What do most people think gender means?

[Sweetpea232]

I’ve just read yet another ‘gender reveal’ thread re a pregnancy, another in a succession of threads relating to baby’s “gender”.

I’m really struggling to engage with the whole gender issue because the language used makes no sense and it’s impossible to discuss a topic without a common language. But a starting point seems to be to try to understand what people mean when they talk about a baby’s ‘gender.’

i mean, it’s obviously they think it’s something different to its biological sex - otherwise they would just talk about the baby’s sex.

but it can’t possibly be anything about the baby’s own sense of personal identity, gender or otherwise - because the baby isn’t yet in a position to express that!

so - why have people started to talk about baby’s gender, or gender reveal parties? What do people think they are communicating if they refer to their baby’s gender.

because, what it sounds like to me, is that they are jumping on the gender bandwagon (ooh here’s a new trendy expression I need to use to keep up to date) while at the same time conflating the term gender with something that is fixed, unchangeable and identified at birth (biological sex) -hence disappointment at having a baby of ‘x’ gender, when the use of ‘’gender’ suggests this might change in the future and be not so disappointing!

have not RTFT

Gender is a social construct and it's meaning is flexible and fluid according to the society which is defining it. In Afhghanistan, for example, it means "people we can oppress so much, and deny so much opportunity to, that many of those people take their own lives or live lives of pathetic devastating misery"

In other societies it means pigeonholing people into behavioural expectations according to their sex. So in some it means the above, or slightly less harsh versions of it. In others it means that pink is for girls blue is for boys, girls don't play with cars and boys don't play with dolls, women are homemakers and earn pin money, men have the high paying high power jobs and make all the decisions.

(disclaimer: 2nd wave feminist and i thought we had destroyed all that bullshit gender twaddle)

ETA: they use the word gender for the reveal because they are too pathetic squeamish to use the correct word which is sex

OP, when I was new to MN and pregnant with my first, I posted on AIBU to ask if I was unreasonable to have some 'gender disappointment' over having a boy when I'd been desperate for a girl.

I was, of course, being totally U, and I was quickly handed my arse on a plate set straight, not only for being ungrateful about a healthy baby (I do cringe now, believe me) but because I meant SEX, not gender.

DC in question is now 18. MN was very much ahead of the game, as ever.

This!
The OP asked a question about sex and gender on the Sex and Gender discussion board.
Maybe it's time to step away from this board if you can't engage like an adult.
It's clearly doing your head in that women are allowed to talk fairly freely here.

pp mentioned la maison, le soleil

which is a whole interesting sidebar in itself especially when you get into languages which have a neuter term. So das Haus and die Sonne in German which is the other way round.

Gender used to be a polite term for sex
Now its about stereotypes and different personalities.

I agree with the majority of replies - I think most people think the word is a more polite way to say ‘sex’ without really thinking any deeper. The problem, for me, is that, as I first said, it’s only possible to properly discuss something if we have a common language to discuss it with - and using two words with very different meanings as if they are interchangeable makes this impossible. If babies can have a ‘gender’ then gender must be something externally defined - so what is a self-defined ‘gender identity?’

I genuinely struggle with engaging with the whole issue because the language around it simply doesn’t make sense - if a biologically male person can be a woman (or vice versa) because of self perceived gender identity, what are they transitioning from and to?

And if their gender identity is, say, male but their physiology is female, what is the word for the thing they are striving to resemble with external physical changes, temporary or permanent? It can’t be a man - they are already a man, surely, because they believe so?

The language simply doesn’t exist to say, in any meaningful way, ‘I am a man therefore I must change my body to more closely resemble a man’

If gender is self defined and determines status, what words are left for those who don’t choose to have a gender identity? If I don’t ‘believe’ I’m a woman independent of my physical form, what word should I use to describe myself?

I just wonder if more of the argument should be less ‘I’m a woman/no you’re not’ and more ‘I’m a woman/how are you defining woman, so I can understand where you’re coming from?’

Because whoever is right or wrong, we need to have a shared language to discuss the issue otherwise it’s just shouting across a void.

Are you fairly new to this board, OP? Believe me we’ve tried for years to get a coherent definition of ‘woman’ from the people who think it isn’t simply synonymous with human female but to no avail. The lack of a shared language (other than bowing to the genderists ideology and language) isn’t a bug, it’s a deliberate feature.

@Sweetpea232
it would be really helpful if the gender wang believers would give out a check list of what personality traits, likes and dislikes and hobbies put you in male gender or female gender ‘on the inside’. But they can’t, because it’s all airy fairy bollocks.

Dont even start thinking about non-binary gender fluid identities, I would love to see that checklist. Everyone I know is stepping outside gender stereotypes at some point so what is the point of it at all?

For babies though, it’s more of a thing because they are socialised with strictly separated clothes and toys, and then young teens particularly start to really adhere to gender norms probably because of peer pressure, and looking for a first girlfriend/boyfriend, which might be why some gender non conforming kids feel really out of place. There should be more done in public life, on TV, as celebrities, to be a gender non conforming (not trans) successful and attractive person.

Ramble over!

I know lots of people who are very much not on board with trans rubbish but still use the word "gender" (to mean "sex").

Sex needs to be reclaimed. It is a serviceable word, better than any alternative. 1970s style innuendo shouldn't be let destroy it.

If you're a normal person, "gender" is just a polite way of saying sex, i.e. the distinction between male and female.

If you're a linguist, "gender" is a rather silly term for groupings of words that really has very little to do with sex (e.g. the French for beard is in the "female" group).

If you're a sociologist, "gender" means the expectations society foists upon you on the basis of your sex.

If you're a trans ideologist, your "gender [identity]" relates to how you buy into those expectations.

If you're a useful idiot, you participate in the deliberate conflation of these terms.

I am normal and see nothing impolite about the word 'sex'.

The use of gender as a grammatical term is centuries old, and is not silly.

The sociologists adoption of it, for the purpose of creating theories and producing log-rolling academic publications is both silly and self-serving.

I see the use of 'gender' for sex as silly, arms-length, twee and juvenile. I judge anyone who does it. And these days my judgy pants wear out fast.

Bring back sex.

Plenty of silly ideas are centuries old. See if you can explain why "beard" belongs in the "female" category, then.

And just because you don't understand why it's useful to be able to describe the way in which society enforces patriarchy, Dean, doesn't mean it's without merit.

Of course I understand that describing the outworkings of patriarchal oppression and its enforcement is not just useful but vitally important. I do not think that using the word gender has been in any way helpful in doing that.

it's on a par with using "bathroom" when you mean "toilet"

What word do you use to describe the concept?

Depends on the context, but patriarchal enforcement, sex-role stereotypes, sex discrimination are all useful. The catch-all 'gender' is a slippery protean weasel, a word with no real meaning, that can be squeezed into any shape.

The discrimination is about sex. The rights we need derive from our sex.

Dead right.

I'm pretty sure everyone on Mumsnet Feminism threads knows what gender means! Even those who come on here to try to browbeat us into giving up our single-sex rights.

A lot of people used to say 'gender' when they meant 'sex', because 'sex' sounded a bit rude. You still hear this in things like 'gender-reveal party'.

But, more controversially, the word 'gender' is now also used to mean a performance of sex-stereotypes in support of a delusion that one is the opposite sex.

Transgenderists want us all to believe that sex is irrelevant, and gender is what we really are. In reality, of course, every human being will die the same sex that they were born, regardless of what stereotypes they performed.

You are the one obsessed with trans people mate. You can't even let women talk about language without bringing it back to your pet topic.

I agree. Nouns have different genders in many languages. No one believes that German walls are female, or that French carpets are male.

Guilty. I don’t acknowledge anything beyond two sexes so gender and sex are interchangeable words that mean the same thing to me. ‘Gender reveal’ means sex reveal, ‘gender fluid’ is made-up bullshit.

I think most people having “gender reveals” are thinking of gender simply as a “nicer” way of saying sex.
My eldest DD is 14 and when I was pregnant with her nobody used gender, I hadn’t even heard of a gender reveal party, people asked if I knew the sex of the baby. So it is quite frightening how quickly this stuff has become normalised.

To me gender is a meaningless term based on regressive stereotypes.
I also hate the gender reveal concept because I feel like it’s all routed in wanting to put people in boxes and enforcing stereotypes. It feels very different to parents just finding out the sex of their baby (I didn’t even do that, preferring a surprise but not judging those who want to know).

Okay, fair enough. I am broadly convinced.

Now do linguistic gender:

• firstly, why should "beard" be in the "feminine" box?
• secondly, what's the point of those boxes at all?