Sex as a social construct

[IamAporcupine]

I was discussing the biological reality of sex with someone who seems quite keen on J Butler et al.

She started with 'sex is a social construct' and when enquired a bit more said that biological sex does exist, but what it is socially constructed is the 'category' of sex. That is, that humans observed the differences and decided to categorise that observation (and not a different one) and that this is what is socially constructed (and politically orientated).

I somehow intituvely think this does not make sense, but cannot put it in words. Can anyone help me please?

Well language is a social construct and if words don't exist it can be hard for people to get concepts - I think they have shown for example that cultures with more colour words distinguish/match different colours more easily

However I think that sex is one of those concepts that is more animal than human in origins

Gender , the roles and expectations based in sex is very much a human social construct

In philosophy, something is socially constructed if it is a construction of human minds: if it requires human minds in order to exist. A good example is money. Human beings assign value to certain objects in the world (pieces of paper, small round metal pieces) and call these 'money'. A ten pound note has no intrinsic value outside of what human beings say it is worth. In a world with no human beings, money would just be paper. Loads of things are social constructs: art, racism, sexism, religion, fashion. Note, that just because something is socially constructed doesn't mean it's not 'real' or 'objective'. You cannot argue with the tax man that a ten pound note is actually worth a million pounds.

We can contrast social constructs with things that exist objectively in the world. These objects exist no matter what humans think about them. If all the humans disappeared, these objects would still be around. This includes the law of gravity, rocks, and biological sex.

Now, language is a social construct in that quite literally there is no objective reason why the Japanese call a certain animal a 'neko' and English speakers call it a 'cat'. The use of the word 'cat' or 'neko' to refer to the creature is a social construct, whereas the creature itself is not a social construct. This is entirely banal.

Biological sex is not a social construct as it exists independently of what humans think. If all the humans died out, mammals would still have a male and female sex. What is a social construct is the label we apply to the two sexes - the fact we call one' male' and one 'female. But this, as I've said, is trite. This is just how language works. Language is a social construct, but the concepts underlying language are not necessarily a social construct. Butler's big fallacy is to assume that because the language we use to categorise things is a social construct, this contaminates the thing itself and also makes it a social construct.This makes no sense because it would mean that everything we have words for is socially constructed: nothing in the world is objective and exists independently of humans. This is wrong. The category of sex is a social construct in a trivial sense, in the way that any other category that attempts to track natural kinds is a social construct.

What I would say is political is the social construct of gender that we impose on biological sex. Biological sex is just a blunt fact in the world, and then humans impose gender roles, gender stereotypes and gendered expectations on the two sexes. The way we treat the two sexes is political. But the fact there are two sexes itself is not a political fact, but a scientific one.

@WeeBisom
This 100%.
Language is a social construct that we use to communicate biological (and other realities), but the fact the word is a social construct, doesn’t mean the reality it describes (ie. cat, sex, age) is a construct at all.

It is a tiresome theory that people spout to sound clever. Of COURSE human's observed and created sex categories and created the language around it.

Do these people really believe that humans have something on animals there? Really? That animals don't instinctively identify male and female sexes when it is needed.

Sorry, I came across a couple of very smug Australian lecturers going on about this and they were so pleased with their condescending put downs. Neither of them had any argument based in reality. But, still, so pleased with themselves.

Great explanation weeBisom

It is possible to imagine a world where far less importance is put on the differences between male and female humans. But the physical differences (sex) would still exist.

It is interesting that believers in gender ideology seem to want to invoke this world and yet they do so by fixating on the physical qualities that would remain unchanged. Such as by asserting that small penises and large clitorises are often mistaken for one and other. Or that penises can be female but breasts never male nor non binary.

The best way to make sure that naturally occurring physical differences don't define the way that humans treat each other would surely be to make sure that one type of human didn't capitalise on any natural physical advantage or any structural advantage gained thus far to shit on the other type of human.

Yeah. If they want to breed kittens, are they going to try and work out the social conventions of cats, or do they know perfectly well how to sex animals and that you need one of each, unneutered?

This is the modern bore's delight of angels on pins and whether women have souls.

@PaleGreenGhost: such a good point. It's the undue emphasis on sex differences that lead to oppression and inequality, not the sex differences themselves. We could easily have lived in a world where eye colour was the central guiding principle, and where blue eyed people and brown eyed people were thought to have different roles, personalities, intelligence, traits, behaviours etc. The way to get out of this oppressive regime is not to say that blue eyed people can self identify as Brown eyes, and vice versa, but to say that the entire framework is nonsense - there is no reason to treat blue eyed people as better than brown eyed people.

Thanks everyone.
I have no problem arguing that sex is very much a biological reality and that the language we use to describe it can be seen as arbitrary and socially constructed. That’s just the nature of language.
I agree that is not the classification itself, but the imposition of gender roles and the way the two sexes are treated that is the political issue.
However, she seemed to be claiming that even though biological sex exists, its classification, more specifically, the choice to use sex to classify humans, is a political decision, and what makes it socially constructed.
All this was delivered with ‘even if I explain it you would not understand’ attitude.

@WeeBisom
It's the undue emphasis on sex differences that lead to oppression and inequality, not the sex differences themselves

I am wondering if this is what she actually meant?!

Tell her that fire is a social construct. She should be forced to her stick her hand in it. Then tell her that pain and burns are also a social construct.

Maybe she can come up with new words for 'pain' and 'burn' as well so that people who haven't had contact with 'fire' don't feel marginalised and excluded. It's a political decision, after all, to distinguish between people who have touched fire and those who haven't.
She can simply identify as 'not burned' and all will be well.

I'd like to see every 'social constructivism' adherent eagerly line up to do the same.

Don't think oh maybe she meant that etc. She said what she said.

I have seen the sex as a social construct thing a fair bit.

Often the (bizarre, USA centric, racist) argument is-

That sex is a white Western colonialist concept.
That was introduced, forced and enforced on. Other countries. Who previously had no concept of biological sex at all.
Essentially most of the world was living in a paradise where bio sex was somehow not noticed, irrelevant, and gender diversity was standard, and it was all peace and harmony until the white people came.

Just realised the huge harm, violence, taking of wealth, subjugation of millions of people. Doesn't come up.

What the white people did that was terrible. Was introduce the concept of 2 sexes thus destroying essentially everything for these innocent, happy, gentle peoples who apparently had never noticed that the ones with the cocks don't have babies.

Women have existed before modernity, before culture, before clothes and before language. We have had words for the (real biological) difference between men and women since the evolution of language. One of the first words babies ever say is mama (or local equivalent). The fact that in recent times someone decided to hijack the word woman and tie it to their own notion of gender identity does not mean they are allowed to force everyone else to partake in their nonsense.

the choice to use sex to classify humans, is a political decision, and what makes it socially constructed.

What choice would that be? When did we choose to do this? Do they mean that we all sat down and had a vote on it, or do they mean a choice in the same way that "state of nature" theorists postulated the state of nature as a "hypothetical efficient cause" of civil society?

Or do they mean that we are all continuously making this choice implicitly in the way we live our day to day lives? A sort of unconsidered habitual assumption that we have to be cleansed of in order to introduce the morally perfect world of equality? If they believe that, then they have reinvented sin. How are they going to get rid of it? Visions of commissars, religious police, Pol Pot and black shirts going through my head right now.

But the practical error behind this thinking is the belief that if you stop noticing sex differences they will go away, or at least stop being significant. This is nonsense. Sexual attraction is not created by public policy.

Bottom line is.

If sex is a construct.
That means other mammals eg cats, elephants, chimps, lions, rabbits. Just. Guess?
No general sex specific behaviours?

Before early humans developed speech. Didn't notice any difference between the sexes?

With all this stuff a lot of good points applied to things randomly to be bamboozle.

So here.

Humans generally like to categorise. True.

Sometimes the categorisation turns out to be inadequate, incorrect. True.

Often it's because discovered significant differences within things grouped together. More complex than realised before. True.

Biases/ assumptions had meant missing stuff. True.

Now, it's all been turned around. The categories and what in them. Is irrelevant. A tree is a tree no matter what we call it, what category we put it in.

If it gets categorised as a fish, or stone, or a mammal.
We've got it wrong.
The tree is still a tree.

I think maybe your friend is on the popular argument.
That humans categorising sex as two options. Was an error because spectrum, clownfish etc.
Two sexes is an error that needs to be revised.

But. Whatever categories.

Mammals come in male and female. Penis vagina. Live young. Breast milk.

And all this confusing, pseudo scientific nonsense. Pushed out to confuse, divert, frustrate.

Never ever says why any of it means can access things that used to be single sex, IE penis/ vagina. Nothing else.

Are there things that are real but also social constructs? I’m also just trying to get my head around it. For example, is a mountain a social construct? Naturally a mountain exists, but the idea of a mountain, is that a social construct?

@DottyDoge

That's interesting. The technical distinction between a mountain and a hill is arbitrary, and clearly socially constructed (decided by some authority and accepted by everyone else). So, I guess, yes.

But as the sage Rowling said:

Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?

I guess - in my mind - she's describing gender roles.

@IamAporcupine

I was discussing the biological reality of sex with someone who seems quite keen on J Butler et al.

She started with 'sex is a social construct' and when enquired a bit more said that biological sex does exist, but what it is socially constructed is the 'category' of sex. That is, that humans observed the differences and decided to categorise that observation (and not a different one) and that this is what is socially constructed (and politically orientated).

I somehow intituvely think this does not make sense, but cannot put it in words. Can anyone help me please?

What happens if you ask your friend if she can think of any reason to sort humans into categories at all?

Would she sort them by, say, strength? Can she see any reason to sort by sex? Provision of health services maybe?

I do understand that in a world where there is no female oppression, no 'gender', for men Or women, then the differences imposed on each sex would diminish significantly.

You'd just be left with the fact of physical difference, which only dictated circumstances where they objectively mattered, like childbirth, etc.

But the current climate enforces social constructions like gender. And then leverages them to further oppress women.

When people say something is too complicated and I wouldn’t understand, it is a sure sign they don’t understand or it doesn’t make sense so they can’t explain it.

@DottyDoge

Are there things that are real but also social constructs? I’m also just trying to get my head around it. For example, is a mountain a social construct? Naturally a mountain exists, but the idea of a mountain, is that a social construct?

Yes. Social constructs are in fact real. Money is real. Gender is real. Racism is real. All social construct means is that because it is man made, it can be changed and can be different in different times, countries and cultures.

The difference is same as nature vs man made objects. So a tree is real, but so is a car.

According to you friend, will men stop raping women if we don't classify by sex?

When people say something is too complicated and I wouldn’t understand, it is a sure sign they don’t understand or it doesn’t make sense so they can’t explain it.

Absolutely this. The more hand waving, the less they understand it themselves.

One observation, classification of humans is often the first step in mistreatment and dehumanisation of some classes

This can lead to people thinking if we get rid of the classes we get rid of the problem

In the case of sex that's a pretty stupid notion because sex is so hard wired at a very basic level

You could get rid of the words , make everything gender neutral ( names etc) but it will still be there

All you will have done is reduce the ability for humans to respect biological differences- how would you show that women were always passed overdid promotion ? You could not . It would still happen

She started with 'sex is a social construct' and when enquired a bit more said that biological sex does exist, but what it is socially constructed is the 'category' of sex.

My reading of Butler's Gender Trouble is that she makes an interesting argument about cultural constructions of sex, not that sex itself is a cultural construction.

I explain it to my undergrads thus: in the west, in the Middle Ages, the idea of sexual difference was predominantly a hierarchy, rather than a binary: there was an order of existence (the "Great Chain of Being") with God at the top, then the orders of angels, then man, then woman.

Come the Renaissance, and scientific investigations into anatomy, and sex was proposed as a binary opposition man vs. Woman.

Of course, the TRAs and students who don't actually read Butler get it wrong - or rather get a kind of "vulgar postmodernism" from it. As people do with lots of topics. It's just that this one tries to erase a whole 50% of the population, and attack the very fundamental definition of what it is to be a woman/girl.

But of course @WeeBisom's further explanation is the important one, and one I emphasise if I have to refer to Butler ...

I have taught queer theory, and it is possible to teach it from a radical feminist perspective, if one reads QT properly - it gives one the opportunity to talk about fluidity of practice, presentation etc - ie you are free to dress & love as you like.

I then usually go on a bit of a rant about how nowadays we think we're so progressive, but we still put have a tendency to put people in boxes, and that Shakespeare knew a thing or two about the playfulness of presentation of self (as fid Erving Goffman). Then I mentionJ S Mill, and his ideas about how no-one has the full truth, and we build new knowledge through partial & sometimes conflicting truths.

That the truly radical thing is to allow for flow & fluidity and not categorise people in terns of gender or sexuality (let's abolish gender, I whisper).

Students either complain about my transphobia, or lap it up and say it's the best module they've studied!