the idea that things have basic characteristics that make them what they are, which it is the task of science and philosophy to discover and describe

Drawing in part upon the thinking of Aristotle and Plato, essentialism was adopted by biologists in the 17th and 18th centuries and applied to the concept of species. 本质主义部分借鉴了亚里士多德和柏拉图的思想，17和18世纪的生物学家将其应用于物种的概念。

the belief that groups of people, such as men and women, have different basic characteristics that cannot be changed

To reduce women to motherhood is to confine them to the same old biological essentialism from which they spent the last century trying to escape. 逼迫女性成为母亲就是把她们禁锢在上个世纪她们试图挣脱的过时的生物本质论中。

gender essentialism 性别本质主义