To be bored of the ‘it’s not gender it’s sex’ posts?

[HermioneMakepeace]

Seriously. Every time someone uses the word ‘gender’ this happens. Gender reveal parties, gender scans, etc. Everyone knows what they mean. Why nitpick and derail the thread?

The dictionary definition of gender is,

either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones.

It says ‘especially when’, not ‘only when’. IMO gender is a completely acceptable alternative to sex. And an easier term to use as it does not flag on work computers.

Does anybody else agree or AIBU?

And yes, all these terrible things are taking place. And yet by focusing on the wording of a bloody reveal party you are trivialising the whole issue.

Ah, sorry. I just saw ‘weeds’ and didn’t recognise the name.

And yet by focusing on the wording of a bloody reveal party you are trivialising the whole issue

Except language is so, so important. We are being told we have to redefine “woman” to include men. The use of “gender” is part of how that argument has got this far. A lot of women have simply had enough.

Regarding common usage, that article cited earlier is rather dubious.

Stock cliches that have been in the language for ages, like "the opposite sex", "the fair sex", "the weaker sex", make it clear that the word "sex" was the favoured term up until relatively recently, IMO.

Yes, writers did sometimes use 'gender' as an alternative, but mainly as a synonym to vary their language, in the way writers do to avoid being repetitious.

A lot of women have simply had enough.

Then EDUCATE women, rather than belittling them. Start a thread explaining all the reasons why it is ‘sex’ and not ‘gender’. And in language that makes it accessible to all. Welcome women to the debate rather than sneering at them from your rarified position. Do something positive. And inclusive for ALL women (by which I obviously mean biological women), whatever their class or level of education.

I have to agree with your teacher. I don't get why there's a war? What are women fighting for now?

Um, I AM the teacher. Do you mean you agree with my student? It doesn't surprise me to be honest: she was very sheltered and very naive with absolutely no understanding of what was happening to women on a global scale. If you really don't understand what women still need to fight for - if you genuinely don't care that in some cultures women can still be stoned for adultery, that victims of rape can still be put in prison, that abortion rights are being eroded, that women are being denied access to contraception and health care...if you lack the basic compassion required for any of that to matter to you because you're all right, then what's the point? Someone who is selfish and self-absorbed to that extent is unlikely to change.

I agree with a previous poster that sometimes the most demoralising thing about defending women's rights is not the attitude of men at all but the attitude of some women who seem determined to have their own rights curtailed.

Gosh how lovely it must be to live a life so privileged that you can get bored with an issue that directly and adversely affects a lot of people! Lucky you.

Hermione

I’m doing my best not to let my hackles rise at your assumption that I don’t do those things, alongside many other women.

Yabu because language is important and there is a difference between sex and 'gender'

And this, dear readers, is why women are scared to venture onto the Feminism board.

Start a thread explaining all the reasons why it is ‘sex’ and not ‘gender

This is ironic isn’t it? You could have done that, instead you started a thread to say how bored you are of people going on about it, and now you are annoyed with people who are on your thread pointing out how important it is. We don’t need a thread explaining it, because you’ve started it and all those people telling you YABU have provided the reasons why.

You want this topic to be hidden away in its own little thread because it bores you to see it spill over into other threads. As pp have said, you’re policing language and tone. You think you get to decide what’s polite, and how people should be educated, which is in itself quite snobbish (“oh don’t be mean to the poorly educated woman, she can’t possibly cope with such brutish correction of her language mistake, she needs to be treated gently”

Well tough: facts matter. Every time someone conflates sex and gender it needs to be corrected: in a thread about a baby, in a thread about kittens, in a thread about someone dying, in completely unrelated threads, and in real life too, at every available opportunity. The more it’s done, the more people will realise its significance.

The Feminism board is not the least bit scary. How ridiculous.
The information on there is important and people need to inform and educate themselves.
If people are scared of information that is worrying.

And this, dear readers, is why women are scared to venture onto the Feminism board

I don’t understand your gotcha?

@HermioneMakepeace at no point was I aggressive, I think @SmileEachDay explains well. Women, even with other women, are policed in the content and tone of their statements and conversation.

We need to stop confusing sex and gender. It really isn't the same thing and it isn't "boring" to discuss this.

The Feminism board can be scary. It used to be to me because I find it’s full of very intelligent, knowledgable women. I don’t post very much as I’m not nearly as knowledgeable or eloquent.

However I read a huge amount on that board and have learnt so much!

Women have only relatively recently gained equal pay, equal rights, etc We now have Laws to protect these sex based rights and it’s all about to be bulldozed away, by self ID.
This is why it’s important we use the words sex and gender correctly.

If you care about women’s and girls rights you should get reading and spread the word.

And this, dear readers, is why women are scared to venture onto the Feminism board.

Eh? Which of the 180 plus posts preceding that one is your "this"?

But don't tell me: you've run out of arguments - or realised what an illogical position you were defending in the first place - so have now disappeared with a post that you hope makes it look as if you've proved your point and somehow "won" the thread?

It doesn't, by the way, in case that wasn't clear.

Oh I do love women who find other women who fight for women's rights "boring". You are the descendants of the women who laughed at the suffragettes or found them irritating. If it was up to you women, there would be no equal pay, no vote for women, no right to prosecute rape within marriage, no property rights for women ... I could go on, but it would be boring.

TBH, I wouldn't even read a post about a gender reveal party, never mind waste my energy posting on it, and if that makes me a boring blue stocking, that's fine with me. I no longer need to hide my intelligence just because I am an adult human female. And that is thanks to the wonderful work of women like Emmeline Pankhurst who I would argue was anything but boring.