What is gender

[ohdelay]

Apologies for being late to the re-education, but what is gender now? I'm aware it used to be interchangeable with biological sex, but what is it now? What is defined by the word gender that is not covered by biological sex, sexuality/sexual preference or individual personality? I've heard the phenotype/perception by the world definition which doesn't fit very well and want to get my head around what we are actually talking about as it all sounds ridiculous.

'No one knows why they call themselves women because it has nothing to do with their genitals, their appearance, their personalities or anything remotely observable or measurable.'

Agree.

Sorry, lost me still on a definition for gender. I want to know what people who use it and are defining it as something other than biological sex mean when they use it. Seriously want to just get my head round the conversation so I can work out what's going on.

@tabbycatstripy

'What is the perception of being male/female though? Is it the physical stuff? So gender is the biological sex you want to be?'

The perception of being male or female in this way of thinking isn't strictly about the body. It's about masculinity and femininity. So a male person who believes he has a female 'gender' might feel much more comfortable dressing, speaking, moving as he perceives female people to dress, speak or move. The changes some people make to their bodies are secondary to that, and they address the discomfort ('dysphoria') that can be associated with feeling 'in the wrong body' vis-a-vis their internal perception.

But why does being more comfortable dressing, speaking and moving a certain way have to be defined as a gender? Why can't people dress, speak and move however they wish?

And what are masculinity and femininity? When I Googled them I found definitions which might just kill any feminism for the newly created meaning of 'women' as 'feminine people'. One states that feminine means being submissive, passive, emotional and nurturing. All those are adjectives that have traditionally been used to keep the female sex down.

'But why does being more comfortable dressing, speaking and moving a certain way have to be defined as a gender? Why can't people dress, speak and move however they wish?'

I see no reason why they can't. It's their concept, not mine. I'm just explaining what it means to them.

'And what are masculinity and femininity? When I Googled them I found definitions which might just kill any feminism for the newly created meaning of 'women' as 'feminine people'. One states that feminine means being submissive, passive, emotional and nurturing. All those are adjectives that have traditionally been used to keep the female sex down.'

Yes, they are constructs affiliated to something that is not a construct (sex). I find these stereotypes damaging as well.

Sorry, lost me still on a definition for gender. I want to know what people who use it and are defining it as something other than biological sex mean when they use it. Seriously want to just get my head round the conversation so I can work out what's going on.

So I googled and I was told -
"either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female."

So it seems to be defined by the socially constructed differences between the sexes. But also it is difficult to define without another word attached to it. For example, gender-identity. gender-fluid, gender-expression.

@ohdelay

Sorry, lost me still on a definition for gender. I want to know what people who use it and are defining it as something other than biological sex mean when they use it. Seriously want to just get my head round the conversation so I can work out what's going on.

The problem is that different individuals and political groups use 'gender' to mean quite different things. This is a problem, of course, in debates.

Most people seem to regard 'gender' as the more polite way of saying 'biological sex', so when gender is debated they think biological sex is debated.

Others see 'gender' as the way societies 'do' biological sex, i.e., the personalities, jobs, hobbies etc. biologically male and biologically female people are expected to align with, respectively.

The gender identitarians argue that one's gender can be an abstract, inner feeling. I am not sure what 'gender' refers to in that context as I don't possess such an abstract identity. But it might be a feeling that one wishes to live with the gendered rules and norms a particular society enforces on one or the other biological sex.

The latter is dangerous for feminism, as gender roles, norms and stereotypes are the weapons used to keep biologically female people down. This is because the new assigned identity 'cisgender', argues that everyone who never transitioned has an abstract gender identity which makes them very comfortable with the way their biological sex is treated!

I am sorry that I can't be more informative. I think Stock's Material Girl discusses three major ways the term is used, if you are interested in the take of a philosopher.

And yes, to the above, the ultimate supremacy of gender over sex would lead directly to woman = 'feminine person' (a set of stereotypes). That's why I oppose it.

@tabbycatstripy

People use the term to mean one or more of three things:

1. Synonym for biological sex
2. Inner 'essence' that relates to how masculine/feminine you do or don't perceive yourself to be.
3. The superstructure of how society interacts with biological sex, in terms of the behavioural expectations placed upon the sexes and the systems that have arisen from those expectations.

I only see validity in 3.

This looks right.

(1) is probably best left alone. Originally in this sense a euphemism used by those scared of the word 'sex' because of its use to refer to copulation etc., it now causes (sometimes intentional) confusion when used equivocally with (2) and/or (3) in thought and argument ... or even, on occasion, legislation.

(2) is what supposedly causes dysphoria and hence transgender people when mismatched (how? in what sense? -- no-one knows) with sex. It is supposedly universal in humans. However, no-one has yet come up with a way of detecting its presence, and it is probably best to recognise that actually there is no such thing as gender in this sense of 'inner essence'.

(3) is a useful notion in many ways, necessary in feminist thought particularly. Stick to this sense and you will not go far wrong. (But beware of those who wish to confuse by equivocation, whether deliberately or otherwise.)

Thanks @nepeta . I think everyone who uses the word from now on should define it as it is still meaningless. This is probably how the situation has got so far, everyone has been talking at cross purposes with no understanding of the meaning behind the terms being used

But it might be a feeling that one wishes to live with the gendered rules and norms a particular society enforces on one or the other biological sex.

But this seems not to be a fashionable definition amongst many gender identitarians who believe that that anyone can be a woman without adhering to any of the gendered rules and norms that society enforces on women, OR having any of the physical sex traits traditionally associated with women. Thus it is simply, I am a woman if I think I am a woman. I don't have to look "like a woman", i don't have to "behave like a woman", I don't have to "function like a woman". I just have to think I am one to be one.

@ohdelay

Thanks *@nepeta* . I think everyone who uses the word from now on should define it as it is still meaningless. This is probably how the situation has got so far, everyone has been talking at cross purposes with no understanding of the meaning behind the terms being used

The confusion has been entirely deliberate. By refusing to define their own terms, taking advantage of some people's kindness when they say things like 'dysphoria', 'marginalised' and 'suicidal ideation', and by not explaining that what they really wanted to do was replace the widely understood and factually accurate sex binary with a spectrum of self-declared inner 'essenceness', the activists have progressed their agenda beyond what most people thought possible.

@Soul11Soul

But it might be a feeling that one wishes to live with the gendered rules and norms a particular society enforces on one or the other biological sex.

But this seems not to be a fashionable definition amongst many gender identitarians who believe that that anyone can be a woman without adhering to any of the gendered rules and norms that society enforces on women, OR having any of the physical sex traits traditionally associated with women. Thus it is simply, I am a woman if I think I am a woman. I don't have to look "like a woman", i don't have to "behave like a woman", I don't have to "function like a woman". I just have to think I am one to be one.

That's the current 'next step' - 'I am who I say I am' - and it marks the progression of the ideology to faith status.

@Soul11Soul

But it might be a feeling that one wishes to live with the gendered rules and norms a particular society enforces on one or the other biological sex.

But this seems not to be a fashionable definition amongst many gender identitarians who believe that that anyone can be a woman without adhering to any of the gendered rules and norms that society enforces on women, OR having any of the physical sex traits traditionally associated with women. Thus it is simply, I am a woman if I think I am a woman. I don't have to look "like a woman", i don't have to "behave like a woman", I don't have to "function like a woman". I just have to think I am one to be one.

Indeed. Or perhaps that the definition is racing away, always just one step ahead of the questioner? That way the other side can determine the definition.

But yes, the empirically empty definition is quite common in social media. It allows inner identities to determine one's gender but at the cost of turning the whole concept into something meaningless in politics or medicine.

I agree @tabbycatstripy. I recently attended an awareness training session where lots of words and their definitions were listed. Sex was there, gender-identity, cisgender, gender-fluid, gender-expression......but the word GENDER was no where to be seen. Why would that be?

So a female who doesn't feel comfortable with the external sex characteristics of the female body, and who prefers to embody more masculine stereotypes, might say she has a 'male gender'

Or she might, like me and many others, feel that wearing trousers, having opinions and not doing what men tell you is all perfectly well covered by the term woman

@Anglophobia

So a female who doesn't feel comfortable with the external sex characteristics of the female body, and who prefers to embody more masculine stereotypes, might say she has a 'male gender'

Or she might, like me and many others, feel that wearing trousers, having opinions and not doing what men tell you is all perfectly well covered by the term woman

And me.

@Soul11Soul

I agree *@tabbycatstripy*. I recently attended an awareness training session where lots of words and their definitions were listed. Sex was there, gender-identity, cisgender, gender-fluid, gender-expression......but the word GENDER was no where to be seen. Why would that be?

That would massively upset the search for it, wouldn't it? ;)

tabbycatstrippy

The confusion has been entirely deliberate. By refusing to define their own terms, taking advantage of some people's kindness when they say things like 'dysphoria', 'marginalised' and 'suicidal ideation', and by not explaining that what they really wanted to do was replace the widely understood and factually accurate sex binary with a spectrum of self-declared inner 'essenceness', the activists have progressed their agenda beyond what most people thought possible.

A very important point. I found out about that during the Covid quarantine which I partly spent on learning about these issues. I would be peeling the layers away one at a time, and couldn't believe the conclusions I came to (that the rights sought absolutely required that the female sex must be made unmentionable everywhere).

So I went over all the material again and again, and read more and more and double-checked everything and couldn't change that conclusion.

Why it took me so long was that I didn't initially take their definitions seriously enough and I couldn't believe that they would flush the rights of a whole biological sex down the toilet (except for the rights of those people who transitioned out of it). That just didn't seem possible to me. But when I read about the privileged nature of being this newfangled 'cisgender' woman I had to accept that conclusion. And admire their theoreticians a little: They managed to turn the globally oppressed sex class into the more privileged subgroup in the new identity class women!

And intersectionality has helped them do that, nepata. So whenever an educated woman has spoken up (and we would hope that they would), if she is white, she has been told she is a 'white middle class cis woman' and therefore racially and economically privileged, a charge which acts as a powerful silencer despite the TRA movement being considerably skewed in the direction of white middle class straight people.

You couldn't make it up. And again, it's deliberate.

@tabbycatstripy

And intersectionality has helped them do that, nepata. So whenever an educated woman has spoken up (and we would hope that they would), if she is white, she has been told she is a 'white middle class cis woman' and therefore racially and economically privileged, a charge which acts as a powerful silencer despite the TRA movement being considerably skewed in the direction of white middle class straight people.

You couldn't make it up. And again, it's deliberate.

I truly hate the way they have destroyed the actual meaning of intersectionality which is an important one, because sexism and misogyny affect women differently depending on their race (in racist countries where they are the oppressed group), religion, age, sexual orientation and so on, and those differences must be analysed and the most vulnerable situations tackled with the greatest effort.

But that is not the most common usage online, far from it. I often now see it used to erase the idea that sex-based oppression even exists as one of the intersecting axes of oppression. That is extremely dangerous for feminism in the long run.

Yes, of course they affect people in different ways and intersectionality is a useful tool for discussion. It shouldn't be used as a tool to silence people, though. I've seen two discussions today, one related to gender and one not, where a protected characteristic itself was suggested to be the reason other people shouldn't speak, or should speak more quietly, or should subordinate their arguments because 'privilege'.

Some people want to operate a 'who is allowed to speak loudest/most because they are most oppressed' hierarchy, and actually it should only matter who is deemed to be most reasonable once everyone has been heard.

tabbycatstrippy

Some people want to operate a 'who is allowed to speak loudest/most because they are most oppressed' hierarchy, and actually it should only matter who is deemed to be most reasonable once everyone has been heard.

I have seen this done a lot. I get that people who have no experience in something (say, disability) should be careful when participating in discussions about that something, to avoid a phenomenon akin to mansplaining. But the usage has spread far beyond that point, so that useful points cannot be heard because their maker is not of the right kind.

A related problem is that certain types of underprivilege do not qualify at all when addressing privilege. I have watched many, many feminist debates where old women (over sixty, say) as a group can be treated with ageist contempt and accused of the whole mess the world is in.

Turns out the people we all need to listen to are 18-45 year old males who call themselves xir.

Who knew?

@ohdelay

What's the something though, the something separable from sex (assuming biological) in the individual? What in gender is not covered by biological sex? Is it the individual feelings associated with being that biological sex or a society expectation thing. I'm trying to get a clear idea of what we mean now by gender

Op you are saying word for word the sort of things I've been posting on here for several years. We didn't want a "sex and gender" sub-board, btw - it was forced on us (us being the many regulars of FWR).

I ask any self-proclaimed pro-genderist who visits here the exact questions you are (as well as "how can a sex match a gender? ") and they never get answered coherently.

Yet gender is the new overlord.

You are not the only one to want to define it, break it down, understand. People are oddly resistant to engaging properly and helping anyone actually understand.

In (British) feminist literature it’s always been synonymous with sex role stereotypes, I think.