@RedPanda901
I'm so impressed by the women on this board and their knowledge of how the fight for women's rights has changed in recent years. I too struggle with this cancel culture of people with differing opinions. What ever happened to listening and respecting each other's outlook? What I'm trying to get clarification on is gender fluidity. So if someone says there's no such thing as gender; it's a social construct why do they then sometimes dress in a traditional gendered way? Is part of being gender fluid saying that the lived experience of someone born female (or male) is irrelevant? Genuinely interested in your views.
Many many reasons. But first, gender does exist. It is, like many social stereotypes, how we as a society contruct a short hand, a social map, we can use to navigate daily living. It is what cis at the heart of all sorts of 'othering' (to use a more modern phrase). All sorts of bigotry stems from social stereotypes being reframed from undertsanding to fear, dislike.
WHy do I, a GC woman, wear 'female clothes? Well that's because they fit my female body.
You have got to get this the right way round. Dresses, robes have always been more comfortable, aasier to construct, cheaper to make than clothign woth fixture, fastenings etc., So historically men too wore robes, wraps, skirts, and still do in many countries.
That women in Westernised countries still do is a matter for social mores, those stereotypes. It hasn't been all that long in the UK since men of high status wore high heels and stockings and women were fully covered up.
Gender fluidity for me as a GC woman is a matter of being comfortable and not needing or wanting to adhere to the social stereotype of 'woman'. So short hair sometimes, no make up, clothing varies, depends how I feel, weather etc. I wouldn't call it being gender fluid as I have long since chosen to iognore much of the patriarchal restrictions that society asks of women, including dress sense. I am just being me.
Gender fluidity for others, non binary trans etc, is more strictured by the social stereotypes. More effort is made to be the opposite of the born sex and its associated gendered image.
For many of the non binary indoviduals we used to have different names for them, from Gender Bending to Goth, Emo and all sorts of other youth fashions. Some even took the stereotypes and ran with them, like Metrosexual Man and Ladettes.
Lived experience is one of those daft things a lot of the current gender ideology relies upon., As though popping on a dress means that you immediately experience everything 'a woman' would experience. Yes, a man doing this will experience attitudes, behaviours, sensations that he has not experienced before. From a breeze on his inner thighs to men catcalling and laughing at him, maybe threatening him. But whilst those are the same experiences as many women have he doesn't experience them "as a woman" but as a man who has stepped outside social conformity. His fears, his feelings and emotional reactions will be quite different to those of a woman in the same position
Bu he is not a woman. Is not 'living as a woman'. He is a man who has stepped outside of the social contruct of maculinity. And more power to his elbow. But he is never a woman!
I hope that helps!