Editing Essentialism (section)

===Gender essentialism===
{{main|Gender essentialism}}

In [[feminist theory]] and [[gender studies]], gender essentialism is the attribution of fixed essences to men and women—this  idea that men and women are fundamentally different continues to be a matter of contention.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fausto-Sterling|first=Anne|title=Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men|publisher=Basic Books|year=1992|isbn=978-0465047925}}</ref><ref name="Suzanne Kelly 2011">Suzanne Kelly, Gowri Parameswaran, and Nancy Schniedewind, ''Women: Images & Realities: A Multicultural Anthology'', 5th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2011.</ref> Gay/lesbian rights advocate [[Diana Fuss]] wrote: "Essentialism is most commonly understood as a belief in the real, true essence of things, the invariable and fixed properties which define the 'whatness' of a given entity."<ref>{{harvp|Fuss|2013|p=xi}}</ref> Women's essence is assumed to be universal and is generally identified with those characteristics viewed as being specifically feminine.<ref name=":03" /> These ideas of femininity are usually biologized and are often preoccupied with psychological characteristics, such as nurturance, empathy, support, and non-competitiveness, etc. Feminist theorist [[Elizabeth Grosz]] states in her 1995 publication ''Space, time and perversion: essays on the politics of bodies'' that essentialism "entails the belief that those characteristics defined as women's essence are shared in common by all women at all times. It implies a limit of the variations and possibilities of change—it is not possible for a subject to act in a manner contrary to her essence. Her essence underlies all the apparent variations differentiating women from each other. Essentialism thus refers to the existence of fixed characteristic, given attributes, and ahistorical functions that limit the possibilities of change and thus of social reorganization."<ref name=":03">{{cite book|last1 = Grosz|first1 = Elizabeth|title =Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies |date = 1995|publisher = Routledge|location = New York|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Htf7y-rcVFwC |access-date=17 March 2017|isbn = 978-0415911375}}</ref>

Gender essentialism is pervasive in popular culture, as illustrated by the #1 ''New York Times'' best seller ''[[Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus]]'',<ref>John Gray, ''Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus'', HarperCollins, 1995.</ref> but this essentialism is routinely critiqued in introductory [[women's studies]] textbooks such as ''Women: Images & Realities''.<ref name="Suzanne Kelly 2011"/> Starting in the 1980s, some feminist writers have put forward essentialist theories about gender and science. [[Evelyn Fox Keller]],<ref>Evelyn Fox Keller, ''Reflections on Gender and Science'', Yale University Press, 1985.</ref> [[Sandra Harding]],
<ref>Sandra Harding, ''The Science Question in Feminism'', Cornell University Press, 1986.</ref> and [[Nancy Tuana]]
<ref>Nancy Tuana, ''The Less Noble Sex'', Indiana University Press, 1993.</ref> argued that the modern scientific enterprise is inherently patriarchal and incompatible with women's nature. Other feminist scholars, such as [[Ann Hibner Koblitz]],<ref>Ann Hibner Koblitz, "A historian looks at gender and science," ''International Journal of Science Education'', vol. 9 (1987), pp. 399–407.</ref> [[Lenore Blum]],<ref>Lenore Blum, "AWM's first twenty years: The presidents' perspectives," in Bettye Anne Case and Anne M. Leggett, eds., ''[[Complexities: Women in Mathematics]]'', Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 94–95.</ref> [[Mary W. Gray|Mary Gray]],<ref>Mary Gray, "Gender and mathematics: Mythology and Misogyny," in [[Gila Hanna]], ed., ''Towards Gender Equity in Mathematics Education: An ICMI Study'', Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996.</ref> [[Mary Beth Ruskai]],<ref>Mary Beth Ruskai, "Why women are discouraged from becoming scientists," ''The Scientist'', March 1990.</ref> and [[Pnina Abir-Am]] and Dorinda Outram<ref>[[Pnina Abir-Am]] and Dorinda Outram, "Introduction," ''Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women in Science, 1789–1979'', Rutgers University Press, 1987.</ref> have criticized those theories for ignoring the diverse nature of scientific research and the tremendous variation in women's experiences in different cultures and historical periods.