NBC are quoting a police chief in Nashville...

Definitely.

I've been seriously attacked many times. And quite recently even. I think it depends on the tone of the thread tbh and the direction it takes and how isolated you get.

Different threads go very different ways.

But see the 'outrage' on this thread to my earlier posts about risk taking, bravery, and men. This thread could have easily continued in ongoing outrage.

It happens.

Instead I think we've had an interesting discussion where we've identified differences and things in common.

That doesn't always happen.

@BlooDeBloop
Thats interesting. I wonder if that comes from the need in early feminist groups that to demonstrate women were just as good as men there had to be no acknowledgment of differences? That in order to be taken seriously as equals women had to prove they could be like men? That has certainly been seen in my profession (medicine). Some of the early women in medicine, and some still especially in more male dominated specialties, would be critical of younger women coming through who also wanted to be mothers, work part time etc.

I also wonder if the move towards acknowledging differences has come about through the promotion of gender identity theory. That it has forced us to look at and say why men can’t be women just because they say so and what it is that all women have in common.

Personally I think as feminists we need to celebrate the things that make us women, that only we can do and show we don’t have to follow the patriarchal order as we have before.

The only people who could not tolerate that idea are city dwellers who are not connected to nature. Spend one week on a farm around different animals of both sexes and then see how you feel about sex behavioural differences.

I do wonder - generally dogs are castrated early so that one of the only animals city dwellers are around, have been supressed of their natural instincts, so that female dogs and male dogs appear to be fairly similar.

Try having gander and geese, or chickens and cockerels and you see some stark differences.

Our cockerels become so arsey and cant get along that we only have one and eatthe rest.

Strange that in farming you generally keep he females and get rid of the males, yet in human societys where sex specific abortion occurs, it is the other way around.

Well yes of course.

But I find the suggestion that women in Zambia need gender explaining to them by Western women quite extraordinary.

I suspect they are far less confused than most Westerners about the difference between sex and gender.

The general agreement yesterday that male violence is linked to biology was not even tolerated as an opinion on here until very recently.

Really? I’ve been here under various names for 5 or 6 years now and I remember there being discussions over that time, especially in threads around offending patterns in males who identify as transgender.

The problem cane , wheb the concept of 'gender identity' overrode the importance of biological sex.

Ultimately if someone wanta to perform 'wan gender' then get on with it. You just dont get to use sex specific services.

I agree there's been a real shift.

The general agreement yesterday that male violence is linked to biology was not even tolerated as an opinion on here until very recently.

This is the point - to seperate these thing. For women to be able to pick apart what she does and doesnt need. For the Women of Zambia to stand up and say yes the men can move the goddamn water too.

For women to not have to wear high heels to the office, for women to be allowed to be pilots and drivers. For girls not to have to feel like they need a face full of make up to be a proper woman

Imagine having the same biological vulnerbalities and living in a country where you cannot work, learn, read, wear trousers, and have to wait on all your male relatives every need.

Exactly. Some societies (and I’d argue those with strong patriarchal structures) continue to exploit physical differences between sexes to prop up their societal expectations (gender) and argue that this is what is innate.

Ive never got a satisfactory answer from gender identity believers as to why gender identity and strict patriarchal societies have this is common.

Nor why those arguing innate gender identity of ‘woman’ never have those oppressive characteristics that actual women experience in other societies.

Almost as if it’s made up.

I agree gender is different from gender identity, although I think the insistence gender is purely socially constructed allowed for the development of the gender identity concept.

Gender identity then literally means 'identifying with the social expectations/stereotypes of a particular sex'

Therefore if your gender identity is 'woman' it has nothing to do with actual womanhood, but with stereotypical woman performances (see dylan mulvaney).

Similar with man.

And to bring thread back to it's topic-
I wonder in what parts Hale was affected by testosterone and to what extent she was performing man gender.

@Faffertea I agree with everything you said. I have to quietly add to this conversation that this was absolutely not the position of very vocal feminists on this board a decade ago. I tried to make your very points only to be set upon. At the time, we all had to agree that there are absolutely no differences between the sexes other than external genitalia and to think so was biological essentialism gone mad.

Some 'stereotypical' behaviours are more obviously linked to biology, some are more obviously cultural (although culture obviously did not develop separate from biology) which is why it makes little sense to state 'gender is socially constructed' unless you are able to establish and separate the subset of stereotypical behaviour and roles associated purely with cultural socialisation.

I also think we need to look at the difference between ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity.’

Gender identity theory says we all have an innate gender identity. It argues that certain behaviours such as liking having long hair or being caring or wanting to be strong or brave are not created by historical societal expectations but by an innate identity. That regardless of one’s physical sex characteristics if one has a feeling of wanting long hair, to wear dresses and to be caring then that is because one’s innate gender is that of ‘woman.’

Those of us who are Gender Critical (whether we consider ourselves feminist or not) say that is nonsense. That those behaviours are what historical society has labelled as ‘man’ or ‘woman’ behaviours but this is not innate. It is socially constructed. We would generally say that what unites the people who are classed as woman’ or ‘man’ is our reproductive biology and nothing else, in the same way a mare is a horse with female reproductive organs not a horse that behaves in a certain way. Similarly, no longer having, or never having had those organs due to medical conditions or treatment doesn’t mean they are not women or men any more than a gelded stallion is a mare rather than a gelding.

Feminists like me (what might be broadly considered ‘radical’ feminism) argue that our oppression is rooted in biology (the fact that only we can gestate and nurse babies and the inherent vulnerabilities and changes to life’s structure that brings with it) but that the other behaviours expected of us by society are not inherent to our sex and therefore should be ignored.

Yes truly, our opression is rooted in our biology, hut we come from a progressive western society where it is easy to ignore gender constraints.

Imagine having the same biological vulnerbalities and living in a country where you cannot work, learn, read, wear trousers, and have to wait on all your male relatives every need.

How on earth is wearing high heels anything to do with biology?? In the same vein how is carrying the water for your family anything to do with biology?? These things are socially constructed norms.

Gender says girls like pink and boys like blue. Gwnder says real men don cry. Gender is oppressive.

Trans genderism is the performance of the stereotypes of the other sex.

Why do we need to medicalise this? It makes no sense

We don't seem to have a shared understanding of what gender is.

And therein lies the rub.

While there is no consistent definition of gender then it’s easy to end up talking at crossed purposes.

My belief is that women’s oppression is rooted in our sex and therefore our biology.

At a purely biological level our XX chromosomes mean that as an embryo and then a foetus we develop ovaries, uterus etc. During and after puberty the predominant oestrogenisation of our bodies mean that (generally) we develop physical characteristics designed for gestating and nursing young. Pubertal changes in Males on the other hand are designed around being able to hunt and find food, defend themselves (and potentially their female mate and young) from other males and to be able to find other females to mate with in order to ensure survival of the species. Early humans did this in the same way, broadly speaking, all mammals do.

In humans however, evolution means we have developed a complex series of social rules that have changed over time but were initially rooted in our biological reproductive functions. So again, even as we became hunter gatherers, farmers who domesticated animals etc the roles in society (what we could call gender) were linked to the our reproductive functions.

As time has gone on, more complex social rules are added that say ‘men should be strong’ ‘boys don’t cry’ ‘girls are delicate and aren’t as clever as boys, ‘women’s brains aren’t able to do science,’ ‘women are too emotional to hold senior positions in society.’ These come from societal ideas that originally started with fallacious ideas about human biology that we now know is untrue, just as many things we believed about human biology we now know to be false. These are societal expectations and (I think) are at least what some feminists mean when they talk about gender.

Of course, the fact that we exist within society and within these expectations (such as telling boys not to cry or girls they can’t be doctors) means that some of our behaviours are the product of our internalisation of societal norms. Boys may be more aggressive in part due to inherently higher levels of testosterone but are influenced heavily by societal expectations that they are not supposed to cry or show physical weakness as to do so is to be considered less male.

Feminists like me (what might be broadly considered ‘radical’ feminism) argue that our oppression is rooted in biology (the fact that only we can gestate and nurse babies and the inherent vulnerabilities and changes to life’s structure that brings with it) but that the other behaviours expected of us by society are not inherent to our sex and therefore should be ignored.

TLDR: Human behaviour is rooted in our evolution but subject to the prevailing attitudes of what a society dictates those sexes should do (gender). Some feminists argue that the important, inescapable features are the biological ones and the rest (gender) should be abandoned.

Menstruation and pregnancy are biological processes and not behaviours.

They are processes exclusive to female biology.

Behaviours such as violence or wearing high heels are not exclusively linked to biology but to varying degrees are more associated with some sexes, for biological and cultural reasons.

Which means gender is not just a social construct.

I dont think gender is a subjective feeling! I don't think the girls in Zambia were feeling like they wanted to carry the water for the whole family whilst their brothers played.

There is also nothing written in their biology that states females are the water carriers.

It is a social/cultural expectation of the female sex, to the detriment of the girls.

I dont all think behaviours are exclusively gender or exclusively sex.

Menstruation- exclusively sex

High heel wearing - exclusively gender

Violence - a mixture of both

You can't have it both ways though.

Either gender means a biological sex class - as per all dictionary definitions until quite recently - or it is a subjective feeling. The latter concept seems to have caused enough mayhem and outlived whatever usefulness it may have had for sociologists.

Nature and nurture

No of course I didn't say this, because as I have stated now for maybe the 5th time, I think violence is due to both sex and gender.

Thinking back, i definitely stood in front of the class and said (something along the lines of to:

Some of what is expected of you is due to sex and some of it is due to gender. These are sex roles and gender roles.

If we go by your previous definiton of gender meaning 'any behaviour related to ones sex, biological or socially expected', then what I taught makes no sense.

Gender roles are used to opress women all accross the world. Women should cover themselves, women are not allowed to read, women are the only ones that clean. Its really good to be able to define what is a real, unavoidabel aspect of being one's sex, and what society is expecting or you.

Also, based on previous definition of gender meaning '^any behaviour related to ones sex, biological or socially expected'
^

Then terms like gender role and gender stereotypes have bo meaning, and mean that sex role and sex stereotype also have no distinction in relation to the previous terms.

So it really comes down to - does gender mean 'behaviours' or does it specifically mean society's expectations of a sex unanchored from biology.