If feminists view gender as a social construct - why do they struggle so much with the idea of transgender people? It's a contradiction.
Aella Antiope
+Mike McK Recoginising that gender is a social construct doesn't mean accepting or wanting it. I recognise that gender is a thing in the world, I recognise that it has impacted on my life since the day I was born and that my personality has been forever changed because of it, but I don't want gender. I want gender abolished, I want people to be seen as people first. Transgender activists worship gender, they uphold gender as a positive. This is the fundamental fucking conflict between transgender advocates and radical feminists, radical feminists want gender abolished, but transgender activists want to keep gender and worship it.
Kim Bolduc
+Mike McK no it's not. Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. (per the World Health Organization) Being a man or a woman is a matter of biological sex, it's simply whether you're born male or female. It leads to confusion because in English you use sex/gender interchangeably, but ''gender is a social construct'' doesn't mean being a man or a woman doesn't exist or that anyone can be one, it means the qualities, roles and norms we deem appropriate for men or women are a product of society.
Current trans activists simply operate from a wrong definition of gender and have ran with it. They think gender simply means ''my self chosen gender identity'' and that there can be ''non-binary'' or that you can ''queer'' gender or be genderless or even be both (genderfluid) or even three (trigender) at the same time. Obviously it's all baseless fictional bs and a massive waste of time. They even go completely ass backwards and say biological sex doesn't exist and white people invented that women are female and men are male. They're like the creationists of social justice.
James Donnelly
+Aella Antiope Greer is coming from an entirely different direction. She's saying that being a woman isn't a social construct, that it's innate and the transgender don't qualify.
Aella Antiope
+James Donnelly she's saying that 'transgender women' are males, will always be male, no matter what and as such don't know what it is to be a woman because females, like me, like Germaine, like all females are socialised to be women - if you are socialised to be a man and then suddenly decide to be a woman as an adult or late teens you will never know what it's like to be a woman, ever, because those males have never had 'womanhood' inflicted on them since birth.
It's more subversive, it's more radical for a man who doen't want to perform masculinity to be a gender non-conforming man than it is for them to say 'well I like wearing dresses and pink, make up and sewing and pretty things therefore I must be a woman because that's what society thinks womanhood is right?' by saying they are woman they are reinforcing gender norms, they are saying if a man likes 'feminine' things they must be a woman.
Transgender women aren't radical, they aren't subversive, they are just reinforcing traditional gender ideals. They are as conservative as fuck.
James Donnelly
+Aella Antiope Didn't she write in The Whole Woman that femaleness came from biology?
Aella Antiope
+James Donnelly Because woman in the real world are discriminated on the basis of sex.
Look, gender should be abolished, but in the real world it exists and women as a gender is put on females at birth.
Man and woman are both genders, but they aren't equal genders. Men as a class are the oppressors, women are not. From the moment females are born they are seen as women and treated as such. Females are oppressed even before they know what gender is, females are aborted before they are born for being female, sex oppression has nothing to do with gender, but the fact they are female.
Since our sex has a real life impact on the world we live in, that forms a women's experience. If you think that the first 8 or 10 or 15 years of a child's life has an impact who they are personality wise, emotionally, mentally, health wise for the rest of their life, and if you agree that boys and girls are treated differently during that formative malleable period than you know that is the reality in the real world.
Men have never had that experience, it doesn't matter how feminine they felt, they were treated a boys from the moment they were born. Some boys were punished as children for not conforming to masculinity but they weren't punished for being female, they were punished for failing their role. The oppression that men who fail masculinity growing up is different to what female have. It's a different thing.
But considering a not so inconsiderable percentage of boys who later decide they are women in adulthood were never punished for even failing masculinity as children they can't even understand that type of oppression. Bruce Jenner for instance, never performed femininity as a child, he was gender conforming as a child and for most of his life. What the fuck does he know about womanhood?
He not only was never oppressed for being a non-gender conforming boy, neither has he ever experienced femaleness, the physical reality or being treated as a girl, and as a woman for most of his life. Seriously, why should any female be forced to view him as a woman.
James Donnelly
+Aella Antiope I understand your position, you don't have to continually elaborate. I also understand that Greer has made an entire career critiquing how women are socialised.
But I was under the impression that Greer believed the difference between the sexes was due fundamentally to chromosomes and hormones, and said as much in The Whole Woman.
Aella Antiope
+James Donnelly Sorry, I'm elaborating because I'm so used to explaining this over and over to people who never get it.
I have to confess I have only read 'The Female Eunuch' so I can't comment on what Greer said specifically, but personally I think there are some fundamental differences due to sex. The differences aren't as as big gender norms would like us to believe, but the honest truth, in the world we live in we just don't know how much that is, because gender is everything and everywhere.
The only way we could possibly know what males and females are like 'innately' is to raise children in a genderless commune and see what happens, but as that is impossible because A: the people who raise them would never be able to remove their unconscious biases and social conditioning, and B: because it wouldn't be ethical; than we can never know.
But we can speculate, and from what I have heard Greer said I don't think her speculations would be too crazy, it certainly wouldn't be as crazy as gender plays out in the world today.
So I apologise for going off topic a bit from what you are saying, I hope you can overlook that mistake of mine, I was side-stepping the issue assuming you were still on the 101 on the difference between gender and sex and what feminists think of it. I cannot over-emphasise the misconceptions out there even amongst seemingly educated adults on the difference. I've seen many people even say that sex is a social construct...
I was more addressing Mike McK who said that radical feminists view gender as social constructs and yet struggle with transgenderism, explaining why feminist (specifically radical feminists) position is on that.
pandoraxsage
+Mike McK Hers is not a feminist viewpoint. It is an archaic and ignorant opinion that is not commonly held in the contemporary feminist community.
Tamsin Mc Cormick
+Aella Antiope I think the problem feminists have is that a trans woman can offer evidence of what is hard wired and what is a construct. Pink and blue for instance. If you offer these colours to children they will chose !!
Aella Antiope
+Tamsin Mc Cormick omg, pink and blue is the most arbitrary social construct which has nothing to do with sex. you do realise little boys were dressed in pink traditionally until the 1940s. Pink was then considered a stronger colour more suitable for boys. What the hell.
Tamsin Mc Cormick
+Aella Antiope
Take a look at the testimomies from trans children at 3 years old for some powerful evidence on what girls prefer to what boys prefer..
Aella Antiope
+Tamsin Mc Cormick oh so up until the 40s boys preferred pink and then it mysteriously changed within one decade. Hmmm I wonder why that is. men wore make up and high heels in the French royal court tooo, then that changed....could it be possible. ..could it be that little children actually pay attention to positive and negative feedback! !!!
Tamsin Mc Cormick
+Aella Antiope Please look for Coy Mathis and the information from trans children . It's all here on You tube !!
Aella Antiope
+Tamsin Mc Cormick sorry you lost me with the pink and blue thing. I can't take you seriously.
Alexander Todoroff
+Mike McK It is not a contradiction. Gender and sex are coercive social constructs. Meaning society has been arranged to where people are put into social castes premised on their "biological" construct. Thus, one could very easily argue that even though identities are fluid, the coercive force--masculinity--treats these differently.
Artful
+Alexander Todoroff You are all so gullible to swallow up such propagandised narratives.
eric strickland
+Aella Antiope you mean don't want to amit you are full of it .
Aella Antiope
+eric strickland Wow that was such a clear statement which had such great talking points which I could rebut. Amazing. I'm impressed. I'm exceptionally confident in my opinion, pretty much rock solid in my rightness, however I'm willing to entertain other points of view if there is merit. I have a open mind, but I'm not going to back down just because someone was mean to me on the internet.
eric strickland
i wouldn't expect you to i can tell you been brainwashed for a long time
Josh Blake
+Aella Antiope
A few things:
Firstly, are you sure that transgender people 'worship' gender as a construct? Though they are desperate to be a member of the opposite sex, in line with their gender, this definitely does not mean that they think that gender is a good thing. As someone who has some transgender tendencies (but would never do anything about it), I can acknowledge that the distress I suffer from this is caused by the existence of gender roles, and that the distress would not exist without it. I do not choose to have the desire to be a women, and the desire certainly doesn't make me think that gender is a good thing. I would much prefer it if I could do whatever I wanted and not worry about doing something that is not considered appropriate for my sex/gender. Lets say I like the appearance of nail varnish. In a gender neutral society, I would be able to wear it. However, because I am a man, I would be the subject of ridicule and odd looks.
Second, I really disagree with the premise that gender is completely a cultural construct. I think it is naive to assume that all of our behaviours are from culture and upbringing, and that none are instinctive or genetic. As someone who has studied psychology, I've seen good evidence to suggest at least some extent of behaviour being adaptive, and that gender differences in these adaptive behaviours exist. These include maternal instincts and associated behaviours. It is always difficult to tell what behaviours may be adaptive and which are acquired, but it is a very very big claim to say that gender and associated behaviours are completely a social construct.
Aella Antiope
+Josh Blake if they think that gender is a bad thing, why are they so desperate to be seen as a woman? Woman is a social construct. If they want to wear dresses and collect dolls, good for them. They can do all those things without appropriating womanhood. Go crazy, I honestly do not care how a person dresses or whatever they do to their body. I am an ally of anyone who chooses to present themselves however they want.
When male decides he likes pink, and pretty floral dresses and decides that that means he's a woman, he's telling the world that being a woman is liking pink and wearing floral dresses.
I do not like pink, I do like to wear floral dresses but it's not because I have a vagina and ovaries. I hate babies and I am not very good with comforting people, does that mean I fail as a woman? No it just means women can be anything. The only criteria is being female. Men can be anything too.
society sucks, we should present ourselves however we want, and it's terrible that non gender conforming males and females are punished, this is why I want gender abolished.
The way to fight gender isn't to give in to it, and reinforce it, it's to reject it. Because we hurt everyone when we do that. Bruce jenner is hurting women with his actions and so is every transgender women who decides wearing a dress means being a woman.
Tamsin Mc Cormick
+Josh Blake The distress you describe or gender dysphoria is caused also by the excess of male hormones on a female brain. That can cause worse problems than the social ones. It is amazing how quiet the brain becomes when that is corrected by properly administered hormones. Hormones aren't socially aware so even if a transgender person is unsociable they will find an amazing respite from the dysphoria .
Aella Antiope
+Al Mead and what biological basis is this? Honestly if you think men are more violent because they are men, perhaps we should seriously consider locking up all young males until they are 30 or so. Almost 90 per cent of all homicides are committed by men, most murderers are young men, if men can't help that, because of their biology then it's only sensible to lock you guys away for the safety of society? Right? Come on, that's what you are saying.
Oh god, do you guys even think through to the conclusion of your ideas. Or do you just really have a low opinion of men on top of hating women. Not all men!!! Not every single women, so put away that strawman.
Josh Blake
+Aella Antiope I don't think they're desperate to be seen as a women, more that they are desperate to be able to behave in the way that they want to. For whatever reason, these people want to experience being the opposite sex, and many of the things that the opposite sex are exclusively able to do, from the pressures of society. I think you can still desire to be a member of the opposite sex and want to engage in the gender stereotyped behaviours but still acknowledge that the fact these stereotypes exist is harmful.
If you take the stance of 'I want to wear dresses and make up, but I can't because of gender roles', then you're admitting that the existence of these roles is destructive.
It doesn't matter than you personally don't care what people do. The problem, currently, is that there is much prejudice in society that still restricts what people are able to do, on the basis of gender expectations.
I actually agree with the woman in the video. Having a sex change doesn't make you a woman. Indeed, wearing dresses doesn't make you a woman. I don't think that men wearing dresses makes them a woman, or that being a woman is, at all, defined by how you act (To me, being a man or women is the result of your assigned sex).
I agree with you mainly. Gender is destructive, and that being judged for how we fit into our assigned gender roles is harmful. I just do not think transgender people deserve the blame for perpetuating these roles. They are victims of a world with highly enforced gender roles, not the perpetrators. Trans people are non gender-conforming in some senses.
Josh Blake
+Tamsin Mc Cormick I disagree. I think gender dysphoria is the result of individuals not conforming with the norms in society. Individuals are made to feel isolated if they do not conform, which I believe is the cause of dysphoria. If individuals were free to express themselves freely, there would be no reason to be dysphoric.
Josh Blake
+Aella Antiope I think men are more biologically predisposed to be aggressive, but that doesn't mean individual differences in natural aggressiveness do not exist.
I think it would be foolish to argue that the prevalence of male aggression relative to female aggression can be completely suppressed through culture and upbringing.
There definitely is a biological basis for aggression, that is indisputable. Men are naturally more aggressive, but that doesn't mean we're all criminals.
Also, can feminists stop with his assertion we're in some sort of woman hating society?
Aella Antiope
+Josh Blake some are very desperate to be seen as women. (Not all) Almost dangerously so. In various bizarre and sad ways, or at least they claim to online anywhere from thinking that they suffer menstrual cramps to insisting that they be involved in every female only club even if it makes women uncomfortable.
And the online transgender community reinforces some of the strangest and quite frankly destructive delusions. It's an echo chamber without any common sense.
Aella Antiope
+Al Mead you say that men and women are innately different. I agree that men and women do have differences as a class but it's not all due to biology as you state *though I am pleased to see that you don't think it's all biology). I'd say it's majority socialisation and about five per cent biology. .though at this stage it's hard to know.
I keep on saying not all men, im even pointing it out now in my other post, if you keep insisting that I mean every single man, this discussion is at an end as you are being deliberately obtuse. When I say men, I mean as a class, NOT ALL MEN. Okay good, I hope that is obvious.
How should I put it, the biggest difference in the reality we live in is the gendered divide in crime. Not all men are murderers, but the majority of murderers are men. Why is that? Some people would say biology, I say (and a lot of people who studied this field) point to socialisation.
Apparently saying it's majority socialisation is crazy talk. Why do you think that is crazy?
Aella Antiope
+Josh Blake what is the biological basis. If it's hormones then why are castrated males who no longer produce testosterone and instead take female hormones have the same violent criminality as the general male population? Not less or more, but the same.
We are in a woman hating society. Females are aborted because they are female. What else can that be other than women hating? The overwhelming majority of people in the sex trade being degraded and trafficked are women, how is that not women hating. I could go on. ..I can list stat after stat from reputable sources, human rights agencies etc. What more do you want?
Josh Blake
+Aella Antiope Perhaps so. There are obviously a spectrum of opinions amongst the community.
It is a sensitive issue when it comes to whether or not trans people should be allowed into 'women-only' events and clubs. There are good arguments on either side.
Josh Blake
+Aella Antiope It's not purely hormonal (although hormones make a difference). Nor is it purely biological.
There are definite genetic links. So-called 'supermales', who possess an extra Y chromosome are far more likely to be imprisoned for violent crimes than regular men.
There's a difference between a tiny minority of people hating women and a society that hates women. Just because there are a handful of individuals who abort based on sex, this does not mean every male in society hates women. That's just utter nonsense. It's like saying we live in a woman loving society, because there's transgender people who want to be women. It's like saying we live in a murdering society, because a minority of people commit murder. It's nonsense.
erasedEnergy
+Aella Antiope Omg thank you so much! I really agree in every single point you made and it is wonderful to see other people out there who share the same opinion as oneself.
Hope you are doing well and someday people will understand how unnecessary that whole "gender"-thing is
jessica
+Mike McK
radical feminists (which are now well outside of the academic mainstream) don't tend to have issues with transmen, it's transwomen like me that drive them nuts.
the contradiction is deeper than you're suggesting. what they can't get their head around is why anybody would choose to accept a female role. they have this elaborate (and largely bullshit) erection of civilization itself being this process of men enslaving women. female gender roles are these sets of chains designed to enforce obedience. the idea that anybody would walk into this out of their own free will challenges this model. if transwomen can choose to be women and be happy - even happier - then why can't ciswomen choose these roles and be happy? and, then the whole thing falls apart. so, they need to deny any kind of cross-pollination.
it's outward expression is often deeply misogynistic. it's really masking this deep sense of self-loathing, manifested in this process of lashing out against anything remotely "feminine" as this tool of the patriarchy.
put more simply: they hate us because we're effeminate, and they hate everything that is effeminate, because they have this warped concept of it as a tool of control.
jessica
+Josh Blake
the idea that it's just about behaviour is really not correct. it's not just about wearing lipstick. i don't have the slightest interest in putting on eye shadow and going to football practice; i don't want to tint my pecs to match my nails. i would still want to take hormones to modify my appearance, even if the norms were different. to be frank, i don't really fucking care if people don't like how i look; it has nothing to do with social ostracism.
Frank Sanders
+Mike McK That is what you find contradictory about feminism? lol.
Aella Antiope
+jessica it's easy to see why anyone would walk into it. It's a fucking fetish. Some men seek out other men to eat them because it helps them get rocks off, it's an extreme example but hell so is autogynephilia and it's not exactly mainstream population wise.
Aella Antiope
+erasedEnergy thank you. But it's not exactly a popular position today so I expect a lot of assholes lecturing me about how awful I am. Some are genuine who have swallowed the cool aide and think somehow, that im an evil bigot even though I want basic human rights for everyone and that the few transgender women who get hurt are hurt by other men for the crime of rejecting masculinity.
jessica
+Aella Antiope
see, this is the kind of absurdity they require to maintain their denial.
Aella Antiope
+Josh Blake I am actually not that hardcore about it except with prisons and domestic shelters. If you accept that trans women have the same criminality as men generally ( and I am all for more studies on this btw, the more the better and I want it to be neutral and by fair parties with good controls) and you think that men and women should be separated to protect vulnerable women in shelters, and granted some men and some women think it's an antiquated system (never mind that indian women are advocating for it hardcore for the safety), then you can see the merit in not allowing males in those spaces.
Aella Antiope
+jessica delusion happens doesn't it, when there is no objective sense of reality and it all becomes about feelings. After a while feelings become more important than people's safety and women's lived reality.
jessica
+Aella Antiope
i think you're describing yourself, not me.
Aella Antiope
+Al Mead Yeah, except you are yet to prove to me that sexism is a delusion, and that women aren't being oppressed because of their sex. I mean you can say it's not so, you may believe it's not so, but okay? I can link you to many things to prove women are discriminated on their sex, and therefore need a movement centred around us and for us.
Aella Antiope
+Al Mead My feminism is international, I just don't apply it to the west, just so you know. I think it's important that we root out the most obvious signs of it. For instance in PNG women are burned as witches, it's a serious problem and it's clearly rooted in sexism (and religion, thanks religion) and I have done activism on it.
But as for the west, my biggest priority is to bring light to the abuses of the sex industry, porn and prostitution, which predominantly impacts women. That it also hurts men is incidental (and not my priority), though it does. This feminism isn't sexy and it doesn't get much support by liberal feminists, but...there you go.
Aella Antiope
+Al Mead You have certainly made me think. I doubt we can agree on a lot of stuff, tbh. But I have to call it a night, however, if you want to chat sometime, message me, I'm up for conversation sometime in the future and would like to go over what you said. (tho not now as my back is killing me and I need to lie down).
Josh Blake
+Aella Antiope I'm not sure whether trans women have the same criminality as men. There are all sorts of extraneous factors that may affect that study, so it would be incredibly difficult to control. As I said, environmental factors undoubtedly play a large role in how violent individuals are, but I definitely think there is also a substantial biological influence.
Shelters of those who have suffered domestic abuse? I can understand why men should not be allowed there. If they have suffered from a severe trauma relating to male aggression, then it is certainly possible for those individuals to start feeling anxious in the presence of other men. If the presence of men in these areas causes distress for the majority of individuals there, then I agree.
Remember that 40% of domestic violence is against men. This is not purely a women's issue. It would be equally fair to say women are not allowed in places where men may need to recover from domestic abuse.
Josh Blake
+Al Mead Interesting point. The primary need of these people is some level of therapy, to help them be able to recover and be able to get back to everyday life without distress or anxiety. Undoubtedly, having men and women living in the same building may be therapeutic in this regard. However, would it be too soon? The job of the domestic shelter is not therapy. Perhaps these individuals should seek therapy at a later date? I believe, at such an acute stage, removing distressful stimuli would be the best solution.
Mike McK
The idea of gender being worshipped by transgender activists is bull shit. There are many different ways trans people express their gender identity in ways that challenge the binary - cross dressing/gender fluid/ gender queer. Ultimately though most feminists themselves recognizes gender is more complicated on a biological level and that sex difference IS a thing - but also there is a strong cultural interpretation of that difference that exaggerates it unnecessarily. Most transpeople transition to have their identities be seen as legitimate under current social conditions (that's understandable). Many DON'T as well and find alternative ways to express themselves. Not all transgendered people are captured by transexuals. Greer's views need updating - feminism itself is moving away from what she expresses.
jessica
i just need to point out that the idea of transgendered women congregating in women's shelters is extremely absurd. it's a very typical right-wing scare mongering attack tactic to take this obscure thing that never happens and blow it up into this supposed issue of substance.
we just had an election up in canada. the conservative party tried to make it a referendum on whether muslim women applying for citizenship should be able to state the citizenship oath under veil or not. the number of cases that exist? two.
a referendum on two cases? the country rejected the narrative.
but, it's the same thing, here. how many times does this happen at any given shelter over the course of a year? most shelters would report that it doesn't happen.
and, in the rare circumstance that a transfemale appears at a women's shelter, they are there for the reason that they are fleeing domestic violence and have nowhere else to go and should be treated compassionately.
Yoni
+Mike McK Greer is a liberation feminist. She does not subscribe to the gender equality feminist movement. She believes in positive differentiation. Hence, she believes in the only rational form of feminism.
David Parry
+Aella Antiope You stupid, ignorant sack of shit! Transsexual people are not simply gender non-conforming individuals who feel compelled to identify as a member of 'the opposite sex' on the basis of their deviance from the social norm; they're people who are born with an anatomy that conflicts with their sense of physical feeling and experience profound discomfort as a result of this discord.
I presume you're familiar with the concept of phantom limbs and digits, where people who've been amputated sometimes physically feel as though they're still in possession of the appendage(s) that they've lost even though their eyes tell them that they're not? Well, transsexualism is similar, in that the person becomes aware (usually at some point during childhood) that their eyes tell them one thing and their sense of physical feeling tells them another, only the resultant discord is much more distressing.
It is this discord, this disharmony, and not any desire on the part of the transsexual person to become a member of 'the opposite sex' on the basis of identification with gendered stereotypes associated therewith (which, by the way, I don't believe transsexual people are any more nor less likely than cissexual people to do), which prompts a minority of transsexual people to seek sex-reassignment surgery. SRS, in other words, is not about gender-policing, but rather about ameliorating a state of considerable emotional turmoil, arising essentially from a conflict of sensory perceptions.
A word of advice: don't pontificate on matters about which quite clearly understand sweet Fanny Adams. It only serves to expose you as an ignorant, moronic arsehole!
You Can't Be Racist to Jews
+Mike McK
Because the transgender movement is claiming the exact opposite. They are claiming that trannies are born that way and therefore it isn't a social construct.
jessica
+You Can't Be Racist to Jews
that's broadly inaccurate. it's a cross-section of transgender activists with your "social justice warrior" types. they're a minority, and they don't speak for most of us - even though they yell pretty loudly.
the consensus position is actually that it's a red herring.
minch333
+Mike McK Because you don't understand what social construct means
jessica
+minch333
well, no. it's a clear contradiction. if it's a social construct, that means that gender is defined via the social construct - which means i'm a woman, because i uphold the social construct, and butch dykes aren't, because they don't. otherwise, it's not actually a social construct.
minch333
+jessica Yeah, so you don't understand what social construct means... Like, what am I even meant to say to your comment!
jessica
+minch333
i actually think it's fairly clear that you don't understand what a social construct is.
minch333
+jessica I'm telling you now that you've misunderstood what feminists mean when they say social construct. I have never met a single feminist that thinks that's what social construct means, only anti-feminists. It's called a straw man
jessica
+minch333
right, but the point is that most feminists don't understand the idea of a social construct, so when they throw it around they contradict themselves.
they tend to interpret a social construct as an imaginary thing, but no social theorist would ever uphold this. social constructs are absolutely real things. money is worthless - paper or gold - but that doesn't mean it doesn't have value. gender is absolutely a social construct, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist; to the contrary, to suggest it is a social construct implies it must exist, independently of what it's socially constructed to.
it's not a strawman. it's just an example of the poor logical skills endemic to radical feminism.
Paul Wray
+Aella Antiope If radfems want gender abolished, why are they FEMinists?
minch333
+jessica Okay, here is what I've heard feminists say about what their term means. It is not meant to imply that there is no differences between the genders, or that all differences we perceive between the genders are created by our society. What is meant by social construct is that gender is a taxonomy that is flawed and probably always will be no matter how you set the classification. An example of this would be the classification of animals, which is itself a social construct. We have a working definition of what mammals are, but it is imperfect as no one can say whether or not the platypus should be called a mammal.
This is exactly what is meant by gender being a social construct. Although there may be areas of life where a specific definition of gender suits them practically (sports, medicine, therapy etc), these categorisations will be inherently flawed, as they will always end up leaving out some people who genuinely identify as female.
So far from "social construct" being in contradiction with seeing transgender people as truly the gender they identify with, what feminists are angry at Greer for is that she has decided on a very regressive categorisation of men and women that you are what ever sexual body parts you are born with. This categorisation is born out of suspicion, and is scientifically so questionable, that she barely has the right to her opinion. (MtF for simplicity) Transgender women have been consistently shown to have brains with a similar structure to women's tend to be: they are more in line with the average shown by women on size, grey matter density, number of neurons, and other factors, even before they start hormone treatment. Although we can't say that any of these factors are definitely necessary or sufficient attributes of being a women, transgenderism clearly isn't a biologically non existent thing as Greer appears to think it is. So fuck her
jessica
the idea that gender is a social construct was not invented by radical feminists. it is actually a post-modern concept that they're misunderstanding.
when you say that something is a social construct, you are not reflecting on whether it is "flawed" or not; this is precisely the misunderstanding of the term that i'm alluding to (that is: i told you that you didn't understand what the word means, i told you why, and you just repeated your incorrect understanding). rather, you are reflecting on whether there is anything intrinsic within it or if it exists on the level of abstraction.
the classic example of a social construct is currency. we know that paper is worthless. but, we assign value to it because we construct a meaning around it. so, we can say that the idea that paper money has value is all in our head - it's something we have constructed on a social level, but does not have any measurable, objective meaning. we don't measure whether currency is "flawed" or not when we do this. it has nothing to do with it.
when feminists say that gender is a social construct, what they mean to say is nothing more complicated than that gender and sex are different things and do not imply one or another. sex is biologically determined by chromosomes. but, gender is merely an idea that exists in our head.
but, just because gender is merely an idea that exists in our heads does not mean that it is not real in our daily lives. this is where radical feminists become entirely incoherent, and the contradiction sets in.
what you're saying about brains is not true, and if you refute it then i demand to see a source. if you cannot provide a source, i expect a retraction. there is currently no determined biological cause for gender identity - and the idea is not within the mainstream of scientific research, either. frankly, as a hypothesis, it's a rather stupid one - and that is what you will get back from geneticists if you ask them about it.
genes are never thought to affect personality. you didn't steal candy when you were a kid because you have thief genes. you don't enjoy broccoli because you have broccoli genes. and you don't like dresses because you have feminine personality genes.
Patrik Archy (Patriarchy for life)
+Mike McK You seem to forget yourself sir, they are really really stupid.
Paul Wray
They may not be innately stupid, but postmodernism taught them that they can argue either side (or even both sides!) of any issue, always taking the moral high ground. What we normal people would see as facts, or principles, or logic, they just see all as a malleable discourse, grist for their ideological mill. Their postmodernist indoctrination has made them functionally stupid.
Tuckercrew
+Mike McK transgender people claim sex = gender, with which feminists, and other people, disagree. If sex is gender, then it means being female is submissive, or emotional or whatever gender crap you can put there. But submissiveness is not inborn. Thats the problem with transgender. It says women and men ARE their gender socialization. Which is destructive and dangerous, mostly for women.
You Can't Be Racist to Jews
+Tuckercrew Wrong. Personality is inborn.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/02/science/major-personality-study-finds-that-traits-are-mostly-inherited.html?pagewanted=all
jessica
+Tuckercrew
no. i can't make sense of your initial claim, but i think i have some idea of what you're trying to say.
if gender is a social construct, that means it exists independently of any biological sex. that both implies that neither sex is their gender socialization, and that either sex can be socialized any kind of way. now, there are caveats to this.
the david reimer case comes up, here. the way it's usually cited is overly simplistic, and logically difficult to uphold on any critical analysis. but, it does certainly suggest that how people are socialized is exceedingly difficult to control for. an underanalyzed factor in the case is that the parents seem to have been unwilling participants, and that throws a lot of complicated factors into the idea that there was a feminizing socialization. on top of that, what is a transgendered person, if not somebody that rejects their gender socialization? if the reimer case had succeeded in demonstrating that gender results from hierarchical socialization, he would have only succeeded in demonstrating that transgendered people are counter-examples of his theory. but, it certainly demonstrates that hierarchical socialization is a failure - which is why transgendered people exist at all - and that, if socialization is a dominant factor, it cannot be effectively guided "in the wild". that suggests that, insofar as socialization is effective, it can only be truly random, unless it is in strict laboratory conditions, which cannot be seriously contemplated for ethical reasons.
the complicated nature of how socialization works creates people all over the spectrum, and tied very loosely to their biology.
but, these abstract categories nonetheless exists. what i'm arguing - and which is consistent with what most transgendered people that i'm aware of think - is that our personalities define our gender, regardless of our biology, and that there is no meaningful correlation between the two. there is some debate over what defines our personalities, with one idea cited widely despite having little supporting evidence. but, it's the lower level of abstraction that is more important in realizing how we understand gender.
"If environment were the major influence in personality, then identical twins raised in the same home would be expected to show more similarity than would the twins reared apart. "
see, this is a ridiculous premise.
"The traits were measured using a personality questionnaire"
lol.
surely, you have something better than a vague new york times psychology (that is, not serious science) article from thirty years ago?
You Can't Be Racist to Jews
+jessica
Nice counter argument there. I guess you are right then............. oh wait, you didn't give one.
This whole idea that nurture has more influence than nature is nothing more than a religious belief. In other words it is wishful thinking. If you have ever had kids, you would notice that they each have their own unique personalities. Same applies to animals. Every dog owner knows that each dog has it's own personality(temperament), and that dogs of the same breed have very similar personalities, proving that genes are the biggest factor.
People find it very hard to accept that the same applies to humans. We want to believe that we are above animals. We want to blame our parents and the circumstances we grew up in for our failures. We want to think of ourselves as transcending mere biology, but metaphysics have no place in science.
Of course nurture does play a role, but it is dwarfed by the influence of our genes. Genes are the reason why, no matter how hard you try you can never teach a chimp to write poetry like Shakespeare, even more damning, and difficult to accept is that they are the reason most people will never write poetry like Shakespeare.
jessica
+You Can't Be Racist to Jews
if you'd like to make the claim, you have the burden of proof.
animals are well understood to have individual personalities, and there's no reason to think it isn't also mostly dependent on experience. i've had many dogs, of similar and identical breeds, and they were all entirely different. i actually grew up with two golden retrievers that were full sisters - born minutes from each other - and they couldn't have been more different. one was very straight-forward, whereas the other was very sneaky.
but, they both died of cancer, and that was probably inherited.
if you would like to demonstrate this claim, you will need to provide research that shows that specific genes lead to specific behaviours. anything else is entirely speculative. this research does not exist. all we have is a lot of easily deconstructed "social science" (i.e. not actual science) "studies" that make absurd leaps of logic, utilizing very fuzzy thinking.
the article that was posted actually concedes that the study was very weak, and it was questionable whether it should have been published.
jessica
i'd just like to take a step back and explain why it is so important that the left reject the idea that this is inborn. it's a greater issue than one of identity politics.
nor is this as dissenting an opinion as you might suggest. activist groups tend to yell louder than the rest of us, but the real reason you hear this view presented in the media so strongly is that it aligns well with the kind of new age pseudo-christianity that has taken over as the dominant western moral philosophy since the 60s. yes: on the one hand, the hard-right literalists actually understand what their book says. but, to argue for a biological basis is entirely consistent with this new age, albeit somewhat calvinist, idea of "god's plan" and "unique creation". to the new age pseudo-christian, it is entirely rational that we are queer because god intended us to be queer, regardless of what their book (which they've never actually read...) actually says about it. and, if you ask around, what you'll learn is that this argument - rather than the preferable liberal argument about individual rights - has been far more effective in changing perspectives. that is the reason activists use this tool - it works. and, am i consequently not damaging my own cause?
in the short term, perhaps. but, this debate is older than mendel, and it's consequences are much deeper.
to begin with, the entire basis of liberalism is erected on the basic concept of free will. when locke was writing on these topics, he was specifically rejecting this calvinist idea of predestination. for, if we live in a fatalistic world, then we are wasting our time fighting for liberty - the outcome is predetermined. in allowing for free will, we need the concept of a tabula rasa - that is, a mind as a blank slate. and, it is only from this assumption that we can construct free will, as well as the idea of human rights.
the socialist and anarchist thinkers that followed locke, as well as the more liberal thinkers in the french revolution, also required a tabula rasa to allow for a means to build a better society. this was contrasted against conservative (hobbesian) ideas about "human nature" that prevented progress.
porting this to a modern context, we require a tabula rasa to allow for the possibility of building a society without hierarchical divisions. this applies equally well to gender identity as it does to physical gender, skin colour, racial identity and all the other differences that create division. and, it is required for us to be able to overcome what capitalism teaches us and build increasing approximations to communism.
for, if we are to argue that identity and orientation are genetic, then we must argue that bigotry and hierarchy are as well. we cannot claim that the personality traits we like are inborn and the ones we don't are not; that is cherry-picking, and unscientific. we must be consistent. and, then we are stuck in the conservative worldview of progress being impossible due to human nature.
it is for this reason that i reject the activist status quo. i will concede that arguing for determinism is more effective in the short run. but, in the long run, it cements the conservative argument for human nature and creates apathy for building the kinds of social movements required to truly abolish prejudice and hierarchy.
i must side with rousseau over burke, and present arguments that uphold the sanctity of personal choice over grudging acceptance of human nature.
You Can't Be Racist to Jews
+jessica
>>>if you'd like to make the claim, you have the burden of proof.<<<
Already have. You are making the claim that environment is more important than genes. Provide proof please.
>>>animals are well understood to have individual personalities, and there's no reason to think it isn't also mostly dependent on experience.<<<
Bullshit. Experience might play some role, but it is mostly genes that influence personality. A bird doesn't build a nest because of its unique life experiences. It's desire to build a nest is because of certain genes, how those genes work is irrelevant. They just do.
>>>i've had many dogs, of similar and identical breeds, and they were all entirely different. i actually grew up with two golden retrievers that were full sisters - born minutes from each other - and they couldn't have been more different. one was very straight-forward, wheres the other was very sneaky.<<<
They were different RELATIVE TO EACH OTHER. This is to be expected since they were probably fraternal not identical twins and therefore had different genes. A dog of a different breed would be even more different. Also to claim that all the differences that cannot be explained by genes must be because of experience is still wrong. We haven't even gotten into epigenetics and a whole host of other BIOLOGICAL factors which could explain the difference in behavior between twins.
>>>but, they both died of cancer, and that was probably inherited.<<<
Cancer is extremely common in Golden retrievers.
>>>if you would like to demonstrate this claim, you will need to provide research that shows that specific genes lead to specific behaviours.<<<
I did provide a study which shows that similar genes will result in similar personality. You don't get to just dismiss the studies just because you don't like them.
>>>this research does not exist.<<<
There are ethical limitations to what studies can be done in humans. You want people to be put in cages and have their behavior studied? That genes are the most important factor is obvious. It is the reason birds and monkeys do not behave the same. Anyone claiming otherwise should provide proof of their claim.
>>>>all we have is a lot of easily deconstructed "social science" (i.e. not actual science) "studies" that make absurd leaps of logic, utilizing very fuzzy thinking.<<<
Yes, most social "science" is bullshit, partly because it tends to ignore genes.
>>>the article that was posted actually concedes that the study was very weak, and it was questionable whether it should have been published.<<<
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2012/Q4/scientists-tracking-down-genes-that-help-bees-defend-against-mites.html
"Some bees exhibit a trait called varroa sensitivity hygiene, in which they can somehow sense - likely through smell - that varroa mites are sealed into brood cells where honeybee grubs are pupating. The bees uncap the cells and sometimes remove the infested pupa, disrupting the mites' reproduction process."
You seem determined to believe that environment is more important than biology, in spite of all the evidence around you. This is nothing more than a religious conviction. You believe it because it makes you comfortable. It's like a Christian telling an atheist to prove God doesn't exist.
jessica
+You Can't Be Racist to Jews
ugh.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=genes+do+not+determine+behaviour
there's a cut-off point, regarding brain complexity. bees are basically clones of each others. flatworms don't have brains at all. but you don't have to go particularly far up the ladder of complexity to find individuality - it's there in most mammals (many of whom live in complex societies), most birds and even in some reptiles. this is very, very firmly established - you're just demonstrating ignorance.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=animal+individuality
again: you are making a claim. you have the burden of proof. that requires demonstrating a causal connection between specific gene expressions and specific behaviours. until you can do that - and you cannot currently do this - all you have is a speculative hypothesis that most experts reject.
You Can't Be Racist to Jews
+jessica
>>>again: you are making a claim. you have the burden of proof.<<<<
No, you just don't like what I am saying. Unless you tell the same thing to anyone who says that environment has more influence than genes, and I doubt you do.
>>>that requires demonstrating a causal connection between specific gene expressions and specific behaviours.<<<
Bullshit. It requires no such thing. As far as I know we don't know which gene/s cause someone to have a long nose and yet we know that it is genetics and not environment. Scientists make such logical inferences all the time.
>>>until you can do that - and you cannot currently do this - all you have is a speculative hypothesis<<<
There is absolutely nothing wrong with speculative hypothesis. Relativity was also a speculative hypothesis until it was proven. Evolution is also pretty much a speculative hypothesis. It hasn't been "proven" and you never will prove it but all the evidence suggests that it is true.
>>>that most experts reject.<<<
Bullshit. Now you are just pulling shit out your ass. Unless you can show me this survey of "experts", then you can take that claim of yours and shove it back up your ass.
jessica
if you look through the google results that i posted, you will see that there were several results that explained the correct scientific understanding of this issue.
the first is from paul ehrlich, where he explains that the vast majority of our genes are shared with species as primitive as fruit flies, and that the unique part of our genome is far too small for it to be feasible to think that it codes for both behaviour and physical traits (like nose length)
Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford, president of the Center for Conservation Biology and a past president of the AIBS, said the Human Genome Project had "put the final nail in the coffin of genetic determinism by showing that human beings have only some 26,000 to 38,000 genes -- many of which are closely similar or identical to those of much simpler animals like fruit flies." This, he claimed, made the problem of "gene shortage" even more serious for the views of evolutionary psychologists than it was when it was thought that there probably were 100,000 genes or more.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2001/april4/ehrlichtalk-44.html
he goes on to reject the idea of genes influencing behaviour as "pop science".
another is a psychology today article that laments that so much research funding has been put into trying to find a causal link between genes and behaviour, acknowledges that all such studies have failed, and claims that the money would have been better spent elsewhere.
The current prevailing genetic evidence seems to suggest that we actually don't have genes for personality. And this conclusion doesn't come from a lack of trying: The US government has spent billions on genetic research. Billions. BILLIONS!!! When I think about all the $$ that went into this "gene for.." research, I want to throw myself out the second floor window of the psychology building. The fall wouldn't kill me, but I imagine it would hurt just as bad as it does to realize that much of our research funding was flushed down the "gene for.." toilet.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/under-the-influence/201307/do-genes-influence-personality
those were in the first five results of the google search.
You Can't Be Racist to Jews
+jessica
>>>the first is from paul ehrlich<<<
Stop right there! Are you really going to quote that nutcase? That you would even choose him as a source shows me that you are not interested in science but rather that you are trying to push an ideology.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/paul-ehrlich-even-worse-new-york-times-says-he_962990.html
"Of course, it’s been obvious that Ehrlich was not just misguided, but an actual charlatan..."
"Mara Hvistendahl has a long, devastating interview with Ehrlich in which she probes his errors, pushes him for accountability, and reveals him to be a doddering, foolish, old man wedded to a political ideology and with no interest in science, demographics, or even basic math"
"where he explains that the vast majority of our genes are shared with species as primitive as fruit flies, and that the unique part of our genome is far too small for it to be feasible to think that it codes for both behaviour and physical traits (like nose length)"
What a stupid man. That is such a dumb argument. If tiny a differences in our DNA can code for a human being on the one hand and a fruit fly on the other, then it can surely also code for different behavior. How does this fool explain spider behavior? Does mommy spider teach baby spiders to build webs?
"This, he claimed, made the problem of "gene shortage" even more serious for the views of evolutionary psychologists than it was when it was thought that there probably were 100,000 genes or more."
Gene shortage? What the fuck? We have proved that very few genes can code for very big differences in look and function, why not the same for personality?
Can you honestly not see that this man is promoting a n ideology and not science?
>>>he goes on to reject the idea of genes influencing behaviour as "pop science".<<<
I reject him as pseudoscience.
"The current prevailing genetic evidence seems to suggest that we actually don't have genes for personality."
And yet research shows we do.
"And this conclusion doesn't come from a lack of trying: The US government has spent billions on genetic research."
The same applies to looks or anything else. It is very difficult to find which genes cause you to have a long nose or which cause you to be more likely to get cancer but we KNOW those are inherited.
>>>those were in the first five results of the google search.,<<<
Searching "nature vs nurture debate" on Google gives me this-
https://richarddawkins.net/2015/05/have-researchers-finally-settled-the-nature-vs-nurture-debate/
"The study, published in Nature Genetics, reviewed almost every twin study done in the last 50 years and found that 49% of the average variation for human traits and diseases were down to genetics, and the other 51% were due to environmental factors."
Forty nine percent. That's a far cry from Erhrlich's religious tabula rasa bullshit.
"The study looked at a variety of traits—17,804 to be precise—including depression and tobacco use. Traits that were linked with non-identical twins are thought to have more influence from the environment, and vice versa.
While on average genetics and the environment contributed equally to traits, the study found wide variations in individual traits. When researchers looked at the risk for bipolar disorder, for example, 70% was due to genetics and the other 30% was down to environmental factors."
Note that the study was looking at behavior, not personality. Two people could have exactly the same personality and one could end up using tobacco and one not simply because of a split second decision or peer pressure. But that 50 percent of BEHAVIOR is genetic is absolutely amazing and proves just how wrong your professor is. if the study looked at PERSONALITY traits only then it would likely find an even higher percentage are the result of genes. Note that bipolar disorder is 70 percent genetic.
jessica
ugh.
plonk.
i will respond to the parts of this that are worth responding to.
so, according to the crackpot conservative weekly standard...
"economists, feminists, and conservative hangers-on....knew Ehrlich was wrong.....But here’s the thing: Even in the face of all of this, the elite caste has showered Ehrlich with awards and honors."
yeah. amazing.
who would think that economists, feminists and conservative hangers-on would run afoul of academics? shocking. i suppose it's a good thing that we have the weekly standard to keep us honest, so we don't get mislead by those wily academics.
and, you wonder why i accuse you of aligning with right-wing goobledy-gook?
further, the last part of the article you posted (which is very vague) from a link off the dawkins site is the important part:
"Benyamin suggests the study has “important implications” for treating diseases. He tells The Guardian that while mental disorders and skeletal traits had a greater genetic influence, environmental factors played a larger role for social values."
that is, indeed, the consensus: that behaviour is not genetic.
the vagueness in the article is important to comment on further, though. i have to say that the article was too poorly written to pull anything out of, and nature wants me to pay for the actual article (which i will not do). but, when you say something like "49% of traits shared are inherited in identical twins" without mentioning what those traits are (physical or behavioural) or providing any clue as to how you derived this result, you're throwing a meaningless number around.
we saw a good example of bad logic in the first study, posted from the new york times. incoherent logic - and measured using an opinion survey. you do that for 15 million people, and it's still as useless as if you do it for 150 people. you don't do science with opinion surveys.
worse, false positives are inherent to this sort of research, and without looking at it i can't analyze it. this quote from the linked to article provides a good example of why you need to be careful with these kinds of studies:
"Suppose, as before, there is a trait that is seemingly inherited in families in such a way that a genetic trait would be, in the time tested manner that with respect this trait “offspring resemble their parents” as Darwin noted. The next question you can ask is this: Is it biologically sensible that this trait is inherited genetically, or is there a better, obvious, non-genetic mode of inheritance? If the trait is a physical feature such as eye color, then we have a sensible biological explanation for the trait having to do with developmental process we know something about and a set of metabolic pathways that produce various molecules such as pigments. The idea that this trait is genetic is biologically sensible, so even if you can’t find any, or all, of the genetic determinants of this trait, you can figure they are out there somewhere. Suppose, though, that the trait is a behavioral one that we see people in real life learning. For example, what language a person speaks generally follows the same kind of inheritance pattern many clearly genetic traits follow. With respect to spoken language, most of the time, offspring resemble their parents. But, rather than there being a sensible biological explanation for this trait, there is a sensible cultural explanation for this trait, so we don’t even look for the genetic variants for “French” vs. “Mandarin” vs. “English.” We simply assume this is not genetic."
but, what you will see if you rip these studies apart is that they do not assume that these traits are not genetic, and they end up screwing up the results.
i know it sounds convincing. big survey. fancy magazine. but, if you take hundreds of small scale badly done social science studies and put them together, you're left with one really big, badly done social science study.
as i've pointed out - and as authors in the three pieces i've posted have pointed out - a direct demonstration of causality is the only way to get past this. you can't design a psychology experiment in such a way that seriously demonstrates one factor or another. further, you can't prove that personality is not genetic, either - it's not just proving a negative, it's just impossible to control for. however, we can look at the data and deduce that there is no clear sign of causality, and draw the obvious conclusion.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/03/07/is-human-behavior-genetic-or-learned/
i just want to add a final point about bipolar disorder to further demonstrate the flaws in this kind of research. i skipped over it initially on the idea that many mental health issues are hormonal, and i would agree that the condition - if not the response to and management of it - could be considered genetic. in cases where "mental illness" can be traced to hormonal conditions, the truth is that we're talking about something that is as physical an impairment as diabetes and subject to the same genetic determinism - although, again, how one deals with these things would not be genetic.
but, i was thinking about it when i was brushing my teeth, and it really requires a response.
we don't even know what bipolar disorder even is. we can't put down objective criteria for diagnosis. we have no idea what causes it. it's diagnosed more or less randomly, and as a kind of catch-all for poor emotional control. plenty of people will argue that it doesn't exist at all, except as a consequence of poor social development.
so, what does it mean to suggest that an impairment that we don't have stringent criteria for and diagnose on a whim is genetic, when we can't even point to two supposedly bipolar people and claim they have the same symptoms?
it's just another example of how brutal this stuff is. it's not even pseudo-science, it's just incoherent. but, it gets worse.
because, when you go to a psychiatrist, they will ask you about your family history and will be more likely to diagnose you with bipolar if you claim to have a family history of it. that is, the diagnosis is in large part determined by the assumption of heredity, creating a chain of circular logic.
now, again: i'm willing to accept that "mental illnesses" that we have a strong hormonal understanding of are likely genetic, but then i wouldn't call them "mental illnesses" - i would call them hormonal imbalances.
but, any study willing to draw conclusions about the genetic basis of something like bipolar disorder should just be laughed at.
Black Sin Impeccable
+Mike McK - If gender is a social construct, then she is a misogynist, it's what they've needed to teach for at least the last 50 years.
EsammyE820 E
+Mike McK Well the gender is a social construct theory was put forward by second wave feminists/lesbian separatists. They believed that women were born lesbians & were in relationships with men due to the oppressiveness of the patriarchy. They believed that by smashing patriarchy they would relieve them of their hetero-ness. They also believed men to be the oppressors, abusers & rapists. It comes as no surprise that these women believe trans women as threats to the feminist movement.
Hypatia
+jessica
"...anybody would choose to accept a female role"
Did you not notice how you put the cart ahead the mule? You start you spiel by assuming that there is something like a "female role" - an essentialist claim. Instead, complex roles and personality traits (segregated into what is seen to fit on and expected along sexual difference) are associated , demanded and policed by our culture based on one`s sex - as they historically developed out of the male-dominated distribution of power: the constructs of femininity and masculinity (traits and roles), aka gender was slowly developed as a narrative of explaining, maintaining, managing and justifying the male-centric preponderance of power and status throughout much of history. Therefore there are no such things as "innate sex-roles", or "psychological genders" , these are fictions imposed on the sexes via SOCIALIZATION. Given the historical context of male-concentrated power, these gender-norms ended up obviously tilted in favor of masculinity - just as a male-led civilization would have it, and thus they represent not only a harmless social fiction, but the ideological background for justifying unequal treatment (look at the list of gendered values, stereotypes and norms, they are almost the negative carbon copies of each other where for every socially and historically valued trait a male gets assigned, the female gets its negative).
What you do is willingly choose to accept the woman-role, the gender and not a female-role, since its is not bare sex which carries them - unless you uphold the biological essentialism of sex-gender causation - but the socially-culturally construed gender (female=sex, woman, femininity=gender and conversely male=sex, man, masculinity=gender).
By willfully conflating sex with gender your whole comment was a huge pile of confusion as usual in trans circles and their PC cheerleaders, the regressive and reactionary, authoritarian left, parading as and misappropriating feminism. Here you, just like some other trans-activists get into the contradiction of simultaneously denying essentialism (and wrongfully attributing it to gender constructionist theory which came up with the conclusion of essentialism being false in the first place) to basically endorsing it, you follow suit, damn all logic or clarity of categories - willfully. But of course, you people need this obscureness and obfuscation, for your very raison d`etre hinges on the fiction of gender-essentialism. By performing what Marx called the fetishized self, the commodity fetishism of the ego itself (subsuming social transformation aims and collective consciousness), which imagines a supermarket of "identites" to buy and choose from based on whim, as more important than the goal of social-wide liberation. The transgender agenda undermines the analysis of the structural and social power-dynamics by - similarly to the atomization of the individual by consumerism - hiding systemic issues behind such an individualized language which precludes and obstructs the disclosure of ideology`s mass character and structural aggression. Creating the very problems of "dysphoria" they claim they are a cure for. The dysphoria is due to a social feedback loop which disallows genuine and subversive gender-nonconformity. No wonder that theocratic countries like Iran, endorse trans-sexual surgery, for homosexuality - which is still a crime punished by death - for example directly challenges the masculinity-femininity boxes (just like the rare manifestations of male masochism or female sadism does - and similarly socially shamed/punished), while trans-genders basically resign themselves willingly to their expected correct sex-correlate to go with their chosen roles and traits.
The main problem is, that people like me, who are of a certain sex but not gender-conforming (females who are not emotional, submissive, talkative, weak-willed or males who are submissive, emotional, not-assertive, etc, etc) are deeply hurt by your trans-philosophy, in which certain PERSONAL, INDIVIDUAL TRAITS are inextricably (and unjustifiably) linked and reserved by you to a necessary gender-adjustment. Not only is this appeasing and reinforcing the pre-existing, traditionalist, regressive and conservative gender boxes society forces and expects the sexes to conform into (and by extension maintaining the underlying misogyny of it) - but also, by making one feel like he or she can not have a certain personal trait despite his or her sex, because you ideologically relegated those traits and roles to be only genuinely claimed with the whole baggage of a certain gender box, without impersonating, or becoming that gender, you foster the very self-misapprehension or "dysphoria" (internalized self-loathing for not being the correct gender for traits associated with that sex and forbidden to the other sex), and thats why gender boxes ultimately hurt everyone and keep society to liberate itself from the very mental constructs which creates the victims of non-conformity. Ideally it should be that you can be a sensitive and submissive and nurturing male or a calculating, dominant and not-nurturing female (or any imaginable combination of personal traits) without having to claim a different biological sexual category. But then again, instead of fighting to change society in any fundamental sense, its easier to cater into the already existing mold, and avoid confrontation by shifting sex under the headers of gender, rather than liberating sex from them. What you call feminine or masculine traits, are simply people traits which should be free to have regardless of sex, and this goes to roles as well. You people undermine the only movement and the only method of achieving true liberation of the sexes, real, liberation and revolutionary feminism, by creating more and more genders instead of eliminating them all, playing PC language-policing and behavior micro-management, and creation of meaningless labels, (not to mention playing right into the hand of the traditionalist and nowadays biological - lacking the authority of gods - essentialists) instead of sweeping reforms in mentality, education, and a true, emancipatory revolution of underlying social values.
PS> I agree with your take on psychiatry though.
jessica
+hypatia
in the first part of this, you reverse the language to attach sex and gender to the opposite concepts that they're usually attached to. you then use that confusion to create a strawman argument. you then follow through with that argument.
i know this is a long comment, but it's very confused and completely misrepresentative of anything i stated, or anything you generally hear from trans activists. i consequently don't see any value in responding to it. i would rather encourage you to read the arguments presented here a little bit more carefully, and respond again if you feel you have anything else to add.
Hypatia
+jessica A disappointing answer, granted I wrote the above in a bit of a hurry and English is not my native tongue, but I think you are being cynically disingenuous by dismissing it all, your call, I can defend every sentence in what I wrote if genuine need arises.
jessica
i think that if you want me to address that mess, we'll need to address it point by point. from what i can tell, your most basic point - not first chronologically, but from where the rest of it flows - is the essentialist strawman.
i am arguing that, because the female gender is a social construction, it follows that anybody upholding that construction is female. there's actually not any inference there - it is the definition of what "female" is, within the context of a social construction. that is the exact opposite of essentialism. it rather reduces gender to a type of role-playing and assigns titles to whoever wants to play the part.
role-playing is normal in our society and really central to who we are as individuals. we do it in our relationships, with our friends, with our family, at work. it's arguably the thing we spend the most amount of our time thinking about, and the most amount of our time actually doing.
when i take away that point, the rest of your post becomes incoherent. can you rewrite your post in a way that reverses this misperception?
Hypatia
+jessica Lets try it like this.
1. Sex and gender are two different categories.
1a. Sex is a biological classification of factually and physically diverging anatomical, morphological and reproductive traits (male, female, intersex).
1b. Gender is a social construct. A socio-culturally reinforced set of arbirary abstractions attributes and roles expected to fit on and followed by individuals as if essentially determined by their sex (masculinity, femininity). This is accomplished by socialization, indoctrination and uncritical traditional value transmission from generation to generation and by the slowly changing social institutions into which these abstractions are deeply embedded or exist specifically to reinforce these constructs.
2. Feminism is about eliminating the stereotypes and gender roles which constitutes the social construct of gender, as such its not helpful in this endeavor if a group of people explicitly reinforce those same construct, by needing them to "express themselves". Such people basically inhabit the stereotype and so doing they validate it. That is - following this line of reasoning - trans women (and men for that matter) basically help the patriarchal status quo by strongly identifying with the social construct which needs abolishing in the first place, blocking the needed gender role revolution which leads to complete emancipation.
3. Trans ideology preserves the stereotypes/gender roles (as the only means of expressing something like "gender-identity" instead of a personal identity), while simultaneously they attempt to reify them as if they were not construed and merely socially existing virtualities, treating the biological criteria of sexual difference as construed instead - that is, they attach themselves to the gender constructs of "femininity/womanhood" and "masculinity/manhood" (the fixed categories which are the essence of patriarchal values) while denying the objective, biological differences of "male" and "female" bodies (even though their givenness does not imply or determine personality traits or social and sexual roles as traditionalist gender essentialism would have you believe); as such reifying the social constructs themselves, while treating biological sexes as constructs instead.
4. There are no such things as female or male brains, or innate psychological genders. Sex differences are innate, but they are - excluding social conditioning - tabula rasa in terms of personality traits, sexual preferences, and any propensities to choose specific social roles and rituals.
5. Again, gender is a social construct built hierarchically and ideologically upon the fact of sexual differences, while biological sex is not socially construed and it does not determine the contents of genders. The latter reflect the power-distribution alongside the sexes, they are sacredness items of justifying unequal share in power.
Trans people cling to the socially construed gender-traits and roles as if they would represent some "essence", by needing those cliché and stereotypical representations of femininity or masculinity as the only tools by which they can show that they belong to another sex than to which they were born with (which is ludicrous given that sex should not be taken to determine psychological or personal traits and social roles) By doing so they "reify" (make something abstract more concrete or real) a patriarchal social construct, at the same time they disembody (make something real abstract) the actual embodied experience and bare biological fact of having a certain biological anatomy.
I have to stop here because my time cut into a schedule I am obliged to follow, I could have gone on though.
If you have any issue with any of these points let me know.
jessica
"Gender is a social construct. A socio-culturally reinforced set of arbitrary abstractions attributes and roles"
that's right. therefore, anybody that upholds the arbitrary abstractions, attributes and roles of a certain gender belongs to that gender, and anybody that does not uphold them does not.
nothing you say can possibly make any sense until you concede that point.
i'm stressing this point and ignoring the rest of what you're saying for a reason. we don't get to the next point until we get past this one.
i mean....maybe you might want to get rid of gender. that's nice. i really don't care if you do or not. if you don't like gender, don't live it. don't tell me what to do.
your opinion on the value of gender, or your desire to abolish it, has no effect on what it is.
i'm not interested in discussing your opinions on tactics to abolish gender. i'm not even on your side of that debate.
if you would like to continue discussing what gender is, we need to have you concede the first point, first.
Paul Wray
+Aella Antiope
It seems to me your attitudes are remarkably inconsistent in a variety of ways.
The relationship of pink, or floral dresses, or earrings, or high heeled shoes to the gender "woman" is historically arbitrary as you say, but it's well established. These patterns are established and maintained by billions of women, not by a few transexuals. So it's disingenuous to point the finger at them "hurting" women by promoting gender stereotypes. It just looks like you need to find someone to blame other than, er, women.
On the one hand, you say gender roles are bad for women and we should break them down. That women's gender has never done her any good. But then you seem jealous of the gender, and accuse the transexuals of "appropriation". Surely the transexuals actions will do more to break the traditional gender roles than almost anything else you could dream up, regardless of their motives. If you were consistent, you should say welcome the transexuals to the female gender role, even as you abandon it. You ought to say "You're welcome, please take it!". But you are arguing both sides.
Having high profile transexuals become the paragon of the gender role? What better way could be imagined to devalue the currency?
Feminists can only ever think politically. How can I use this to further my cause? How can I oppose? How can I subvert? But never "is this reasonable?". And they tend to project political motives onto others. The transexuals are operating and responding to an established milieu, I don't see them primarily as political operatives.
So much confused thinking from Greer, her cultural constructivist supporters in the comments, as well as the sex == gender opposition.
Joe Cavanaugh
+kim b (kimb031) u didn't answer his question. it's real simple. feminists believe that gender roles are socially constructed. germaine greer believes that a transgender woman is not "a real woman". this is a contradiction, and there is no way out of it. check mate.
Joe Cavanaugh
+Aella Antiope if "womanhood" is a social construct, then why can't a transgendered person be just as authentically a woman as woman who was born a woman? after all, womanhood is nothing more than a social construct, right? there is nothing essential about it, right? gotcha!
Joe Cavanaugh
+Aella Antiope women are oppressed, and yet men commit suicide at a rate quadruple to that of women. weird.
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/robert-whitley-why-men-commit-suicide
Joe Cavanaugh
+Aella Antiope "When male decides he likes pink, and pretty floral dresses and decides that that means he's a woman, he's telling the world that being a woman is liking pink and wearing floral dresses."
this is where your argument fails. what you should have said is this:
"When male decides he likes pink, and pretty floral dresses and decides that that means he is who he wants to be, he's telling the world that being himself means liking pink and wearing floral dresses."
see how easy that was? you're just threatened because it usurps feminism....rips the carpet right out of feminism's feet, lol.
David Stewart
+Mike McK First of all, I don't think Greer represents all feminists (most feminist would regard transwomen as women). And secondly, i don't think Greer would argue that gender is a social construct. I think it's important to point those two things out, even though I don't agree with much of what Greer or other many feminists say.
jessica
+David Stewart
greer represents a strain of "second wave" feminism that is, today, considered to be rather right-wing. there are still advocates of this kind of feminism, but it's been more or less discarded in favour of "third wave" feminism, which is meant to be more "sex positive" and more "inclusive". it was around the early 90s that a backlash against "second wave" feminism set in, under the perspective that it only represented the views of upper class white women.
that said, greer would absolutely argue that gender is a social construct. that's a point of agreement we all have, here. where we disagree is primarily on concepts of agency.
i actually don't disagree with greer in a literal sense. her claim is that transwomen are not ciswomen. i think that's pretty obvious to everybody who is not wilfully blinding themselves to it. i'm not going to go to a conference and give a speech about pregnancy leave, or claim i have any right to present myself as a female voice on contraception rights. there are obvious differences. but, the thing is that nobody makes the argument that they are the same or there aren't differences, so she's really knocking down a straw man.
there's a persistent thread of gender segregation in second wave feminist literature. some of it is driven by safety concerns, and this idea that women can only be safe in cisfemale spaces. some of it is a kind of cultural feeling of female supremacy. but, it's practical.
greer is pretty clear that she actually simply doesn't care about trans people at all. what she cares about is keeping trans people out of cis spaces. and, as a trans person, i'm willing to compromise a little on the point. as mentioned, i don't think i have a right to talk about things like contraception, and i realize i have a set of life experiences that is not exactly reciprocal. i can be reasonable about this. i'd expect the same in return.
but, the contradiction pointed out in the op is legit. there was some discussion put forth in this thread that attempts to develop the point further from their perspective, but i think it's clear that it collapses pretty quickly under a set of unsupportable assumptions.