By Emiliann Lorenzen

When first reading the title The End of Gender, many gender abolitionists would think, “Yes! Finally, a newly published book that argues for the end of gender.” However, this thought would be mistaken. Dr. Debra Soh intends to take the reader on a journey of myth busting, “Debunking the myths about sex and identity in society,” as the subtitle claims. The first chapter is “Myth #1: Biological Sex is a Spectrum,” which the gender abolitionists and radical feminists would also be excited to read. This first chapter is well-written with lots of scientific evidence to back it up, as is the entire book with its lengthy endnotes.

Chapter two, “Myth #2 Gender is a Social Construct,” piqued my curiosity. The radical feminist understanding of gender is that it is a set of sex stereotypes and roles that are used to oppress women as a sex class, which are socially constructed. In this chapter, Soh argues that gender has a biological basis: men tend to gravitate towards interests and behaviors that are more “masculine,” and women tend to gravitate toward interests and behaviors that are more “feminine.” Whether a man or woman is gender conforming or gender non-conforming depends upon how much testosterone they were exposed to in the womb. Soh says that “socialization shapes the extent to which our gender is expressed or suppressed, but it doesn’t dictate whether someone will be masculine or feminine, or whether she or he will be gender-conforming or gender-atypical” (43). However, she contradicts herself in the next paragraph with the concession, “Whether a trait is deemed ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ is culturally defined, but whether a person gravitates toward traits that are considered masculine or feminine is driven by biology” (43). She gives the example that shaved heads are considered masculine, so mainly males have shaved heads, but in an alternate universe where shaved heads are considered feminine, females would mainly shave their heads. This reveals that gender is socially constructed because the only way humans can tell what is deemed masculine or feminine is if society tells them what is “for boys” and what is “for girls.”

The most frustrating part of this book for a radical feminist is Soh’s mistaken understanding of feminism. She makes general claims about feminism, like that feminists believe that men and women should be regarded as “identical,” regardless of biology. There may be some feminists who wish to downplay the biological differences in men and women, especially regarding the brain because in the wrong hands, this information could be used to “prove” that women are inferior. However, radical feminists are currently fighting for the recognition that men and women are biologically different, and feminism in general asserts that a woman can participate in jobs, roles, tasks, interests, etc. that men can also participate in if she wants to. There is no imperative that a woman must be interested in science, construction, mathematics, video games, sports, etc. so that she can prove herself to be “just like men.” Likewise, female reproductive biology does not impede women’s participation in these subjects and activities. I enjoy science, but the other subjects I listed off I have no interest in, and that doesn’t make me less of a feminist or a lesser human being.

Soh asserts that the idea that gender is a social construct “gained prominence through writing from feminist scholars like Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler” (40). Her placement of Beauvoir and Butler in the same paragraph is telling of her limited understanding of feminism. She mentions the often-misrepresented quote by gender identity activists that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (283). Beauvoir argues that society shapes and defines what a woman is—that in relation to the male, she is the “Other.” She repeats throughout The Second Sex that women are oppressed by their sex class and socialized into femininity. Beauvoir also does not discount biology and does not suggest that men and women are on the same biological plane because the first chapter of the book is dedicated to the biological differences between the sexes. Butler’s Gender Trouble is a text which is partly responsible for the gender identity politics we are immersed in today, and one of the reasons Soh would need to write a book clarifying the difference between biological reality and gender identity. Equating these two theorists in the same paragraph reveals Soh’s naivety when it comes to feminism.

Soh admits that she was a feminist but is no longer one. Based on her descriptions of her relationship to feminism, it is fair to say that she was a mainstream or liberal feminist. It is unhelpful that she does not differentiate between the different schools of feminism throughout the book. She defines radical feminism in the chapter “Myth 6: No Differences Between Trans Women and Women Who Were Born Women:”

“According to radical feminism, women are a systematically oppressed class and men are socialized into being oppressors by the patriarchy. Gender is a social construct that exists to prevent women from having equal rights, funneling men and women into roles of domination and subordination, respectively. By this logic, transgender women are not, and cannot, be the same as women who were born women because they were born and socialized as male” (194).

Fair enough, but she goes on:

“If radical feminists believe gender is a social construct, you’d expect they’d also believe that trans women could just be socialized as women after transitioning, but this isn’t the case. To radfems, the defining feature of womanhood is sex, and the process of transitioning cannot change this; it can only change one’s sex characteristics” (194).

Transwomen cannot be “socialized as women” because socialization is a lifelong process, and as Holly Lawford-Smith mentions in her review of The End of Gender, “There is a difference between being socialized as part of early childhood development, when one is most impressionable, and being socialized as a teenager or adult.” Furthermore, it is not optimal to teach anyone, regardless of biological sex, to be submissive, subordinate, and meek. I also agree with Lawford-Smith that it is hard to tell at times if Soh is using the word woman to refer to biological sex or a set of gender roles.

 Soh conflates sex and gender throughout the book, which is disappointing considering it is supposed to be science-based. This happens because she argues that gender is biological and completely throws out the notion that gender is, at some level, due to socialization. She seems to disregard any analysis that does not have some kind of scientific basis. For example, she describes a scene where she’s at a sex researcher’s talk. The sex researcher explains that “women’s cortisol levels [are] higher than men’s” (266). Someone asks the researcher if “this is because of the male gaze,” which horrifies Soh: “Did someone really just ask about the male gaze, a completely ideological concept, during a scientific presentation?” [emphasis original]. Her reaction reveals that she is not interested in the social or cultural why of scientific data. She seems to come from a point-of-view that if scientific research reveals that women have higher cortisol levels than men, then it just is.

Evolution is also her answer to most questions. The most disturbing chapter of the book is “Myth #7: Women Should Behave Like Men in Sex and Dating.” Radical feminists would generally agree with the concept that women should not behave like men in sex and dating, and that even men should not behave like men in sex and dating, due to toxic masculinity. According to Soh,

“Men’s behavior is, to some extent, the result of female sexual preferences. If women didn’t want to mate with masculine men, these traits would have been removed from the gene pool long ago. It’s a case of the lady doth protest too much. ‘Toxic masculinity’ is the result of women’s sexual preferences over thousands of generations. Contemporary feminists are punishing an entire generation of men for the mating preferences of their female ancestors” (234).

It is women’s fault that men exhibit toxically masculine behaviors because that’s what we really want due to our genetic makeup and our female ancestors who had all the agency in the world to choose their sexual partners. Soh dismisses that social constructs, cultural factors, economic status, and women being oppressed as a sex class have anything to do with the evolution of our species. Also, she forgets that many of women’s “preferences” are learned by watching what choices their mothers and grandmothers make and how they react to their environment. For example, women who witnessed a toxic relationship between their parents while growing up are more likely to repeat that same pattern as adults in their own relationships.

Honestly, I almost didn’t finish this book after this chapter. She goes on to make inflammatory generalizations about women and the feminist movement’s influence on them. Again, she generalizes the feminist movement to include things like the belief that men and women are exactly the same and that feminism pushes women to have no-strings-attached sex even if they don’t enjoy it. She does not seem to understand that radical feminists strive for the liberation of women as they are, not for total “equality” with men because then society will view men and women as completely the same despite biological, psychological, and social differences.

Soh plays into the stereotype that women are by nature catty, gossips, and competitive with each other, explaining that self-promotion, passive aggressiveness, and putting down and slut-shaming other women are tactics that “increase the likelihood of successfully attaining a desired mate” (233). She also says that feminist’s “tactics like encouraging women to go makeup-free have allowed females to implement these competitive strategies under the guise of advancing women’s rights…what it really is is a subconscious way to cut out one’s competition. Contemporary feminism places pressure on women to eschew traditional femininity and basically let themselves go physically in order to reach enlightenment” (233). It is possible that the tactics that she describes that would win a desired mate are ultimately learned and not innate. Through a cultivation of sisterhood and a respect of other women without seeing them as mere competitors for the male species, women can come together and unlearn these crude behaviors. Isn’t the point to evolve throughout life? To grow and to change? I don’t disagree with studying evolutionary science, but I am more interested in the why, and if humans can overcome some behaviors that are a result of our evolutionary and social past. Soh seems to just want black and white answers with little room for gray, nuance, or exploration.

The claim that feminism is trying to weed out the competition by convincing women to “let themselves go” is baseless and insulting. Women trying to liberate each other from patriarchal and unrealistic beauty standards is much kinder than telling women they won’t find a mate without make-up and high heels. Also, if a partner isn’t attracted to you in your natural state, then they are far from desirable.

The End of Gender isn’t all bad. The end notes are filled with studies and resources, the language is accessible, and her analysis of gender identity being a problem is fair. Her analysis of sexual orientation and gender identity being related is good, and she even says that transitioning can be a form of conversion therapy. Also, her analysis of rapid-onset gender dysphoria and the unethical nature of transitioning children is on point. Her goal for this book was to give readers a plethora of information and sources regarding this topic, arming them for any heated debates. She accomplishes this goal and does a good job of helping the reader understand how sexology and gender identity politics overlap and also contradict each other. This is not a black and white issue, and Soh’s book coupled with radical feminist literature, such as Sheila Jeffrey’s Gender Hurts, will help cultivate a reader’s understanding of gender identity politics from a holistic and balanced point-of-view.

Works Cited

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Vintage Classics, 2015.

Lawford-Smith, Holly. “The end of gender…identity.” Feminist Current. 16 Sept. 2020. https://www.feministcurrent.com/2020/09/16/the-end-of-gender-identity/. Accessed 16. Sept. 2020.

Soh, Debra. The End of Gender. Threshold Editions, 2020.

Emiliann Lorenzen is a lesbian radical feminist from Sacramento, California. She has a Master of Arts in English, and she is a writer and editor. She centers women in her life, and she hopes to see women from around the globe come together in celebration of their sex, to lift each other up, and to help each other, despite any differences.