The medieval / ancient 'one sex' model

[HeirloomTomato]

I just read an article about the medieval / ancient approach to sex and gender. The writer termed it the 'one sex' model, with 'male' being the normal definitive sex and 'female' being a deficient, broken male. I remember encountering that attitude to women in Catholic theology but hadn't heard it referred to as the 'one sex' model before.

In any case, it occurred to me that TRAs are essentially taking us back to the middle ages by promoting the idea that gender exists on a spectrum and there is no such thing as 'female' biology. It erases the female experience and ignores the biological burden borne by women in reproduction. It silences women from speaking about the specific experience of living in a female body.

It's really no different to how women were treated in the middle ages or by the Catholic church: ignore the specific biology women have, assume 'male' is the default but - the TRA twist - allow said 'males' to define and express themselves in any way they want.

Yet we're supposed to be the ones on the wrong side of history...

I feel binary jars with the hierarchy model
how can greater or lesser than be a binary when it excludes equality?

Well they are two separate ways of categorising that are intersecting. There is both a binary and a hierarchy.
Binary just means there are only two possible outcomes/states. It doesn’t dictate whether those two outcomes are equal or unequal.
Similarly, a hierarchy just a rank order of most important to least important, this can cover any number from 2 to infinity.

So what we have is a hierarchy applied to the binary of the sexes. They don’t conflict because they’re two different concepts,

I think you missed my maths joke (as many quotation marks as you like) about equality. Three outcomes there, greater, lesser, or equality....

Not arguing there aren't obviously only two sexes, but the hierarchical model to me looks more like humans (i.e. males), and derivative/damaged humans (i.e. females). Along with children and slaves, all on lower rungs than the male.

Not RTFT but will.

From what I've seen over the years, it's obvious that the whole thing is male oriented. Male gaze. Male view of woman/ man.

The most obvious example of this is how non binary female people bind/ have surgery because breasts.

Why would a male type chest mean non binary? Male as default is why.

In general boobs seem to be a major factor an awful lot of the time.

Male take on it. 100%.

Also take the new sexual identities.

Not talked about as much lately now I come to think of it.

Special words for don't want to unless know them etc.

The sexual identities have a baseline of archetypal bloke any holes a goal and always up for it. The main labels are all describing deviations from that 'norm'.

@Beowulfa

As evidenced by the panicked and muddled approach of various sporting bodies in deciding that women are just men with a bit less testosterone ie Laurel Hubbard.

Exactly the kind of example I was thinking of when I started this thread, @Beowulfa. No recognition that women have a distinct and complex biology. It's a view of women as defective men - the same basic biology but just lower testosterone, as if that is enough to explain the vast complexity of female biology.

@NiceGerbil

Also take the new sexual identities.

Not talked about as much lately now I come to think of it.

Special words for don't want to unless know them etc.

The sexual identities have a baseline of archetypal bloke any holes a goal and always up for it. The main labels are all describing deviations from that 'norm'.

Yes, I thought this when I heard about greysexual. Not wanting sex unless you are emotionally connected counts as a sexuality.

It's a view of women as defective men - the same basic biology but just lower testosterone
That's a great and totally direct example -- handicap (in the horse racing sense) a male enough and brings him far enough down to the level of women. Just that one is handicapped by birth, the other by their own actions.
If we didn't still have the hierarchical model in so many heads, this claim wouldn't seem so convincing. Ditto those men who see women as more like children than real adult humans. You can't argue equality with those who see it as this fundamental hierarchy. Not even different but equal.