Q&A thread for New Posters

[CharlieParley]

Welcome to the FWR board and welcome to the debate. If you're new here and have been told your questions might be better on their own thread, but you're not comfortable starting your own, then please feel free to ask your question here.

I'll try my best to answer and some of our other regulars might pop in too.

The problem with dropping gender from daily interactions, helen is that you’ve unfortunately neglected to notice that the whole world doesn’t speak English, or even a language that would be amenable to such reforms.

In Arabic, for example, the conjugation of verbs is gendered- you have different verb endings depending on if you are talking to a man or a woman. So your whole conversation from hello, how are you to goodbye sounds different if you are addressing a man or a woman. How will you solve this, other than by whole scale overhaul of a language that has existed for thousands of years, and also forms the underpinning of an extremely widespread religion?

Completely colonial, and clearly not progressive. Back to the drawing board.

(Also, humans are sexually dimorphic)

One very important point with caring roles is that although it can look like it is not massively different between men and women, as caring intensity (ie weekly number of hours of care) increases, the split changes. Care to take a guess in which direction?!

Carers UK do have a lot of good research on this.

@PotholeParadies

“I think I normally refer to animals as ‘it’.

I don't think we'd get on in RL.then.

My point isn’t about whether pronouns are or should refer to sex or gender. My point is, why on earth do we need gendered pronouns if they purely refer to sex? When I interact with another person (except in some specific contexts - medical, sexual etc) I don’t need to know what their chromosomes or genitals are

I am a trifle confused about this. When you interact with someone in RL, while using the medium of English, you will be using the unsexed, ungendered pronouns of you. The only thing telling you their sex will be your eyes.

If you interact with people in exactly the same way, whatever their sex, good for you.

The pronouns will only come up if you want to tell other people about your interaction. If you think sex is irrelevant, deliberately avoid using pronouns in those later conversations and see if other people complain.”

I also often refer to babies as “it” - not sure if that makes it better or worse in your view though!

Oops, hit ‘post’ prematurely by mistake....

Ok, I take your point that if I’m directly talking to another person I don’t need gendered pronouns. But more broadly, via the combination of our name and pronouns, we are expected to declare our sex (or gender) in order to interact socially with others

@picklemewalnuts

“@Helen8220 it's not unusual- I think it's fairly typical of women, to be honest, even if they haven't explicitly thought it through.

I know very few women who wouldn't hesitate at being in a confined space with an unknown male.

As a teacher, you take care to avoid being alone with a child unless it's somewhere open and visible.
As a woman I take care to avoid being alone with unfamiliar men, ditto.

The first is for the protection of both the child and teacher, the second for my own protection.

Vicars also have safeguarding awareness.

It's really not unusual.”

Back before covid I and my female colleagues were frequently in lifts/meeting rooms with male colleagues (who we might never have met before - it’s a big organisation), and it’s pretty standard on the tube to be closer than you’d like to many strangers of both sexes/all genders. I’ve never heard anyone say it makes them uncomfortable (or at least, in the case of the tube, specifically uncomfortable because of the sex of the people). Outside work, as far as I’m aware my friends see male doctors (including for gynae issues) without hesitation.

I hate the idea that women are like children in needing special protection. We are not children and we can look after ourselves

@Sophoclesthefox

“The problem with dropping gender from daily interactions, helen is that you’ve unfortunately neglected to notice that the whole world doesn’t speak English, or even a language that would be amenable to such reforms.

In Arabic, for example, the conjugation of verbs is gendered- you have different verb endings depending on if you are talking to a man or a woman. So your whole conversation from hello, how are you to goodbye sounds different if you are addressing a man or a woman. How will you solve this, other than by whole scale overhaul of a language that has existed for thousands of years, and also forms the underpinning of an extremely widespread religion?

Completely colonial, and clearly not progressive. Back to the drawing board.

(Also, humans are sexually dimorphic)”

I absolutely think that all language should stop operating in a way that requires people to be marked as male or female. While we’re on the subject, I very much hope all theistic religion will eventually go the same way as gender norms and become a relic of the past

I'm afraid I don't quite follow you.

Names are often clearly delineated by sex, yes. Women with unisex names report that they think it gave them a boost into the workplace, regarding getting interviews.

But once in the workplace, being clearly female, sexual discrimination comes into play.

I have never told anyone to use a particular set of pronouns. Other people choose them. In practice, when I overhear people talking about me, they seem to use female ones, apart from some autistic children who struggle with language and use he for everyone. I don't melt when this happens. I think that if everyone calls me he, people will still worry about me taking maternity leave.

You'll find the prevailing view on this board is that we shouldn't have to declare pronouns, because it will exacerbate sexual discrimination in the work place. This is where strands of the trans rights movement are at odds with the strands of feminism espoused on this board! They want us all to declare pronouns on profiles, CVs and email signatures.

I absolutely think that all language should stop operating in a way that requires people to be marked as male or female. While we’re on the subject, I very much hope all theistic religion will eventually go the same way as gender norms and become a relic of the past

You might like Finnish. No separate equivalents of he or she. They've got one third-person singular that is used indistinguishably for a person of either sex.

It's pretty standard on the tube to be groped by men.
It's pretty standard for the lift doors to open and close constantly.
It's pretty standard for meeting rooms to be fairly visually open- if I were in a meeting room with a man who reached out and closed the blinds for no good reason, I'd be alert.

I am all for fighting against the stereotype that women are inherently more nurturing or suited to being a primary child carer than men.

Women also need specific services and rights if they want to avoid having children.

IVF is more of a burden on women than on men.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding require specific accommodations.

Many drugs are not tested on pregnant women.

Diseases impact differently on men and women (sometimes to men's disadvantage - also see Covid).

Even leaving aside the topic of single sex spaces and any social or cultural norms, men and women use toilets differently because their bodies function differently.

None of this should be a problem if society doesn't assume that the default norm is male. However to do that you need to acknowledge the impact of sex.

You should probably read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.

Regarding Covid, it's just come out that a covid test is less accurate for women and produces false negatives.

If you carefully avoid seeing sex, then how are you going to pick that up? As it is, it's taken about a year for anyone to notice.

None of this should be a problem if society doesn't assume that the default norm is male. However to do that you need to acknowledge the impact of sex.

You should probably read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.

Indeed.

@Helen8220
My view is that the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are too thoroughly infected with gender (as evidenced by the fact people are almost invariably referred to using gendered pronouns which make it very difficult to enter into social interactions without adopting a gender) to be re-claimed as denoting only biological sex. To deny that ‘woman’ means more than biologically female is to deny inescapable reality.

So the only way to get to a place where people are truly free from gendered norms and expectations (or at least, free to adopt them or reject them as they wish) is to detach the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ from biological sex and allow people to inhabit them as they wish.

What are the "concepts of 'man' and 'women'" that you want to "allow people to inhabit", if they are not to do with sex and they are not to do with stereotypes?

I know that changing terminology or concepts wouldn’t stop sexism overnight, but I also think a blurring of the boundaries between ‘man’ and ‘woman’ over time will help to erode sexist stereotypes

Are you saying that if some men can 'become' women and some women can 'become' men, that sexist stereotypes will disappear? If there are no stereotypes, and if (as I believe you are saying) a woman is something other than an adult female human, how does a man 'become' a woman?

You might like Finnish. No separate equivalents of he or she. They've got one third-person singular that is used indistinguishably for a person of either sex.

And Indonesian. This is quite interesting for a Vice article.

It's another reminder that a gender-neutral language doesn't necessarily mean a gender-neutral society. Indonesian society is pretty patriarchal and these kinds of beliefs rise to the surface regardless of our language.
“Of course it doesn’t mean that people who use Indonesian language aren’t sexist," Katrin told VICE. "It doesn’t matter how ‘neutral’ a language is, as long as the content is sexist, the society and culture are sexist. So we need to address the gender problems in our society, not only in the language."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3jg9e/why-google-is-adding-gender-pronouns-to-bahasa-indonesia-translations

To deny that ‘woman’ means more than biologically female is to deny inescapable reality.

How so? That strikes me as semantic sophistry.

To deny that ‘woman’ means more than biologically female is to deny inescapable reality.

And also seems to deny the fact that cultural and social expectations can and do change. What you can't change is physical reality.

I absolutely think that all language should stop operating in a way that requires people to be marked as male or female. While we’re on the subject, I very much hope all theistic religion will eventually go the same way as gender norms and become a relic of the past

I don’t think you’ve even begun to engage with my point, but if this is the aim, then at least your worldview is consistent.

Barking, but consistent.

However, even if this all worked, was possible across every language, and everyone in the world signed up to it, humans would still carry on being born either male or female. We just wouldn’t have words to describe it any more. There would still be be prostate glands and ovaries, breasts and Adam’s apples, xx and XY chromosomes.

In the real world, however, it’s plain to see that this sort of thinking doesn’t engage on any level with any kind of class analysis, structural or cultural differences. It’s forged in an ivory tower, a utopia, a thought experiment. It has no practical application.

I’d love to see the reaction to you telling an Arabic speaker that gendered conjugation is transphobic and sexist and needs to go. Please can I be there?

1984 was supposed to put people off the idea of using language to control thought. And yet here it is, alive and kicking. Amazing.

@Sophoclesthefox

1984 was supposed to put people off the idea of using language to control thought. And yet here it is, alive and kicking. Amazing.

You'd think some must see it as an instruction manual, instead of a warning.

After that, the people at the Académie Française. I will need to film that. You can't even type the literal equivalent of "I went to school" in French without revealing what sex you are.

It's odd that all this drama about gendered language seems to be coming from English-speaking countries when we're speaking one of the most non-gendered languages.

You would, cranberries.

The Academie Français is still riven over feminised/masculinised professions. That’s only taken, like, a hundred years to get movement on, and now we’ll have to gender neutralise again, hou la la! I’ll bring the popcorn.

I’ve never heard anyone say it makes them uncomfortable (or at least, in the case of the tube, specifically uncomfortable because of the sex of the people).

I have in the past gotten off and on the same train again to avoid certain male people standing too close during rush hour. I have known female students who came in with white goo on their clothes after having men stand very close to them on a packed train.
I know many women and girls, me included, who will think twice on taking public transport late at night when there already men in the transport in question. Including the driver. So for your experience, there is a different experience,
Now that I am middle age, I can actually travel easer. And afford a car.

Helen8220:
So the only way to get to a place where people are truly free from gendered norms and expectations (or at least, free to adopt them or reject them as they wish) is to detach the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ from biological sex and allow people to inhabit them as they wish.

No this is not the only way. There is another (obvious and better) way.

It is this: detach the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ from gendered norms.

-- Or, perhaps, which is equivalent: detach gendered norms from the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’

That will be much simpler. And we will not even have to rewrite the dictionary.

[" woman: ... an adult female human being." (From OED.)]

It is, perhaps, useful to see the divide between us in such simple terms, Helen8220:

Some of us wish people (men and women, boys and girls) not to be defined by gender norms, thinking as we do that that has been, and remains, a mechanism of oppression. Others you for instance really really want to emphasise the way people have been so defined; indeed you wish this to be reinforced.

Can you see why we might say, 'No, thanks'?

Helen, I would like you to read through this thread about a girl being attacked on the top floor of a bus. Pay attention to the number of people who blame the girl for being irresponsible because she went upstairs on public transport.

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2303625