Is gender 100% bullshit? Or not

[speakingwoman]

Big question!

So, biology is a stable reality (I have been reading the well-written Hands Across the Aisle site)

Some bits of biology are visible and tangible e.g. our wider hips.

That changes some behaviours (our gait is different to men’s gaits).

And our hormone mix is different.

Where does biology stop and gender start?

Your biology is part of your genetic make up.

Your gender is foisted upon you by society.

You can reject gender and you can change gender stereotypes and gender based attitudes.

You can not reject biology.

But surely there is a fuzzy bit where biology ends and gender starts?

Like what?

There are no fuzzy bits.

The way people behave and the way society treats them is all part of conditioning from birth. Girls and boys are treated differently. In fact, we often colour code them.

I think there might be fuzzy bits around hormones. Isn’t there a link between higher testosterone and propensity to violence?

It seems to me that biology is the determinant for specific ideas of gender, but those specific ideas are entirely malleable depending on the culture. So in one part of the world (say, the North) female gender is expressed one way, and in another part of the world, the gender markers are entirely different.

Because of conditioning, each culture thinks that their understanding of gender is innate, until they bump into other cultures where the humans with vaginas and breasts behave and are treated very differently, and suddenly what was considered innate begins to look very arbitrary indeed.

Do you mean an overlap between sex and gender based on sex characteristics?

I think the impact of hormones on character is massively overestimated and overstated personally.

speakingwoman
I completely agree with you.
There is overlap.
Eg arguably there is a biological reason why women traditionally wore skirts, women have periods, don't want to stain fabrics at the crotch, and men wore trousers, which are better at protecting external genital organs.
Somehow these external signifiers have become to mean more than just what's practical.

Gncq what about all the cultures where men and women both wear skirts? The Tonga people for example, even the Male police officers wear a skirt.

I’ve been trying to grapple with this recently and despite having been massively GC and a RF for years and years (I’m old) I seem to be shifting a little.

I’m in a relationship where there is deep respect for our individuality, and feminine behaviours are not disrespected in any way. So despite me being quite masculine behaved my whole life...independent, show no weakness, strong etc...I now find myself, because I have the freedom and respect, being very feminine. And it feels good. Like home.

I feel like I actually rejected my femininity for many years as I thought people perceived it as weak. Now I love cooking dinner (the nurture feeling is satisfying), I love being the person who looks out for people’s feelings (the agreeableness) etc.

This doesn’t answer your question really, but if you look at the countries where equality is highest, gender stereotypes are also higher - women prefer and have more interest in people overall than things. I now think it’s dangerous to say that gender is purely based on culture, I don’t know where the line lies, because feminity obviously is influenced in some way by culture, but to what extent I don’t think it easy to say and my life experience tells me that there are some fundamental truths to feminity that are simply played out in different ways in different cultures

See, I did the homesy female thing in a really oppressive situation, and since breaking free from that and finding the confidence to be myself, I have been assertive, confident, organized, career minded and ambitious. All the things Meg-John whatsyerface say indicate I'm actually a bloke.

Ooh good answers!

Still confused though...

mooncup what makes you think those things you mention are femine traits?

Why do you think being independent, strong, showing no weakness is unfeminine?

Why is nurturing a feminine trait? Why do you think women have more interest in people.

It's not true. It's just stereo typing. It's something that you have been taught.

Gender is the construct that maintains the dominance/submission paradigm and prevents prevents us from being fully human.

At a population level, women do have a greater interest in people than in things (men)

But in some ways that creates a circular argument because it doesn’t prove whether that’s biology or culture

So take gait.
Gait is biology (the hips thing)
Sex drive is biology
Exaggerating the different gait exaggerates the sex based difference.
Isn’t that where raising the heel comes in? Or not.
I’m not sure.

speakingwoman, if it's any comfort, I think in the current climate it's very easy to be confused because so much work is being put into making the whole damn thing confusing. It has taken me years to distill my experience and the world around me to be able to get some kind of handle on it.

This ‘fully human’ point is why I was talking about respect

Let’s jusr say that it is biological that women like nurturing, if it isn’t respected then it can become oppressive. If it is respected, it doesn’t have to be oppressive

Moo cup, I agree you’re a bit mixed up.

Maybe you were “performing” “anti-femininity” and now you’re in a relationship where you can just be you? (Which is lovely, btw)

Exaggerating the different gait exaggerates the sex based difference.
Isn’t that where raising the heel comes in? Or not

Heels were worn by men originally.

Oh.
Bugger.

Now I need to think of something else.

What is meant by 'nurturing' in this context? I nurtured my first child by breast feeding. It was a physical activity that only a woman could do.

I spent a lot of time cradling my baby to do it. I still give lots of hugs and physical affection to my children. Their father has never breast fed them because he doesn't have the biological capacity. But he is affectionate and tactile in his care for them. He is very 'nurturing'.

I think sometimes we use these words for traits that we really need to unpick. That's where gender plays the mindfuck.

It’s entirely possible speakingwomen however if you look globally there are certain things that consistently appear regarding female behaviour, and I think it’s dangerous to dismiss this as being entirely cultural

At a population level, women do have a greater interest in people than in things (men)

Women have throughout history relied on safety in numbers to protect themselves from harm. Even today, a woman rarely walks home alone in the dark.

They have learned to do this because their sex makes them vulnerable to attack by predatory males.