id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
en-wikipedia-org-491		Essentialism - Wikipedia			.html	text/html	4556	642	59	Essentialism is the view that every entity has a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and function.[1] In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". This may be due to an over-extension of an essential-biological mode of thinking stemming from cognitive development.[25] Paul Bloom of Yale University has stated that "one of the most exciting ideas in cognitive science is the theory that people have a default assumption that things, people and events have invisible essences that make them what they are. 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.[32][33] Women's essence is assumed to be universal and is generally identified with those characteristics viewed as being specifically feminine.[34] These ideas of femininity are usually biologized and are often preoccupied with psychological characteristics, such as nurturance, empathy, support, and non-competitiveness, etc.	./cache/en-wikipedia-org-491.html	./txt/en-wikipedia-org-491.txt