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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

"Binary Sex is an Imperialist construct...."

11 replies

MockerstheFeManist · 31/05/2019 13:26

....Imposed on subject peoples by western colonialists, etc.

Now that's not quite true, is it?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-48442934

OP posts:
Cyborgseadog · 31/05/2019 13:40

What absolute cobblers (insert the biggest facepalm emoji available)

NonnyMouse1337 · 31/05/2019 14:07

I didn't explicitly see anywhere in the article that binary sex is a colonial construction. I realise that's a concept that is repeated often by TRAs though.

It is awful how the British Empire persecuted indigenous cultures and undermined their traditions. It's a common theme in colonial history. As I understood it, the hijras were a wealthy class. They had a lot of property and therefore power. And their inheritance and wealth was passed down through adopted children. So to undermine this, I think the British decreed that inheritance could only pass through biological family ties. So it obviously affected the hijras more than anyone else in Indian society.

That said, biological sex is not a colonial or imperialist construct. Patriarchal societies such as the ones in India do not openly accept homosexuality or allow men and women to deviate from rigid gender roles.
Men who are very feminine or who wish to have relationships and families with other men have to switch to another gender category, such as hijra, to be able to openly live a very feminine life. And these third gender roles also have strict boundaries. So Indian men and women aren't allowed to be who they are or dress / behave as to wish. If they deviate too far from the norm for their gender role, they are only accepted by patriarchal Indian society if they go into another box. Males who do not conform to the masculine gender are not allowed to be men.

Goosefoot · 31/05/2019 14:11

Well, everything bad was invented by colonialists, war, slavery, oppression of women, suspicion of those from different ethnic backgrounds, the will to power, prudish sexual norms, you name it.
Why would binary sex be any different?

Manderleyagain · 31/05/2019 14:48

Where is your quote from op? The article didn't seem to be claiming that.

VickyEadie · 31/05/2019 14:53

I've seen this ludicrous claim on Twitter more than once.

The notion that biology was invented by imperialist western societies and imposed on colonised peoples is so astonishingly stupid - not to say patronising (I'm as sure as I am about anything that they all knew what the two sexes were before we showed up).

AlwaysComingHome · 31/05/2019 14:54

I think they are confusing Imperial Construct with Empirical Fact.

Admittedly Imperial and Empirical can be easily confused if you are an idiot.

FermatsTheorem · 31/05/2019 15:02

Admittedly Imperial and Empirical can be easily confused if you are an idiot

GrinGrinGrin

You win Mumsnet today.

AlwaysComingHome · 31/05/2019 15:06

The notion that biology was invented by imperialist western societies and imposed on colonised peoples is so astonishingly stupid

It reminds me of Erik Von Danikem’s theory that aliens built the pyramids, etc.

There’s this idea that people from other civilisations were so monumentally stupid they could think of nothing by themselves.

TheInebriati · 31/05/2019 15:13

And yet China still knows which half of the population needs to be culled.

Cwenthryth · 31/05/2019 15:21

If binary sex was invented by the British Empire, how on earth did humans even ever evolve, how has every single animal sexually reproduced etc... ridiculous. Unless binary gender was meant, in which case there may have kind of been a point apart from rigid societal gender roles definitely pre-date the British Empire!

I do have a problem with treating Hijra etc as some kind of wonderfully enlightened concept by virtue of it coming from a non-Western society btw - it’s still bowing down to rigid hierarchical gender stereotypes, just making a new rule within them.

Manderleyagain · 06/06/2019 16:00

The article did seem to be talking about gender rather than sex itself.

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