I think that essentialism can be summoned up in three words taken from the reading "Essentialism and Experience."  These words are "identity, essence, subjectivity," also I believe that experience can be used when describing essentialism.  I think that essentialism is based on previous experience and how people act.  I think that essentialism is how people act based on how their ethnicity and gender have been treated in the past.  The way they have been treated are still there and people can't forget them and still carry them around with them.  

By definition, essentialism is a belief that things have a set of characteristics that make them what they are.  This definition can be used to define essentialism from the reading too.  This definition can be used to describe how groups of people still act like their past ancestors. 

I disagree with this though.  I think that people should not act like the past.  They can do whatever they like no matter how their group was treated or what they did in the past.  I think that people should not have to conform to how their group should act.