Sex sex you mean sex Not gender

[Kit19]

Sex not gender fgs you’re a university

www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2020/g-July-20/COVID19-gender-study-gets-funding-boost

They have a. 'report page' facility at the bottom of the page and I've reported it and torn them off a strip. If others could do so too it might send a message that people have had enough of this.

If we report it then aren’t we conceding to the rhetoric that gender and sex are different and therefore a women isn’t an adult human female. Honestly this whole thing has become so confusing. But I feel like as a group by conceding that there is a difference, we can’t argue against TWAW.

Some people are OK with gender.

sex and gender are different, its not us who tries to conflate them, its the TRA

sex - biology - adut human female

gender - set of stereotypes associated with people of a particular sex e.g. women have long hair, like pink and cry; men have short hair, and like beer and football

women are discriminated against because of their biological sex

people can perform whatever gender they like, it does not change their biological sex

Totally agree OP. Also used the report a page facility.

@Kit19

sex and gender are different, its not us who tries to conflate them, its the TRA

sex - biology - adut human female

gender - set of stereotypes associated with people of a particular sex e.g. women have long hair, like pink and cry; men have short hair, and like beer and football

women are discriminated against because of their biological sex

people can perform whatever gender they like, it does not change their biological sex

I get what you’re saying and completely agree that womens oppression is sex based. But sometimes I think agreeing that gender is social construct passively agrees with the notion that women confirm to a set of stereotypical behaviours. I think all adult females should be able to identify as women even if they have ‘gender nonconforming’ behaviours. Do you see what I mean? I’m coming from the position that a woman who dresses in men’s clothing is still a woman and vice versa.

if you're an adult human female you're not identifying as a woman - you just are a woman

I completely agree that stereotypes are regressive. As a GC feminist I believe a woman is a woman no matter what she's doing, how she's doing it and what she's wearing

similarly a man can never be a woman no matter how many female stereotypes he apes in dress, manner and pastimes

JKRowling92 - But they are not identifying as a woman.. they ARE a woman.

@Kit19

if you're an adult human female you're not identifying as a woman - you just are a woman

I completely agree that stereotypes are regressive. As a GC feminist I believe a woman is a woman no matter what she's doing, how she's doing it and what she's wearing

similarly a man can never be a woman no matter how many female stereotypes he apes in dress, manner and pastimes

Yes that’s exactly it. You are a woman. You aren’t identifying with anything. You are just you.

@Horizons83

JKRowling92 - But they are not identifying as a woman.. they ARE a woman.

Sorry yeah that’s what I meant. I don’t think you can identify out of what you are. Women are adult Human females. So to expand on my point, if we separate sex and gender aren’t we agreeing that you can identify out of women hood.

I get what you’re saying and completely agree that womens oppression is sex based. But sometimes I think agreeing that gender is social construct passively agrees with the notion that women confirm to a set of stereotypical behaviours. I think all adult females should be able to identify as women even if they have ‘gender nonconforming’ behaviours. Do you see what I mean? I’m coming from the position that a woman who dresses in men’s clothing is still a woman and vice versa

Shall we go back to basics? All women (by this I mean human beings born with XX chromosomes / uteruses etc) are women whether they like it or not. They don't identify as women, they simply biologically are women. They cannot become men, no matter what hormones they take or what surgery they have. Every cell in their body is XX and a thousand years after they die an archaeologist of the future will be able to identify them as female by eye, because women's skeletons are different from men.

People born female (ie women) are subjected from birth (even before birth) to a set of social stereotypes we call gender. There were experiments back in the 70s that involved dressing a baby in blue one day and pink on another and recording how the baby was talked to and played with and the language used around it and the expectations of those who encountered it. Pink and blue affected at a profound level the way people behaved. Even before we can speak or understand, we learn what we are supposed to be and do. And so on through life. Girl babies, girls and women are talked to, behaved towards and expected to behave differently to boy babies. This is gender: sexual stereotyping.

Do you seriously think that any of us here on the feminism board would say that a woman engineer or a woman bricklayer or a woman in a man's suit wasn't a woman?

Are you young? Who taught you that you could stop being a woman by putting on men's clothes? I'm really interested in where people are picking up these ideas.

Shedbuilder

I really don't think your post was necessary, it sounds really condescending. I understood exactly what the post you quoted meant, and I think there is probably some truth to it. You seem to be reading into it a slew of things that aren't there.

*JKrowling92
*
I think you are contradicting yourself here and are conflating them rather than treating them differently. To me it's very simple. Woman = Adult Human Female. Female = of the sex that produces the large gametes. Only adult human females can be women. So "womanhood" would only apply to women.
Gender is a set of stereotypes based on societal expectations. So a man can present himself as what he believes a woman is but can never become one as it's a biological impossibility.

I just asked for a Covid test and I had to chose a gender. Male or female, the next question was ethnicity and on that one you could decline to answer. The whole phone the GP then 111 then 11? then website process has made me cross...

if we separate sex and gender aren’t we agreeing that you can identify out of women hood.

What do you mean by womanhood? Womanhood to me is just the word that sums up social expectations of what a woman should be. You sound like a genderist — as if you believe that to be a real woman you have to be a kind, caring, skirt-wearing, pretty, pink, cake-baking, mothering sort of person and if you're not like that, you're not a real woman.

I'm a butch-ish looking lesbian. I work in the construction industry and often wear a hard hat and steel-toe-capped boots and rip-stop cargo pants and a fluorescent yellow safety jacket. I often look like one of the men I employ. I'm still very happy to be a woman, I'm just not the stereotypical sort of woman performing 'womanhood' in the way you seem to expect me to.

I can't think of a way of saying this without sounding rude, but would you say you're pretty new to feminist ideas?

@Shedbuilder asking me whether I’m young or not is kind of patronising...
When I used those examples of women dressing in men’s clothing still being women because she is female, I was making a point to the op that separating gender and sex undermines our ability to make this case. Because if gender is a social construct then so is woman.
I think that TRA has been so successful at pushing at women’s boundaries that even in this forum women are agreeing that gender and sex is different. Which I was questioning because if gender is man and women and it’s different to sex which is male and female then how can we argue against TWAW. I was pointing out what I see as a flaw in the logic and wondered if anyone had a way around it?

Hello, Goosefoot. I didn't mean to sound condescending, I just wanted to be absolutely sure that the OP understood that sex and gender were. different things and that's why I went into detail. As others have pointed out, she is conflating them.

So despite my Feminism 101 lesson, do you still think that sex and gender are the same thing?

I get what you're saying, Jkrowling92, but I come at it from a different angle. If we acknowledge that gender stereotypes exist (can we agree they do?) and that from infancy people are exposed to them and sometimes raised to conform to them, ignore them or rebel against them to greater or lesser degrees (still agreeing?) I don't see how that takes us to writing off anyone's personal preferences or behaviour as being determined by their exposure to gender stereotypes.

I'm more concerned about how broader society limits people's opportunities or squashes their personalities by assumptions and approval or disapproval based on stereotypes.

What people want to wear, do and put on their faces is purely up to them and I don't think the notion of gender explains anything except that these ideas are deeply ingrained.

Because if gender is a social construct then so is woman.

No. 'Woman' = adult human female, and adult human female is defined by biology.

I asked if you were young because I am approaching 60 and was fortunate enough to grow up in what I now think of as a golden age of feminism. I am genuinely interested in who is teaching younger people that sex and gender are the same and that sex is a social construct.

Actually Shedbuilder makes a good point about Womanhood. I was using it in the literal sense. If it's got woman in it then will only apply to women but womanhood is actually perceived by many as acting like a stereotypical woman. This is why we have to be clear about sex being different to gender.

@Shedbuilder possibly newer compared to you but I wouldn’t say new.

Also I think you’ve misunderstood me. I think a women is an adult human female with whatever personality she has. I am not a genderist. I have no expectations of what womenhood looks like other than it is the lived experience of an adult human female. What I’ve seen TRA argue is that gender and sex are two different things and use that suggest to young children that they are trapped in the wrong body given that sex and gender are different. That’s what I’m arguing against

Man. Woman, Male and Female ALL relate to sex. A man presenting as a woman is still a biological man. He can only present as a stereotypical women. Which is where gender comes in.

So why do you say that a woman can identify out of being a woman by putting on men's clothes?

@NearlyGranny thank you, that was a very clear response. I think what I was missing is you can’t ignore that gender stereotypes do exist which is why it’s important to separate the two. Finally clicked!