Is gender a binary or a spectrum?

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As long as you preserve the context, you can make ascii art with my words for all I care!



Aye, that's what I gathered from your previous post. Expectations regarding the language of others should be reasonable - e.g. not swearing in a classroom or "polite company". Asking everyone to adopt a thousand pronouns, many of which apply uniquely to an individual, is certainly not reasonable. I have a hard enough time matching names to faces without that added burden.

In fact I'll go as far as saying that the demand for individual pronouns is oppressive towards people with prosopagnosia, which includes many of us on the spectrum. Anyone who supports these cretins can consider themselves 'ableist'. And sure, that might not mean diddly squat to me, but I'm not the one making a hypocrite of myself if I exclude anyone from participating in the Oppression Olympics.



It certainly contributes to stereotypes and generalisations that aren't universally accurate, especially when they present themselves as representative of everyone in category X. It still astounds me how quickly some people abandon their individuality in favour of ideology. It shouldn't, but it does.



Perhaps, but discussion and compromise don't appear to be on the agenda.



Until demonstrated otherwise, I'm going with "mutations resultant of environmental effects on gene expression" or "mutated/damaged DNA".

I respect that this a free marketplace of ideas, but homosexuals have sexual limits, rules, and customs, of their own. Do you want for someone to push the envelope, inside of your community of interest?

Also, when any other body part is deformed, mutated, severed, and so forth, noone has an identity crisis.
http://www.lipstickalley.com/showthread ... marks-etc-)
Maybe, you want to put your best foot forward, but, there is still an objective word for it.

Neither - it's an oppressive social construct. Sex is nearly always binary apart from the few intersex individuals out there.

The binary/spectrum debate is only worth engaging in if you accept than gender is a biological phenomenon or an identity, and it's neither of those.

If you look at reproductive politics from a Marxist perspective (I'm not an orthodox Marxist, but it's a useful analysis tool for this topic), then it's all about who controls the means of reproduction. Gender is a system that accumulates power for the dominant male sex class. I'm talking about classes of people here, not individuals. Men might be the dominant sex class, but most individual men are oppressed by this system. Gender roles are a ritualised version of this oppression.

Males and females are different psychologically as well as physically (the two are linked) but gender roles are not the result of these differences. Gender roles, like organised religion and capitalism, are the result of patriarchy and the dialectical forces of history. The clue to this is that hardly anyone can pinpoint exactly what their 'gender identity' is - it's a vague thing, like 'spirituality' (religion has a lot in common with gender). People are free to believe in gender if they want, and to concoct an identity out of it, but I wish to be left out of these games.

I'm antigender, in case you can't tell.

Amen!

There is a trend these days with people assert X is a social construct or Y is something you are born with.

This has very little to do with hard science and the natrual world, and more what is politically convenient to them. Nature doesn't follow these rules, it pays no head to your political affiliation.

Very few things are purely social construct or purely something your a born with, it is far more complex.

If you view everything through patriarchal tinted glasses then your world view is going reflect that. However there are some imprinted behaviour in the great apes and other animals which are no more patriarchal than they are matriarchal. In any case it is up to those making the assertion to prove what they think the source of their behavior came based on whatever social theory they have, etc. They haven't done that however becuase it is not all that simple. They would need to go back thousands of years, to do that. On the balance on probability it doesn't add up as a complete explanation.

In fact there is not reason to assume that even recent memes are derived from one cause, be it nature or nurture.

Many behaviours that women exhibit, which you may posit are imposed by men or through a patriarchal society, could just a plausibly be explained by female competition, and these could be uniquely female cultures even if it doesn't appeal or advantage all women and most importantly isn't intended to.

Firstly it is about definitions, nearly always when debates like this kick of the goals post have shifted. The term gender, has actually changed to suit the politics. What most people are talkign about is identity an personality.

So people assert that gender has little to do biological sex, but obviously it has. If it has nothing to do with sex it would be just an arbitrary trait or personality with no more significance than any individual's. People complain the people gender things, but then come up with very arbitrary identities which they demand recognition of.

I think if someone identifies as grey gender, or unicorn gender that is fine, but this is a relativist personality. There has always been people with personalities that are somewhere in-between idealized gender. However that doesn't mean the gender itself is entirely a social construct, some behaviors can actually be due to physiology and this is plausible explanation for some behaviours.

I have no problem with living their lives as they wish. I'm a social libertarian. It is when people expect special recognition purely on the basis, while at the same time not paying any consideration to how that very principle of rights is affected, namely that one's right cannot counteract anther's. So much of modern activism and social justice is similar to social Conservationism it is about control and imposing their view of the world based on their dogma and misses the point of rights.

Children need to be encouraged to be resilient. If we teach them that everything they might identify as need some special recognition or that somehow equates to oppression, when they grow up they will have a hard time dealing with the stresses of life becuase they are used to always being given special treatment.

Eventually it will just be a bunch of people wanting stuff and nobody left to deliver it.

People who are truly confident in their identity, they just do what they do and get on with it. They don't need to tell others how to think or what is. So identifying as anything you like, just don't oppose that on others.

Gendering is an activity that is part of being human, and this is related to sex (both reproduction and physical sex). How we gender changes with time, how it is not a satisfactory or complete explanation to say it is purely a social construct.

Most people identify as male or female, those that don't that is fine however identifying as such doesn't mean you can't have aspect of you personality associate with the other gender. People identify as they wish and many people wish to gender themselves to some extent, and based on largely but not exclusively binary terms.

People who say gender is a spectrum in my eyes are stereotyping male and female attribute`s.

I have as much time for the argument that gender is 'part of human nature', as I do for the same argument made for capitalism. If you study any anthropology at all, you realise that both those arguments are wrong.

I don't identify as a female or a woman for the same reason I don't identify as human - I am all those things.

Again asserting something doesn't not make it true. Anthropology like much of archeology is speculative

First 'gender' is not well defined and is redefined mainly by those making this argument to fit their preference. However we understand what gendered behaviour means, and there is no definitive proof that all gendered behaviour is entirely socially constructed. it is simply a social theory for political means.

Just like when people talk of "toxic masculinity" or even "toxic femininity", they aren't talking about thing that aren't in part influenced by biological motors so far as we know.

So for instance the tendency toward nurturing behaviour or risk taking, whist they can be present in both male an female, there is a noticeable differnce from an early age overall between men an women. The assumption this is taught is exactly that an assumption.

These are not absolutes but are tendencies.

The behavioural differences that exist on average between males and females aren't gender and people enacting them aren't following gender roles. These are behavioural differences related to sexual function and biology, which I don't deny exist. Gender is the manipulation of these differences into a hierarchical ideology - just like religion is the manipulation of the human tendency toward pattern-seeking and feelings of awe. Also, just like capitalism is a manipulation of the means of production. All of these things are optional. This is what I mean when I say they're socially constructed. I don't mean a bunch of oppressors pulled these systems out of their arses. They manipulated phenomena in the natural world and claimed their system (which developed through historical forces) to be human nature.

That is a revisionist definition. It is the sort of thing sociologist say knowing full well there will be conflation.

This is why people say things like "black people can't be racist", becuase a sociologist has used a very narrow definition of racism and people thought that their bigotry was acceptable becuase they could identify as the oppressed classes.

Who exactly are these oppressors and why was I not party to this information? There are reasonable explanations for the complex behaviors and hierarchy including female hierarchies due to competition and we aren't the only animals that do this, both bonobos an chimp do this. Yes bonobos are more matriarchal, but that is exactly the point it is not a patriarchal conspiracy. Our memes are a reflection of our nature, which include our ability to contort our very nature for adaption purposes as well as more primal stuff.

You are assuming that there is no biological basis for this hierarchy, when hierarchy is present through out the animal kingdom. It is not cut an dry with humans, but there is not reason to assume there aren't biological motors for it as well.

Regarding Communism, national communes result in the control and the manipulation of the means of production. This has happened every time it has been tried. it is like one big monopoly.

I went to Cuba, in the 90s, they had just started economic reform but it was still very restrictive. They had only just allowed small restaurants run from homes with 10 people per night only. However this is what people wanted to do. However it was very hard, and and getting supplies was difficult. This is why there was a thriving black market.

Now thing are more relaxed larger restaurant are allowed and they are allowed to essentially people in these restaurant, becuase ti takes financial pressure of the state, and drives the economy. This is what people want.

A Pertro Rican family in a hotel we visited encountered a woman offering to braid their daughter's hair. She was a trained doctor, and she was not allowed to do this, but could earn more money doing it and was barely getting by on a doctors sallery.

You may argue that these sole trader aren't manipulating the means of protection but often other people rely on them, and there is a labour chain and supply chain.

Being a party member meant you had access to better jobs and preferential treatment. you can't avoid hierarchy it is going o happen, anything that need to be run need a structure an hierarchy including a Politburo. the differnce is the capacity to enact change. Lacking freedom of information you will not know of what economic growth this labour force is delivering, which means corruption is very easy, which is what happened in eastern block countries. Nothing exists in a bubble, even if you have resources you can't eat coal, trade is necessary and good. You assert that humans don't want to compete an own thing and this is not in their nature? What is in their nature that would make them want to live in a Communist state for ever? Which do do you think is the more plausible hypothesis, and which the more romantic?

Mao cause a huge famine, he tried to move the factories to the country side. Food production was halted millions starved. There are benefits to market forces like it or not. Bad idea are not easily stopped in a one part state, where there is no competition, or much innovation except in an arms race. Even today after China has abandoned Maoist policy they don't dare question Mao becuase the history can't be bad.

Where maybe we agree is Capitalism isn't the be and end all it is not a complete economic system. There are different forms of this but it doesn't guarantee competition which is equally as important if not more so. Capital is a necessary thing whether you think it is inherently good or not. However there is a lot about ours economic systems that is wrong. If you are talking about the means of production. The best way to ensure freedom is to allow people to be free agents so they can't be so restricted by contract, let people name their price and be mobile. Promote true competitions and prevent companies from avoiding it. So much protectionism is re-branded as (fake) property. Don't allow these legal definition enable companies not to compete. That is corporatism not capitalism.

Intersectionality which is a Cultural Marxist in origin reads like a who's who of Orwellian Terms. It has all the taboos of doublethink, newspeak and thoughtcrime.

Owell warned that this wouldn't just happen within a totalitarian regime, but could just as easily happen within free societies.

viable genomes come in three flavors: XX XY and XYY. That latter is extremely rare so for all practical purposes, sexual determination is binary.

"masculine" vs "feminine" is to some degree a social construct. There are feminine persons with an XY genome and masculine persons with an XX genome.

Sure but the whole point of these term is to describe people relative to gender traits and some of those tenancies may be entirely biological (not purely chromosomal) or entirely construct or somewhere in between.

There is nothing inherently wrong with such tendencies nor does it mean people don't want to or choose to be that way.

I can understand why people can feel they don't relate but that is different thing from those that wanting other people to abandon their gendered tendencies becuase they don't happen to fit them. That would be fundamentally illiberal.

Choice is the only way.

I look at gender through a Marxist lens because I find a class-based analysis of the oppression of women insightful. I'm no apologist for any communist regime past or present. I support democratic socialism. I'm a Labour Party member who doesn't like Corbyn. I'm not as left-wing as you may think, but I think the Marxist perspective is useful.

I never said there was a patriarchal conspiracy, but I can see how some of my words can be read in a way that makes it look like I think there is one. I think patriarchy emerged through historical forces, and like you said, the tendency of humans to form hierarchies. That doesn't mean the enforcement of gender roles and the ideology of gender aren't optional. I'm not assuming there is no biological basis for it at all, and I even said that it's a manipulation of nature - but it's still a choice. We're too complex for our societies to be that strictly biologically determined. Like you said, bonobos don't have the patriarchal culture that chimps do and their behaviour is far more biologically determined than ours. They're also as closely related to us as chimps are, according to recent studies. What you said actually backs me up slightly.

I don't want to force other people to abandon gender, I just want to do it myself and have the freedom to recommend this course of action to others. I hate totalitarianism and totalitarian tendencies where they pop up in so-called free societies.

As for intersectionality, I agree that it has been used in an Orwellian way in recent years. It had the potential to be used that way all along in the hands of the politically correct. It's not a completely useless concept in the context of feminist activism, but its misuse annoys me.

Marx highlighted that the industrial revolution didn't make everyone better off or live longer. However this is not purely down to capital or even property. It was down to fundamental rights.



Yes but give the choice people may not choose your path and that is not necessarily becuase they are oppressed. it might even because of biological motor, influencing that decision. As we do have this ability to reshape our environment and contort our nature, we perhaps underestimate natures influence on ourselves.



I support you then.



I don't think it is being misused. I think Kimberlé Crenshaw's model of power is simply not realistic and most of the writing was on the wall from the start, including the required taboos that have arisen.

I also think it is undermining feminism, and attempting to appropriate other causes for legitimacy.