Essentialism, in its most stripped down meaning refers to the belief that people and/or phenomenon have an underlying and unchanging 'essence'. I like to work with a definition that refers to any statement that seeks to close off the possibility of changeable human behaviour. The term essentialism is commonly used in three main ways.

Firstly it refers to the use of biological, physiological and, increasingly, genetic, causes as explanations for human social behaviour. In this case little, if any, explanatory weight is given to psychological, sociological or cultural explanations. An example would be to argue that men are more aggressive than women and that this is inevitable due to hormonal differences. So the intention here is to use biology to argue that a particular social difference and/or behaviour is unchangeable.

A second use of the term essentialism is when generalised statements are asserted that make no reference to cross-cultural differences or previous historical......

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Title: Letter
Approximate Word Count: 847
Approximate Pages: 4 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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