies that assist those seeking help with parenting. The women interviewed represented various class and ethnic backgrounds. A recurring theme of the interviews was the feeling of alienation many women experience in educational environments. A dearth of reinforcement and praise, cited in many interviews, often led these women to believe themselves incapable of intelligent thought. Feelings of self-doubt and intellectual inferiority are almost inescapable for many female students.

Exacerbating these feelings is the emphasis on abstract, non-contextual thought in higher education (Belenky et al., 1986). Personal experience and contextual knowledge provide the majority of these women with their most reliable sources of information. Many cited out-of-school incidents as their most educationally rewarding experiences, with childbearing and -rearing as oft-cited examples. While highly valued among women, however, these experiences often wield little clout in a university setting. Given their discomfort with abstract thought, many of the female interviewees actively resisted critical modes of analysis favored in the university. Many of them construed critical thinking as an adversarial activity and, therefore, found it uncomfortable and unrewarding. The majority of interviewees reported that they learned best by trying to understand others’ positions (Clinchy, 1987).

This way of knowing frequently implies a personal relationship between the knower and the object to be known. The approach to research used by many feminist scholars reflects this emphasis on sharing. For example, in “A Feminist Research Ethos” (1988), Ann Bristow and Jody Esper contrast the male research approach of interrogating subjects with the feminist approach of conducting a dialogue with their subjects. In contrast to male researchers’ attempts to remain aloof from the subjects of their studies, feminist researchers try to minimize the distance between themselves and those they are studying (Malhotra, 1988). The adversarial procedures that some women view as part of critical thinking are not conducive to forming the close relationships that female researchers seek with their interviewees or respondents.

In the study by Belenky et al., the subjects’ disdain for what was defined as “critical thinking” extended beyond academic settings. Many commented that men are adversarial and combative even in casual conversation. The women in this study, on the other hand, reported a preference for conversations that were sharing and collaborative. Critical thinking, to these women, is synonymous with “male logic,” a thought process they find adversarial uncomfortable, and alienating.

Based on these interviews, the authors of Women’s Ways of Knowing conclude that women prefer less critical modes of thought. They term critical, analytic thought processes “separate knowing,” and suggest that “connected knowing” is a thought process more suited to women. Connected knowers are not aloof; unlike separate knowers, they attempt to “get behind the other person’s eyes.” Because connected knowing implies a relationship between the self and the subject or object of knowledge, most women feel quite comfortable with such a style of knowing.

In a conference at the University of Chicago, one of the book’s authors, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, recommended that women be taught un critical thinking: “I am saying that many women would rather think with someone than think against someone.” Connected knowing’s emphasis on acceptance over evaluation makes it an appropriate means to such an end (Clinchy, 1987).

Thus, the final recommendation of much of the gender-related research, particularly Women’s Ways of Knowing, is for educators to emphasize connected knowing as acceptable and even desirable. By trying to see the world from the perspective of those being studied or evaluated, we are, according to this argument, better able to comprehend and accept. In contrast, forcing women to comply with fundamentally “male” ways of knowing, such as abstract, objective thought, may undermine women’s sense of intellectual self-worth and ultimately alienate them from the educational process. These claims will be evaluated in the final section of this paper.

Learning Styles Research and Critical Thinking

Avoiding potential alienation in the classroom also provides much of the impetus for learning styles research. Most who tout the importance of learning styles recommend that learning and teaching styles be strategically matched for academic success. Matching entails identifying a student’s learning style and then selecting a teaching style that complements it. This advice is based on the assumption that one must meet students where they are, not where the teacher might like them to be.

Scott G. Paris (1988), for instance, urges teachers to apply a model of instruction compatible with the students’ learning model or metaphor. The key here is to create a match among the learner’s task, context, and strategy so that the required actions fit into the learner’s ongoing behavior. His rationale for advocating matching among educators and learners is to encourage students to employ their learning strategies with greater frequency, even when they are working independently of the instructor. Significantly, Paris notes that matching is desirable only when it reinforces a positive learning style.

Almost all research advocating the matching of learning and teaching styles claims that matching enhances performance on tests. To improve success in college, “college students … should choose professors whose teaching styles complement their own learning styles” (Radebaugh et al., 1988). The findings of Charkins et al. (1985) corroborate such research by concluding that achievement and attitude are positively affected by a matching strategy.

Efficiency is sometimes provided as a justification for matching. Students who are strategically matched with their professors require fewer iterative repetitions to master the material. In one study, matched students needed one to three repetitions, compared to four to seven repetitions required by mismatched students, to reach a particular level of mastery (Pask, 1988).

Other research promotes matching as an ideal way to cultivate self­confidence in learners (Charkins et al., 1985; Claxton and Murrell, 1987; Paris, 1988). Poorly prepared students seem to benefit the most from this approach. When these learners are initially confronted with a confusing teaching style, they risk failure, which can discourage them and jeopardize their future academic success. Matching thus appears to facilitate their development primarily by affirming their sense of self-worth.

Evaluating the Challenge to Critical Thinking

Gender-related research.

Both gender-related and learning styles research are very concerned with creating classrooms that engage rather than alienate learners. An educational approach based on male perspectives is inadequate for many female learners in most classrooms. Similarly, a learning style that addresses some students shortchanges other learners who could be matched with a more compatible style.

While we have much to learn from both gender-related and learning styles research, we should not exaggerate their implications. Research detailing differences in ways of knowing and learning styles is marvelously descriptive. Indeed, it reminds instructors that their students are not a monolithic glob. The bulk of this research, however, ultimately fails to offer educators a prescription for encouraging students to improve their ways of knowing or their learning styles.

Gender-related research, while undoubtedly intended to benefit women, contains the potential for ultimately harming them. If the recommendations of Blythe Clinchy are widely embraced, for example, necessary skills of analysis and evaluation may be taught to women in a cursory fashion. Sensitive instructors may hesitate to provide women critical feedback on a paper or an examination because they do not want to make their students uncomfortable.

It is important to note that the distaste for critical modes of thought expressed by so many female interviewees may be misdirected contempt. Much of their discomfort was based on having observed hostile males in conversations or in classrooms. Indeed, casual observation confirms that in academic and social settings, men’s behavior is typically more aggressive and bombastic than women’s. Bellicose males, however, are not necessarily exemplary critical thinkers; they are just noisy. Critical thinking should not be confused with gratuitous aggression.

Thus, a recommendation to teach women uncritical thinking may be entirely unnecessary. Instead, a recommendation that pugnacious conversationalists and certain professors moderate their aggression might be a more appropriate inference from gender-related research programs. Certainly, demonstrating that critical thought and engaging conversation are not mutually exclusive is more beneficial than excusing the majority of women from the realms of critical thought. One of the essential steps in critical thinking is examining the assumptions or perspectives guiding behavior or arguments as a preliminary step toward evaluation. When one becomes “connected” in this way, the resulting evaluation is more fair. Connected knowing can, thereby, be a step toward better critical thinking.

Another recommendation made in Women’s Ways of Knowing is that academics place more stress on personal experience as a basis for judgment. An over-emphasis on personal experience, in an effort to engage more women students in effective learning, could be a very limiting strategy, however. While personal experience can be extremely useful as a means of defining a particular idea or concept, heavy reliance on personal experience could be a great educational disservice to women. Thus, when women mention personal experience in class or in papers, they should not be denounced for lack of academic sophistication. Instead, they should be reminded that personal experience can deceive. Alerting students to the reality that personal experience can be a precarious compass by which to chart life is far more valuable than invariably accepting their personal experience as reliable evidence, even when that acceptance emanates from a desire to affirm rather than alienate.

Implying that critical thinking denies the necessity of understanding another’s position is to attack a caricature of critical thinking. Female subjects in gender-related research studies convey an intense preference for understanding the other person’s point of view. Critical thinking shares that desire. If one does not understand different sides of an issue, it is unlikely that the analysis of the issue will be worthwhile (Browne and Keeley, 1986; Meyers, 1986).

Learning Styles Research

Restricting critical thinking to a select body of students based on inferences from learning styles research can restrict students’ development. While the intentions behind matching learning and teaching styles are noble, the wisdom of matching is easily exaggerated. In the extreme, matching could lead to complacency and stagnation among learners. Instructors’ attempts to match teaching and learning styles could unnecessarily limit students’ acquisition of other, perhaps temporarily uncomfortable, learning styles.

Clearly, clumsy mismatching may create even greater risks, but strategic mismatching, using critical thinking, deserves consideration (Doyle and Rutherford, 1984). Through selective mismatching, professors can equip students for a variety of learning styles that they are apt to encounter later in their educational experience: “Students will encounter professors who teach and test for comprehension and memorization or other styles. Accommodating a student’s learning style might not serve him well when he is taught and tested using different styles” (Doyle and Rutherford, 1985).

Research advocating matching often relies heavily on the rationale that matching is conducive to academic success. But poorly specified dependent measures are common in such research. For example, improved scores on objective tests are repeatedly cited as evidence that matching positively affects students. Particular types of tests, however, tend to measure the success of one learning style more favorably than others. Thus, if professors encourage higher order thinking throughout the semester, but use objective tests, as opposed to essay tests, they are probably testing for a learning style they did not actively encourage. If the professor and the students have been matched for higher order thinking, such test results are ill-equipped to measure the relative success or failure of the match (Schmeck, 1981).

Any matching strategy that results in improved scores on objective tests provides strong evidence for benefits of matching only if we accept a definition of “success” that entails high scores on objective examinations. If, however, we decide that academic success is more appropriately defined as facility with complex, contemplative thought, many of the studies encouraging matching lack persuasive evidence. As Anthony Grasha (1984) perceptively notes, “To date, researchers have not delineated what constitutes content achievement, learner satisfaction, applications of content, abilities to think creatively, problem-solving or decision-making skills, self-concept, the types of learning methods used in continuing education, the quality of life for the learner and the instructor, or the motivation of people to pursue continuing education” (Grasha, 1984). In short, matching may or may not be desirable depending upon how dependent variables such as success and improvement are defined. Until more specific definitions are forthcoming, educators should proceed with caution prior to adopting matching strategies.

Determining the one “best” solution to teaching all levels of learning abilities in one classroom is difficult, if not impossible. Invariably, single solutions will benefit some at the expense of others (Good and Stipek, 1983). Instead of encouraging professors to match their teaching styles to the learning styles of their students, a more pragmatic approach would be to encourage professors to instruct in a way that encourages several styles, including critical thinking. Such intervention “will create a positive alignment of styles that will enable students to perform well. Also, such practices will better prepare students for other classes and improve the quality of teaching at the same time” (Ramsden, 1988). Such a strategy also circumvents boredom, a sure route to alienation in a classroom. Repetitive use of a single learning style is not conducive to effective pedagogy (Grasha, 1984).

Learning styles and gender-related research do deserve integration into classroom praxis. What they warrant, however, is a moderate approach that is cognizant of their potential misuse as well as of their advantages. A certain resignation characterizes much of the research on learning styles and gender. Rather than encouraging educators to intervene in students’ educational experience, the recommendation is to accommodate. But educators should not fear motivating students toward change. Intervention, in an effort to encourage movement toward more complete appreciation of alternative ways of knowing, including critical thinking, is a crucial responsibility of educators. Students move from one level to another only with guidance and practice. Ideally, professors serve as bridges between levels. If the purpose of education were merely to reassure students that the level at which they are currently functioning is satisfactory, a university education would lose much of its potential as a stimulus for personal growth.

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• Belenky, M.F., Clinchy, B.M., Golderger, N.R., & Mattuck, J.T. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing. New York: Basic Books.
• Bristow, A., & Esper, J. (1988). A feminist research ethos. In Nebraska Sociological Feminist Collective, A feminist ethic for social science research. Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press.
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• Published: 10 November 2023

Systemic thinking and gender: an exploratory study of Mexican female university students

• Marco Cruz-Sandoval   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5703-4023 1 ,
• Martina Carlos-Arroyo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5987-1041 2 ,
• Araceli de los Rios-Berjillos 3 &
• José Carlos Vázquez-Parra   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9197-7826 4  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  807 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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The purpose of this article is to present the results of a study conducted on a population of students from two educational institutions in western Mexico. The intention is to identify how students perceive their level of systemic thinking, focusing primarily on women. Thus, this article seeks to identify differences not only on the basis of gender (men–women) but also on the basis of social status (public and private institutions). Methodologically, a descriptive statistical analysis was carried out with which it was possible to conclude that, although statistically significant differences between men and women are not identified, they are found between groups of women in public and private institutions. This article invites reflection on the need to study possible gender gaps from an intersectional perspective, which considers the differences between genders and the various dimensions and relations of women in their educational process.

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Introduction

Systemic thinking is the ability of people to understand and analyze in an orderly manner how different elements, factors, or people interact in a given situation, environment, or problem; it is a determining skill when making a decision or facing a dilemma or challenging situation (Abuabara et al., 2023 ). Systemic thinking is a skill that involves perceiving elements as interconnected components of a larger system, seeing an entity as a well-organized structure, where the parts are interdependent and influence each other. Therefore, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the entire system is only achievable through a thorough comprehension of its individual components and how they interact with one another (Brown, 2019 ).

In recent decades, systemic thinking has taken on particular relevance in professional training. Within the theory of decision-making, it is considered that if at the time of solving a problem, there is no systemic vision of it, there is a risk of attending to isolated or insignificant causes (Khammarnia et al., 2017 ). The system could be temporarily improved, but the root cause of the problem is not addressed. The ability to see the totality is characteristic of systemic thinking, enabling the individual to appreciate the structures that comprise a complex situation and make more meaningful, lasting, and comprehensive decisions (Abuabara et al., 2023 ).

In this sense, educational institutions see complex thinking as an essential competency to acquire and develop in their students, a necessary element for professionals in an uncertain and complex world. However, the efforts made by universities to develop this type of high-level competencies may vary, since not all of them have human resources specialized in competency training or even have curricular programs more focused on technical and disciplinary development. In countries such as Mexico, there is a clear educational gap between the education provided by public and private universities, which is an important element to be considered when talking about lifelong learning skills training.

In this sense, will the level of development be equal between men and women or between institutions? What is the perception of achievement with which students conceive themselves? Will it vary by gender or type of institution?

Thus, this article presents the results of a study conducted on a population of students from two educational institutions in western Mexico. The intention is to identify how students perceive their level of systemic thinking, focusing primarily on women, to identify possible gender gaps that could occur within the training processes of both institutions. Thus, this article seeks to identify differences not only on the basis of gender (men–women) but also on the basis of the social status of the educational institutions (public and private institutions). The decision to focus on this competency assumed that systemic thinking is an important skill for lifelong professional training and, therefore, an element that can lead to reducing inequalities in the Latin American professional environment.

It is important to note that the present study measures the perception of achievement and not the development of competence, which responds to the relevance of perceiving oneself as competent at the time of professional training. If the student achieves the competency but does not perceive himself as a competent individual, he may be biased in his application in his professional life, as he feels that he is not skilled and therefore does not have the ability to deal with problems associated with that competency. In this sense, the present study pays special attention to perception, since it is directly associated with the process of decision-making and problem-solving.

The objective of contrasting public and private institutions is associated with the significant differences that exist between the training provided by these types of institutions, especially in regions with high inequality gaps such as Latin America. Methodologically, we performed a descriptive statistical analysis of measures of central tendency, determining means and standard deviations and creating violin plots and boxplots. A t -test analysis was also carried out to determine whether the difference between means was significant.

Theoretical framework

Systemic thinking as part of complex thinking.

Today, vocational training and the development of competencies for life require a multidimensional understanding of human, social, scientific, technological, and environmental conditions. When considering the interconnections of life (at the micro and macro system level), one can perceive the vast network of interdependencies, complementary associations, and connections that comprise life (Collado, 2016 ; Collado et al., 2018 ), itself a system of complexities.

Therefore, in the face of a complex world, it is necessary to consider training in proportional competencies, which allow individuals to develop an integrated vision of the environment through superior cognitive skills (Vázquez-Parra et al., 2023 ). In this sense, a competence that has been proving very valuable is complex thinking, which refers to the ability to understand and analyze reality based on the recognition of its interconnections and interdependencies from a critical approach, the adoption of objective methods and a creative vision (Baena et al., 2022 ).

For Morin ( 1990 ), complex thinking is a cognitive approach that recognizes and addresses the complexity inherent in the phenomena and systems of an equally complex world, considering an integrated perspective that avoids the fragmentation of knowledge. For this French philosopher (cited by Tomás and Murga, 2020 ), complex thinking is an ability that avoids the reductionist decomposition of problems, which, in the long run, although it considers the elements, does not perceive the interactions between them, giving way to limited knowledge of reality. Unlike other types of systems analysis, Morin’s perspective focuses on the relevance of integrated analysis, appreciating not only the parts that comprise a system but also their interconnection and the way in which some elements influence others, perceiving reality as a situation that goes beyond the sum of its parts.

Under Morin’s complexity approach, training for life and throughout life implicitly means developing competencies that allow people to function correctly, which, from a systemic approach, entails holistic behavior that integrates interdisciplinary cooperation to build bridges connecting vision, interrelationships, and interdependence of phenomena, events, and problems (Bricage, 2017 ). Complex thinking, as a formative competency, is comprised of four derived sub-competencies, which provide the individual with the ability to broaden his or her vision of the world and the problems he or she faces. These sub-competencies are scientific thinking, critical thinking, innovative thinking, and systemic thinking (Silva et al., 2020 ).

It is important to note that, although these sub-competencies are complementary, each one provides individuals with their own cognitive opportunities, as is the case with systems thinking, which allows them to appreciate their environment in a broad, integrated, and interconnected way, overcoming a linear and isolated view of their reality. In this sense, unlike the first three, systemic thinking is the sub-competency that provides greater skills for individuals to relate to their environment, as it allows them to observe, know, and understand the world, as well as to explain the complex dynamics of social life (Arbeláez, 2016 ).

Systemic thinking and its relationship to lifelong learning

According to Edgar Morin ( 1990 ), Systemic Thinking is an approach to thinking that allows understanding the comprehensiveness inherent to systems, whether natural or social, in an integrated manner, i.e., avoiding reductionist analyses that break down systems into their elements, failing to see the interconnections and interactions inherent to the system itself. In this sense, Systemic Thinking promotes feedback and systems cycles, recognizing how an action can influence other elements, leading to non-linear and often unpredictable results (Abuabara et al., 2023 ).

For Morin (cited by Tomás and Murga, 2020 ), each part of the system contains information about the whole system, so that even if it is fragmented, it still represents the integrality. In this sense, it is necessary that individuals develop cognitive skills that allow them to develop this appreciation of the environment, as this will enable them to address complex problems and challenges in this interconnected and rapidly changing world (Bricage, 2017 ).

In this sense, it is important to note that systemic thinking is an approach to thinking that seeks to understand the complexity of systems and the environment, paying attention to the interconnections and interdependence of its components, in order to recognize that systems cannot be fully understood through reductionist visions of their parts (Khammarnia et al., 2017 ; Khammarnia et al., 2017 ). This is one of the central points that differentiate it from systematic thinking, which focuses on the application of organized systems, procedures, and methods that allow a problem to be approached in a methodical and orderly manner, i.e., breaking down the problem into small parts and approaching each part separately and sequentially (Rivlin, 2015 ; Rivlin, 2015 ). Although Systematic Thinking and Systemic Thinking can be confused, they are contradictory perceptions in the approach to complex problems, since while one seeks to decompose the problem (Systematic), the other seeks to understand it in an integrated manner (Systemic). In this sense, although the value of systemic thinking is recognized, this study, having Morin’s proposal of complex thinking as its basis, adopts the need for an integrated approach to the environment, that is, the relevance of the acquisition and development of systemic thinking.

Under this line of reflection, it can be stated that at the professional level, Systemic Thinking is highly valued, since it allows to address complex problems that involve multiple variables and interactions, providing proposals that consider all the parts and their relationships. In this same sense, the individual who has developed his or her systematic thinking can make more informed decisions, considering how these affect different parts of the system (Vázquez-Parra et al., 2022 ; Vázquez-Parra et al., 2022 ). At the leadership level, Systemic Thinking is suggested as a necessary tool for the management of organizations, since this cognitive ability allows understanding how certain choices or decisions of the company can influence or affect employees, processes, and results in general, being able to improve processes, identifying inefficiencies and relationships with other processes (Baena et al., 2022 ; Baena et al., 2022 ). Being a competence that promotes communication, by fostering the collaboration of the parts of a whole, Systemic Thinking is also a relevant element to foster interdisciplinary approaches and thus innovation, being fundamental for adaptation and flexibility in changing environments (Hester and Macg, 2017 ; Hester and Macg, 2017 ).

In this sense, it is possible to note why the acquisition of this subcompetence can be a determinant for the professional development and therefore, the economic participation of women, which becomes a point of shared responsibility with the educational institutions. In conclusion, there is a connection between education and attention to contemporary problems, which have gender considerations.

Systemic thinking and its relevance to the development of female professionals

The development of academic skills in women is intricately connected to the historical gender disparity, highlighting the gradual integration of women into higher education. As per the World Economic Forum’s 2020 report, the gender gap in education is at 96.1%, making it the third-ranking dimension among those examined by the forum (WEF, 2020 ).

According to UNESCO ( 2021 ), “over time, women reached the education levels of men and progressively achieved higher levels of schooling than men” (p. 14). According to Williams and Wolniak ( 2021 ), higher education training and the success achieved by women could trigger one of the most important social changes in history, especially if the presence of women in traditionally male careers increases and those cease to be an eminently male space (Guzmán, 2016 ).

Women’s professional training is linked to access to greater well-being over time (Eker and Ilmola, 2020 ), requiring systemic competency comprising current well-being and the interrelationships between knowledge and skills, experience, values, and norms and health (p.7–8).

Women’s college competencies are relevant because they empower them with a configuration to prepare them for the future, influenced by demographic changes, social and cultural norms, technological innovation, and environmental changes. Such a future is inclined towards transformation through systemic competencies that can evolve personally and socially (Dlouhá et al., 2019 ). The training in these competencies is also oriented towards the formation of human capital considering the global guidelines for education, internationalization, and the ability to compete both in their university training and the labor market; therefore, the competencies must nod to learning activities with a practical orientation (Cejas et al., 2019 ).

If systemic thinking broadens perspectives to address complex problems, and understanding the interrelationships and interdependence of factors, it also can facilitate women’s understanding of the web of relationships, obstacles, and challenges. They experience these due to subjective (Guzmán, 2016 ), heteronormative, and institutional factors that limit their full development (Nizam et al., 2018 ). They must move beyond what is known as the glass ceiling (Gallegos and Matus, 2018 ) and the sticky floor that perpetuates the (subjective) importance and exclusive dedication of women to the domestic sphere (Ramos et al., 2022 ).

As such, systemic thinking emphasizes multidimensional and relational contexts and the possibility of intertwining the conditions of women in the biological, anthropological, cultural, environmental, professional, and creative (Castañeda, 2018 ) spheres; it is a complex and integrative vision of training women not only for professions but for life (Ferrada-Sullivan, 2017 ).

The educational gap between public and private universities in Latin America

The educational gap between public and private universities in Latin America can be significant and stems from several factors that impact different aspects of their operation and academic work. First, private universities tend to have more financial resources than public universities, which allows them to invest in technology, infrastructure, laboratories, libraries, and high-quality faculty, which can improve the quality of education offered. In addition, private universities often tailor their curricula to focus on practical skills and employability of graduates, which gives them the opportunity to establish closer ties with business and industry to provide internship and practicum opportunities to ease students’ transition into the world of work (Gonzalez and Alvarez, 2019 ). This considers focusing more on the development of skills and competencies rather than solely on the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge (Peris et al., 2018 ).

On the other hand, private universities often have more flexibility to design and adjust their curricula according to the demands of the labor market and industry trends, which leads them to be more up-to-date in terms of content, technology, and graduate profile needs, as well as to offer a wider range of study programs, including those that are more aligned with the latest trends in the labor market (Altbach and Salmi, 2021 ).

Of course, these differences may vary by country and institution, as there are specific cases, such as central universities in countries like Mexico, where public universities have strong government support, which leads them to have better educational conditions than many public institutions (Castellanos and De Gunter, 2022 ). Public institutions such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Guadalajara, or the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, are educational centers with considerable public funding that allows them to have internationally competitive research centers and high-level specialized human resources. In addition, because they are free universities, they provide a greater opportunity to be inclusive and diverse, which contributes to the development of more equitable social skills than is the case in private institutions (Ferreira et al., 2019 ). Of course, this is not the reality of most public universities, since except for the specific cases mentioned above, there are many public institutions that carry out their functions with minimal governmental support, which leads to deficient educational work and very precarious attention to their students.

In this sense, educational institutions in the region, whether public or private, cannot be generalized, and the quality of their academic staff and the attention provided in their classrooms may vary considerably. Thus, it is necessary to propose research to recognize if these differences have an influence at the formative level, considering that this can have a clear impact on the development of competencies and valuable skills for future professionals in the region.

Thus, this research explores possible differences in the perception of complex thinking competence between a public and a private university, which, although they cannot be generalized, may provide an indicative window for future explorations.

Methodology

Participants and procedure.

A convenience sample of 838 students from two technological universities in western Mexico consisted of 411 students from a private institution and 427 from a public institution. Students were selected from all semesters and various disciplines with a balance between men and women from both institutions. The study was conducted in October 2022. A self-administered questionnaire was answered voluntarily by the students using Google Forms (Table 1 ).

Considering that this was a study involving people, the implementation was regulated and approved by the interdisciplinary research group R4C, with the technical support of the Writing Lab of the Institute for the Future of Education of the Tecnologico de Monterrey.

Instrument and data analysis

For this study, one instrument was applied:

E-Complexity is a Likert scale-based questionnaire designed for the purpose of assessing students’ perception of their degree of competence in complex thinking and its sub-competencies (Castillo-Martínez and Ramírez-Montoya, 2022 ). In its entirety, E-Complexity consists of 25 statements that are answered on a five-level Likert scale, ranging from 1, meaning “Strongly Disagree,” to 5, meaning “Strongly Agree” (Castillo-Martínez et al., 2022 ). The validation of this instrument included two stages: theoretical validation and content validation with the participation of experts. The theoretical validation was based on the analysis of instruments previously used to measure complex reasoning competence and its subcompetences. This analysis revealed the lack of a comprehensive instrument, which led to the development of an instrument that combines complex reasoning with the four sub-competencies. On the other hand, content validation with experts was carried out to evaluate to what extent the questionnaire items adequately represent the content domain, considering three criteria: clarity, coherence, and relevance (Escoba and Cuervo, 2008 ). In terms of clarity, the mean score given by the experts was 3.31, equivalent to 82.7% on a scale of 1 to 4. As for coherence, the mean score was 3.38 (84.5%), and as for relevance, the mean score reached 3.54 (88.5%). Thus, all three criteria obtained scores above 60%, indicating a high level (3–4) and supporting the validity of the instrument with sufficient information to argue for its validity.

For data analysis, this study used a multivariate descriptive statistical analysis to describe how systemic thinking is acquired and developed, particularly in women, to identify gender gaps in professional training among the institutions studied. The statistical treatment of the data was carried out using the computational software R (R Core Team, 2017 ) and Rstudio (RStudio Team, 2022 ). The descriptive statistical analyses determined means and standard deviations and included boxplot analyses, violin plot analyses, and significance analyses on differences of mean values (i.e., t -tests).

Table 2 shows the analysis of higher education students’ perceived development of systemic thinking (using the means and standard deviations) by public and private universities and gender. It shows that both men and women from private universities perceived themselves as having higher systemic thinking development than students from public universities. By gender, it is observed that in private universities, men perceived themselves higher in systemic thinking than their female peers (means of 4.34 and 4.26, respectively). On the other hand, in public universities, women had the higher mean in the perception of systemic thinking (4.07 vs. 4.06).

To complement Table 2 , Fig. 1 shows the bar graph with the mean and standard deviation in students’ perception of the development of systemic thinking in both institutions by gender. The figure shows that males and females perceived themselves with similar mean values in developing systemic thinking (males 4.19 and females 4.17). Similarly, the standard deviations of both genders showed similar behavior (males 0.57 and females 0.55).

Source: Created by the authors.

Table 3 shows the t -test analysis to test whether the difference in mean values of the perception in the development of systemic thinking by males and females from both institutions was significant ( p -value of 0.05). The table results show no significant difference in the perception of students’ systemic thinking development at the gender level.

On the other hand, Fig. 2 shows the violin graph analysis by gender of students and by type of institution. Students of both genders from the private university perceived having higher development than those from the private university. Likewise, the smoothed Kernel-type density histogram in Fig. 2 illustrates that the students of both genders from private universities presented a higher density in mean values of perceived development (above 4.0). Meanwhile, the smoothed histogram of public university students showed more distribution of mean values below 2.5 by men and women.

On the other hand, the results in Fig. 3 illustrate the women’s perceived development of systemic thinking by type of university. Women attending private universities perceived themselves as having a higher development than women in public universities. In private universities, 50% of women’s mean values for perceived systemic thinking were between 4.0 and 4.7. Meanwhile, in public universities, 50% of the women’s mean values in the perception of the development of this competency in women were between 3.8 and 4.3. Likewise, in public universities, there was a more significant presence of women with a perception of the development of systemic thinking below 3.0.

Table 4 shows the results of the t -test analysis to determine whether the difference in the women’s mean values from public and private universities concerning their perception of the development of systemic thinking was significant. The table shows a significant difference (p < = 0.05) in the perception of the development of this competency among women from the different types of institutions.

Table 5 shows the mean values and standard deviations by age range to better understand women’s perception of systemic thinking. The table shows that women aged 27 years and older perceived themselves as the most developed in systemic thinking (mean 4.22). On the other hand, women aged 23 to 26 years and older had the highest standard deviation (1.00) and the lowest mean value (4.01) in developing this competency.

Figure 4 illustrates the behavior by age ranges in the perception of systemic thinking among women. Generally, women perceive themselves better in developing this competency as they age. This is observed among women aged 15–18 and 27 and over, where the perception of developing this competency increases up to 4.7%.

Systemic thinking: Mean values in the perception of the development of systemic thinking by age range of females.

Table 6 shows the results of the t -test analysis performed to determine whether there is a significant difference in the mean values of women’s perception of the development of systemic thinking by age range. Table 6 indicates no significant difference ( p  < = 0.05) in the mean values of the perception of the development of this competency.

Discussion of results

The first results are those associated with systemic thinking overall and for each institution. Table 2 shows that, in general, the sample of men and women had high results (above 4.00), reflecting a perception of considerable achievement in systemic thinking, i.e., the students perceived themselves as competent at the moment of identifying complex realities of challenges and problems they face. It is important to note that although the mean of men outperformed women, it was not statistically significant, which is possible to appreciate in Fig. 1 and Table 3 , where a t -test has been carried out. Thus, the first finding of our sample is that there were no statistically significant differences between men and women.

However, to delve into the results, Table 2 presents the data by institution, allowing us to note two issues. First, the perception of systemic thinking achievement is considerably higher in the private institution than in the public one, which is perceptible in both men and women. This can be corroborated by Fig. 2 , which, using a set of violin graphs, shows that not only are the means higher in the private institution but also a more marked concentration of positive results is reflected. In the private university, the concentration of responses falls between 4.00 and 5.00; in the public university, there is a significant presence of scores below 4.00. Second, contrasting the public and private universities, Table 2 shows a persistent gender gap in the private universities. Men show a considerable difference in the mean compared to their female peers. This is not present in the public university, which has a similar balance between both genders.

To adhere to the objective of this article, which was to have a more detailed description and a panorama of women’s reality regarding systemic thinking, we decided to contrast the two groups of women. As seen in Table 2 and Fig. 3 , women in private institutions had a higher perception of achievement than their peers from the public universities, which, as verified by the t -test analysis in Table 4 , reflects a statistically significant difference.

From a critical point of view, intersectionality can contribute to understanding how women live, interact, and perceive achievement (Awid, 2004 ). This approach makes it possible to contemplate problems from an integral and systemic perspective, which, according to Bersezio et al., 2020 ), acts as an analytical strategy that provides new perspectives on social phenomena and facts (p. 4).

Notably, as shown in Fig. 3 , one of the most marked differences between the two populations is due to the responses that deviate toward the lower ranges of the scale since, while the women at the private university have few scores below 3.00, public university women have many more below 3.00 extending to the lowest end of the scale. Thus, it would be relevant to analyze the learning process experienced by women in this to understand why some of them perceive themselves as highly competent, and others do not.

Considering the latter, we wanted to investigate possible factors affecting this group’s perception. One of the elements available was the age of the participants, which could be influential because it is associated with their level of educational development. Thus, Table 5 presents the means of the women in the public university per their age ranges, showing that the variation of the means in the first three age groups is practically nil. In these age ranges, the group from 23 to 26 years of age had a very high segregation of responses, which may be the age group that represents the atypical responses at the bottom of the scale shown in Fig. 3 . This can be corroborated in Fig. 4 ’s scatter plot, which allows us to appreciate this trend in the results.

Some professors at this public university suggested that an impacting element that could have increased the means in the oldest age group could be the labor contact; usually, students over 27 years old and at the end of their formative process are already working. This broad vision of their environment and profession could be a trigger to increase their perceived achievement in systemic thinking, which is decisive when facing challenges and solving professional problems.

Considering this difference, we wanted to explore the reliability of this gap, which, according to the t -test in Table 6 , is not statistically significant in any of the groups. Thus, although Fig. 4 shows apparent differences between the first three groups and the oldest, these differences are not statistically significant.

Unfortunately, considering these last data, this study did not identify what could affect the perception of the women in the public institution in contrast to their colleagues in the private institution, opening the possibility of more specific studies in this sample population.

In conclusion, it is possible to reach the following findings.

There is no statistically significant difference between men and women in their perception of achievement of the systemic thinking competency. That is, both genders perceived themselves as equally competent.

Looking at the two populations, we see a difference between the perception of achievement by the public and private university groups, which, in the case of women, does yield a statistically significant difference.

Delving deeper into this difference, we determined that the public university group presented a considerable deviation in responses, which could be argued to connect to the large number of age groups considered in the sample. Although differences were found in the means by age group, it was corroborated that age is not a determining factor since, despite the different averages, these differences were not statistically significant.

Based on these conclusions, it is relevant to point out previous studies that have already framed the presence of gaps of different types between public and private universities, such as the contributions of Akmaliah et al. ( 2013 ), Bayraktar, Tatoglu and Zaim with their study conducted in Turkey ( 2013 ), Mazumder ( 2014 ) who made a comparative between public and private institutions in the United States and Bangladesh, and Olaleye, Ukpabi and Mogaji (Olaleye et al., 2020 ) who describe these differences in public and private universities in Nigeria. However, none of the studies investigated have been conducted in Latin America, and none have focused on the measurement of competencies such as systemic thinking, which allows us to point out that there is an interest in these possible gaps between institutions, and that the results of this study, although not exhaustive, are valuable to initiate this discussion in the Latin American region.

Complementary to this, these results identify the need for future studies to include the perspective of intersectionality to recognize the diversity of relationships, factors, or environments that may interfere in the perception of women’s achievements related to systems thinking, as an additional element to consider among students from public and private institutions.

Conclusions

The purpose of this article was to present the results of a study conducted on a population of students from two educational institutions in western Mexico. The intention was to identify the level of perception with which a group of students conceives of their level of systemic thinking, focusing primarily on women, to identify possible gender gaps that could occur within the training processes of both institutions. Thus, this article seeks to identify differences not only on the basis of gender (men–women), but also on the basis of social status (public and private institutions).

After analyzing the results, we conclude that no statistically significant differences by gender can be identified. However, it was possible to find statistically significant differences by institution of study. In this sense, women from private institutions were those who perceived a greater development of systemic thinking competence, compared to women from public institutions, who not only had a lower perception but also a considerable dispersion in their answers, since some participants perceived themselves as very competent and others as incompetent.

Unfortunately, although we sought to delve deeper into this identified situation, this study was limited by the lack of demographic data collected from the participants since, being an exploratory study, the ethics committee responsible restricted the information that could be collected by the instruments. Thus, although an attempt was made to better understand what happens in the public institution that triggers this difference in the responses of its population, it was not possible to identify a key element.

Thus, a limitation of this work is that its exploratory results cannot be considered exhaustive. However, the data and analyses presented, and the areas of opportunity suggested by the results mean that the work has value. In a practical sense, this research has pedagogical value because it invites educational institutions to evaluate how these competencies are formed and validate whether the training process is equitable for the entire population. On the other hand, being a study focused on women, it also has gender implications since, although no significant differences were found between men and women, there were significant differences between both groups of women, a gap that should be analyzed from an intersectional perspective.

Although the results seem limited, they shed light on a possible area of opportunity for future studies that focus exclusively on female students at public universities, seeking to understand the reason for this gap in their perception of achievement. It is essential to consider that students’ systemic thinking is a determining ability to measure how the environment is perceived when facing a challenge or solving a problem. The fact that some students perceive themselves as competent and others do not is an issue that must be addressed as part of the responsibility of every institution to achieve equitable competency development in all its students.

In conclusion, this study allows us to appreciate the value of systemic thinking in the process of approaching and managing complex problems in the world, which has gender implications. Although more and more women are gaining access to education, it is necessary to ensure that they have an equally enriching training process as male students, since it is not enough to increase the number of women professionals, it is necessary to achieve formative equality. In this sense, paying attention to the development and perception of women’s competencies is an element that not only favors education but also the possible reduction of the gender gap in today’s world.

Data availability

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical reasons.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial and technical support of Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, in the production of this work.

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Conceptualization, JCV-P, MC-A, and ARB; Methodology, JCV-P, MC-A, and ARB; Software, MC-S; Validation, MC-S; Formal analysis, JCV-P, MC-S, and ARB, Investigation, JCV-P, MC-A; Resources, JCV-P; Data curation, MC-S; Writing–original draft, JCV-P, MC-S; Writing–review & editing, JCV-P, MC-A, and ARB; Visualization, MC-S; Supervision, JCV-P, MC-S; Project administration, JCV-P; Funding acquisition, JCV-P. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Cruz-Sandoval, M., Carlos-Arroyo, M., de los Rios-Berjillos, A. et al. Systemic thinking and gender: an exploratory study of Mexican female university students. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 807 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02318-1

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2.6: Gender Criticism and Queer Theory

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Gender criticism is an extension of feminist literary criticism, focusing not just on women but on the construction of gender and sexuality, especially LGBTQ issues, which gives rise to queer theory. Gender criticism suggests that power is not just top down or patriarchal—a man dominating a woman; it suggests that power is multifaceted and never just in one direction. For example, in the nineteenth century while many women argued for suffrage (or the right to vote), at the same time those very women who were white could be dominating or holding power over African Americans in the American slave system. In the nineteenth century, many white women were pictured as angelic, ideal, and the angel in the house who protected men from the cruel world of commerce (see Coventry Patmore’s poem The Angel in the House Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House , The Victorian Web, http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/patmore/angel . at http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/patmore/angel ). But that idealized view of women is incomplete given that we know from diaries and other historical evidence that white women could have sexual longing (shocking!), treat others barbarically, or even be sadistic and murderous. Thus identity is complicated and rich, involving much more than gender alone. It is the intersection of a variety of things—including geographical location, age, race, class, nationality, ability, and sexuality as well as gender—that make up our identities.

A key to gender criticism, consequently, is that gender is a socially constructed ideology that is reflected in our culture and political, social, economic, educational, and religious institutions and is coded in the very language we use. For example, the adjective queer , the Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) tells us, originally meant something “strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric,” the earliest use being from 1513. Oxford English Dictionary , s.v. “queer.” Not until 1894, partly a result of the sodomy trial of Oscar Wilde, where he was convicted of being a homosexual and sentenced to prison,“Famous World Trials: The Trials of Oscar Wilde, 1895,” University of Missouri–Kansas City, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/wilde/wilde.htm . did the word queer (as an adjective or a noun) come to be associated with homosexuality, and then in a strictly derogatory sense.

Like feminism, gender criticism examines how gender is caught between the notion of essentialism —the belief that women are naturally and fundamentally different than men based on their biological sex, that nonheterosexual identities are deviant from the biological heteronormative distinction between male and female—and constructionism —the belief that gender is not essentialist or based on biological nature but is constructed through culture. One of the most famous scenes from literature depicting this essentialism versus constructionism debate comes from Mark Twain’s classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . At the end of chapter 10, Jim and Huck determine that the best way to find information so that the two can avoid capture is to have Huck put on a disguise and go into the nearby town:

“Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn’t I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit . I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn’t walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket. I took notice, and done better.”Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1912; University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center, 1995), chap. 10, http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Twa2Huc.html .

In the next chapter, Huck, dressed as a girl, meets Mrs. Judith Loftus. Huck tells her his name is Sarah Williams, and Mrs. Loftus asks Huck-Sarah to help her with a few tasks, such as throwing a piece of lead at a rat and helping with threading a needle. When she tosses an extra piece of lead to Huck-Sarah, his true identity as a boy is exposed. After Huck tells Mrs. Loftus that his name is George, she criticizes his attempt to fool her:

“Well, try to remember it, George. Don’t forget and tell me it’s Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it’s George Elexander when I catch you. And don’t go about women in that old calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don’t hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it; that’s the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t’other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she don’t clap them together, the way you did when you catched the lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I’ll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road’s a rocky one, and your feet’ll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon.”Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1912; University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center, 1995), chap. 11, http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Twa2Huc.html .

Mrs. Judith Loftus views sexuality as essentialist—there are real, innate differences between a girl and boy, which perpetuate the stereotypes about gender. Another way to view her comments, however, is to acknowledge that gender is a performance, a role that we play or construct. If we read Judith’s comments in this light, then Huckleberry Finn becomes a more enlightened text on gender than one might initially think.

Just as we think gender is constructed, queer theorists argue that sexuality is constructed and not just “natural” as well. Lady Gaga sings, “Baby I was born this way,” but others, like Adrienne Rich, argue that sexuality exists on a continuum and is more fluid than a binary equation of straight or gay.Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader , ed. Henry Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin (New York: Routledge, 1993), 227–54. Rich suggests that “ compulsory heterosexuality ,” the drive to make everything heterosexual, shapes our sexual socialization to such an extent that the only choice is to be straight.Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader , ed. Henry Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin (New York: Routledge, 1993). Building from Sigmund Freud’s ideas on sexuality, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey created the Kinsey scale, which suggests that human sexuality exists on a 0–6 scale, with 0 being exclusively homosexual and 6 being exclusively heterosexual. In all his research, he discovered that most people were somewhere around a 3 (bisexual) and that few people were at either ends of the straight/gay spectrum.“Kinsey’s Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale,” Kinsey Institute, http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html .

In addition, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a prominent queer theorist, suggests culture is so heteronormative (making heterosexuality the norm) that gay characters—and, particularly, the affection between men in literature—is rendered invisible and must be routed through a character of the opposite gender to be acceptable. A classic example comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850); Hester becomes the target as Dimmesdale and Chillingworth work about their male desire by competing for Hester.Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850; Project Gutenberg, 2005), http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33 . In her book Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (1985), Sedgwick coins the term “ homosocial desire ” to refer to relationships between men that are not explicitly sexual, but could actually have erotic components if allowed to exist.Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). Homosocial worlds include all-male contexts like boarding schools, the military, and sports.Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). The recent idea of the “bromance” from films such as I Love You, Man (2009) is an example of homosocial expression. It is no accident that we often laugh when using the term “bromance” because it seems ludicrous, given the norms of masculinity in our culture, that men might love one another and express that love as women in female friendships often do. It would require heterosexual men to potentially break out of certain norms of how they are supposed to act. We’ll discuss this more in a minute when we talk about masculinity.

This idea that some expressions or identities are invisible and then visible once you have a particular lens to see them (theorists call this ideology) is as important to feminist literary criticism as it is to gender and sexuality criticism. What if we look at Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick anew in a way that focuses on how men might care for and love one another as they are sequestered on this famous, frightening ship, the Pequod . Chapter 94, “A Squeeze of the Hand,” finds the whalemen breaking up the spermaceti from a just-harvested sperm whale. Spermaceti is the wax or oil in the skull of the sperm whale, and this oil was valuable and used to make candles and various ointments. Suddenly, Melville’s description of the squeezing of the whale sperm takes on an erotic meaning perhaps previously unnoticed. This interpretation changes the way we may traditionally read the book:

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (New York: Harper, 1851; Power Moby-Dick, 1998), http://www.powermobydick.com/Moby094.html .

After this paragraph, Ishmael states,

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (New York: Harper, 1851; Power Moby-Dick, 1998), http://www.powermobydick.com/Moby094.html .

Melville’s text flirts with homoerotic desire, but that desire is short-lived as the narrator suggests that men must “lower” their desire to other outlets—“but in the wife.”

Ultimately, gender and sexuality theorists go back in history and look at who might have been left out. Where are there absences in the canon such that gay and lesbian authors and characters might be included? And when gay and lesbian characters are present, how are they perceived?

What about a supposedly “straight” text that appears to have a queer subtext previously unseen? For example, Julia Ward Howe was a nineteenth-century author who wrote the famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and founded Mother’s Day. However, she also wrote a secret novel, The Hermaphrodite , which featured a male gender-bending protagonist who loves both sexes but particularly another man.Julia Ward Howe, The Hermaphrodite , ed. Gary Williams (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). Once discovered, this book was a shocking addition to the profile people had created of Howe. Howe’s text is considered a “recovered” text and has been brought back into circulation, a common phenomenon in the literature of marginalized groups where texts have disappeared only to be rediscovered and read.

Your Process

• Can you think of texts where a character is forced into certain roles, behaviors, and actions because of compulsory heterosexuality?
• Is that character’s sexuality more complex than you realized?
• When you consider sexuality on a continuum, does it change how characters interact?
• Could your observations lead to a focus for a literary analysis?

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