What does gender critical mean?

Spending anything at all on skincare is a luxury rich-world choice that for most of history would have baffled most people.

If the lost child has a choice between a long-haired person wearing high heels and a frock and a short-haired person wearing jeans, a fleece and flat shoes, how do they decide who to go to?
If high-heels is a man and flat shoes is a woman, how then?
Even when high heels insists that he is a woman?

@Myalternate I agree, gender used to be used in lieu of sex, as well as meaning pink and blue . I think also that’s where alot of confusion lays, because a lot of people still use it in those terms.

Let’s face it, most forms now ask for your gender. Are they asking for your biological sex, or whether you prefer ‘girl’ activities or ‘boys’?

"Can you therefore assume that any woman you meet will spend more on skincare than any man you know? No"

No - and it's not clear whether the expenditure is driven by the marketing or whether the marketing is driven by the expenditure.

Do women spend more on skincare than men? Yes. That is not a stereotype, it is a fact.

Can you therefore assume that any woman you meet will spend more on skincare than any man you know? No.

Does spending a lot on skincare mean you are a woman? Obviously not.

That's the sort of generalisation that probably helps you if you work in marketing, but I can't think of many other situations where it's useful.

It’s important to distinguish between wanting to question societal stereotypes (which may vary between countries, cultures, religion) while accepting that we also make some decisions based on understanding of human behaviour at population level and how it differs between the sexes.

Examples of stereotyping would be assuming that boys want to play football and girls want to play with dolls, or that Western women should want to shave their legs, or that it’s more normal for women to cry and be overtly emotional than men. These are generally unhelpful as they categorise men and women by interest and outward presentation, rather than by sex.

However, we can make some generalisations about behaviour which are not stereotypes, but are evidence-based. Eg more violent offenders and sex offenders are male than female. This is why the example of a child seeking out a woman rather than a man if they are lost and need help is not unhelpful stereotyping, but rather than a sensible response to make the situation as safe as possible. In this situation an example of unhelpful stereotyping might be the child seeing two women and going to the woman in the dress and make-up rather than the woman with baggy trousers, short hair and a lumberjack shirt on, because the woman in the dress seems more “motherly” or nurturing in some way.

I think that maybe you are misunderstanding some definitions.

Cambridge Dictionary

"stereotype: a set idea that people have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong."

Do women spend more on skincare than men? Yes. That is not a stereotype, it is a fact.

Is this because women are responding to societal pressure? That would be gendered expectations.

Are women just innately more interested in skin care? We could argue about whether that is true or not, but it wouldn't relate to gender, because it would be a consistent trait of women across cultures and time and would relate to sex, not gender.

Women have individual personalities,, no doubt influenced/affected in some cases by what society expects them to be like.
Male people who claim to be women perform (usually cherry picked) gender stereotypes about women.

ETA: I quoted you by accident, Merrymouse, although it was a great post.

Gender stereotypes are unhelpful and unhealthy in many contexts. When a girl is good at maths but doesn’t get invited to join the robotics team because it is ‘boy stuff’ that is gender stereotypes holding her back. When a boy is told he shouldn’t cry like a girl or express his feelings, that is gender stereotypes harming him.

there might be a small number of cases where the stereotype works, but overall they are harmful and that is why I’d describe myself as gender critical.

Oh and by the way, OP, I agree with popefully's definition of gender critical. And with another poster on another thread who said gender critical basically just means feminist.
Most people are sex realists rather than gender critical.

I don't think it's complicated.

World Health Organisation definition of gender:

"Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time."

So gender would be the expectation that a woman should not receive an education or vote, that pink was a strong masculine colour (light red), but is now a soft effeminate colour, that soccer is a game for women and young boys in the US, but a man's game in the rest of the world, that women can wear men's clothes, but man can't wear dresses - unless they are in the church.

If you think this is worthy of criticism you are gender critical, and it follows that you think identifying with a gender is bonkers.

This isn't a stereotype. It's a well evidenced position, based on sex, not gender.

If your child was lost, would you rather they sought help from a woman or a trans woman? Do you think they would be safer seeking help from a trans woman than from a man?

I agree. It's about statistical averages, general rules based on experience or data. Something being true more often than not. A general rule, or an average can and will be deviated from in an individual case, but is still a perfectly valid general rule/average. That's not the same thing as a stereotype. Stereotypes often aren't true or based on fact, and are imposed.

Yes that just goes to show that women being (generally) physically weaker is fact not stereotype. And that people save themselves, when it comes down to it.

The safety statistics do not depend on stereotypes, they depend on facts. It data collection continues to use 'gender' rather than 'sex', then in a few years they'll show that women have become much more dangerous. This is already happening.

You initially said the child should be advised to ask a woman. Very sensible, and children, like adults, can usually tell the difference, particularly if that know that that difference doesn't depend of hair length or make-up or the colours being worn.

But if genderists have told your child, over and over again, that transwomen are women, because they conform to a stereotyped appearance, then unless the accompanying children are there, providing the second aspect of your 'safe person' definition, the lost child is dependent on the stereotype only.

I've just read back my pervious post and, in attempting to explain myself clearly, its a bit wordy and precious.

Basically, for me, biological sex is real.
Everything else is personality.
Don't limit yourself to fit other people's expectations.

And tbh the reality is outside the realm of films like titanic , women & children first is not what happens anymore becatse we don’t live in the late 19th century

gcaptain.com/women-and-children-survival-rates-maritime-disaster/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20study%2C%20titled,'every%20man%20for%20himself'.

That isn’t a stereotype. That is statistical fact.

I don't mind the term 'gender critical', although I would describe myself as 'sex realist'.
I am critical of the idea of gender defining people because the apparent basis for the stereotypes is not clearly nature (sex driven) or nurture (societal norms) driven.
Its very limiting and judgemental.
I hate the way 'masculine' and 'feminine' are applied to people based on their adherence to other peoples assessment of their ability to conform to pre-judged societal expectations.
Why can't we just be men and women (biological categories) with our own individual personalities.

I think it’s useful to be able to differentiate between men/women (ie sex) and masculine/feminine (ie gender).

It’s essential to differentiate between men and women. That has nothing to do with “gender”, and nothing to do with stereotypes. It’s simply fact.

What do you mean by masculine and feminine? Pertaining to sex, and synonymous with maleness and femaleness, or do you mean “performing gender stereotypes”?

But why do women spend more on these things? Because women are judged more on their looks than men are. Women’s worth is still based on their beauty & how much men want them

that’s why when TW perform womanhood ie female gender stereotypes they focus so much on outward appearance

🤔 Gender, I used to think, was a polite term used instead of the word sex.
Once it became acceptable to define an identity it lost any credibility in relation to the factual term it had been used for.

I don’t use it to refer to a person’s sex/sexuality as I don’t think it means the same thing anymore.

I’m critical of people’s use of words that no longer mean what they’re intended to.
Authentic used to mean bona fide, genuine, undisputed, not a copy but original.

I’m Gender Identity critical, Sex Realist is now how I describe myself.