The Topic and the Mode of Metaphysical-Looking Gender Debates

Philosophers’ debates about gender often look like metaphysical debates about what it really is to be a woman or a man, or what gender really is. I argue that these debates should rather proceed in the conceptual engineering mode. Instead of saying things like “A woman is X”, philosophers should say things like “The word ‘woman’ should be used to mean X (in context C)” and spell out their arguments accordingly. Reaching this conclusion does not require establishing that the debates already are covertly about how we should use language. Even when some philosophers’ contributions to the debates currently are about reality and not (just) about how to use language, there can be good reasons for them to switch to the conceptual engineering mode.