Barring certain reproductive bits, men and women are basically the same. Discuss.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

I know we've touched on this on other threads, but I was hoping to troublemake start a discussion on this specific issue. So often I've heard people say "of course wanting equality does not mean we think women and men are the same. We cherish and celebrate the differences between them" and the like.

Well, what are the differences then?

The more I think about it the more convinced I am that men and women are fundamentally pretty much the same, squashy bits aside.

What do you reckon?

Again, in the eyes of the doctor, being a woman was all about appearances.

'He insisted that to fully understand that she was a girl, she needed to grasp the difference between men and women, and frequently spoke to her about her genitalia. He took photographs of her and her brother naked. He tried to persuade her to have a vagina constructed, which, at the time, would have been made out of section of her bowel or else from the skin of her thigh, which would then be inserted into the pelvic region.'

I think what I'm trying to say is that yes,he was male.But he didn't know he was male.In spite of that how he felt was affected by the fact that he was male rather than female.(That might still not convey what I'm trying to say but will post anyway!)

Sorry, cross posts!

He did know he wasn't female though.

Sound appalling doesn't it.You're right,it wasn't in anyway a normal childhood,and he would have been quite aware that he was different of course.
Hmmm- should have thought that through a bit more I think - you are both right in that I've ignored some other glaringly relevant facts here...

I hope that this thread (and this whole section of MN) are not about being right, but about having the opportunity to discuss these kind of things and think about them. I would hate it to become AIBUish.

ImSoNotTelling, I know that is what you meant! Your 'guilt' at feeling superior to other (non-science minded) women falls out of the long-held, male notion that women's brain can't do science...but I would imagine that most women would appreciate your achievements, without feeling inferior. This is what I meant by the 'women can be their own worst enemy' - i.e. a male notion of what women can achieve gets subsumed by women and used as a way of doing down other women!!

sakura, that's interesting about maths/literature in Japan. Just shows how much culture can play a part in promoting gender differences.

MGN - thanks for posting about your Aunt.

'Males do not want to become females - they want to look like females. It is incredibly sexist as it defines female sex as being about appearance'

So does this work in reverse, for trans males? Do females not want to become males but rather just want to look like males? Is this sexist too?

Are there any trans MN?? We need them on this thread!

There are women who have become men who have gone on to have children. So it would seem they want to be biologically female but have a male physical appearance when not visibly pregnant.

On the other hand, I know females who want to look female, but would like their female partner to carry a child that is both of theirs in terms of genetics, which is the reproductive male role, surely?

This thread has left me feeling I would like to read something "proper" about gender,so I think I shall do a bit of browsing on Amazon later.

Mily,if that was to me I wasn't feeling AIBUish at all,just that I'd posted without thinking enough,and then your responses made me realise that and clarify what I was thinking a bit more,as part of the discussion.

sorry - Milly,not mily - ooops.

I didn't mean it as a criticism Pogleswood. It is just that I am speculating a lot on this thread and thinking aloud. So I am not sure that I am entirely right, and I think your example of the twins was interesting.

But could the reason that trans females do not aspire to childbirth or breastfeeding be due to the fact that they are currently way beyond the realms of modern medicine? If they do ever become possibilities, then I guess that there will come a time when the world's first trans female gives birth...

I recall my dad telling me (when I was a kid) that 'women were the child-bearers of the species' and it totally shocked and horrified me. My brother thought it was hilarious!

Sounds completely reasonable,Milly! I must go and run some errands now,and DS is desparate to use the computer...

but if a woman beomes a man but can still get pregnant (I know the case that you're talking about), then she has not become a man in the sense of a full transsexual, so is still a woman with a man's appearance.

I'm also thinking aloud on this thread and definitely don't have a position on this, just intuitions, so it's good to kick some ideas about.

Pogles, it's funny and probably quite telling isn't it that both of us remembered that Brian/Brenda case as possible evidence of innate maleness, yet when I read the article you linked to, it's totally different from the way I'd remembered it and it looks much more like he was traumatised not by his innate maleness conflicting with the female identity assigned to him, but by the intense (and, I imagine, incredibly confusing) focus on gender as he was growing up.

Also, I don't think genetics has yet created a baby that belongs (genetically) to two females but no male?

The placenta needs the Y chromosome to develop.

I don't think you have to have hysterectomy to be considered a trans male. You can have breasts removed, hormones for facial hair and voice deepening but still have a womb.

I think there are a whole of issues involved in this that have nothing to do with male and female brains. A lot of being a cultural woman has nothing to do with being biologically female. I know when the issue went to court ( a trans female wanted to work in female only rape counselling and the charity did not want her to on the grounds that they did not consider her female), the charity's argument was that as she had not been a female since birth, she has been in a position of male advantage for many years, and so had not experienced continuous sexism from society her whole life, so had not really experienced what it was like to be a woman in our society.

I will try and find a link about that case later. I think it was in North America.

Cyclops, yes I was not saying two women could have a viable foetus, I was just saying that I knew some women had the desire to have that role. It would be interesting to find some men who felt a strong desire to have a womb and become pregnant.

Can't be the Y chromosone, but understand what you mean! I must go but have found this thread so interesting.

yes, rather the genes that are situated on the Y chromosome!

'I don't think you have to have hysterectomy to be considered a trans male'

This is interesting. My view is that keeping one's womb whilst wanting to appear male is cherry-picking at gender; keeping some bits but lopping off other bits. The man in question could almost be considered as being a third (hybrid) gender.

"ImSoNotTelling, I know that is what you meant! Your 'guilt' at feeling superior to other (non-science minded) women falls out of the long-held, male notion that women's brain can't do science...but I would imagine that most women would appreciate your achievements, without feeling inferior."

I feel I need to correct this. It is not to do with feeling inferior to or superior to other people, but feeling pride at doing something "hard"... And then realising that the reason I perceive it as "hard" is that because it is something that traditionally men have done and so it suits them to say that it is harder than things that women traditionally do. So yes I have bought that line.

But I do not feel that the people doing otehr tihngs are inferior, athough when I know they are very clever I might wonder why they have chosen to do those things. Which throws up the same problem - my perception of what is valuable and what is not is totally in line with tradition and I am disappointed to find out that I have been so brainwashed.

As for the stuff about men and babies, I think a quite a few men do say that they would like to be pregnant, give birth and breastfeed, don't they? i know at least one who would do it if he were able.

Oh and millyr thank you for clarification earlier about men just wanting the physical accoutrements of being female, I had got the wrong end of the stick.

ISNT, I get what you're saying. Perhaps these old ideas will change eventually if/when more women choose science subjects.

I think that more women choosing science subjects is a problem that pales into insignificance when set aside the problem of revaluing roles so that "womens" work is given the value in society that it deserves.

Encouraging women into science (while something I agree with) is simply reinforcing the current structure. You don't see people saying "well men can be just as good as childcare as women, believe it or not! Let's have a big drive to get more men into that field, it seems a shame that they are excluded due to stereotyping" etc etc