NEWS: Don't Forget: You're a Symbol.

Look.

See on the previous page where I tried enquiring about what these limitations were and where they came from? And, mostly, in response, I was given glib anecdotalising and hypothesising. ("Try wearing a sundress in public!" kind of stuff.)

The problem with that is it identifies aspects of conformity within sex-and-gender. But it doesn't explain where gender roles come from, why we have the ones we have, and their social function (including social dysfunction, to the extent they limit and suppress us).

The implied explanation tends to be that "society imposes gender roles on us that restrict our self-actualisation" or some such, as if all we needed to do is "change society" and then we''d find freeeeeeeeedom! For men, that seems to mean to be able to wear dresses and cry more, I suppose.

What you're offering in turn is an individualistic explanation, that men on average are biologically "like this" and women on average "like that", and our gender roles come from being "built differently".

OK.

Now, see, what nothers me here is not the emphasis on biology. I happen to believe that we need to understand evolution and genes and biology and hormones to understand how we work, and to help us get to grips with stylised gender differences.

But.

It's silly to say men CAN'T defy gender roles. I mean, seriously, not that I'm big on the wearing of dresses, but if I wanted to, and if I felt like I shouldn't, it's not because I physically can't.

There's definitely something social about how gender roles play out. We enforce these things in the form of social norms and expectations, with which we are expected to conform.

My problem with what I think is Bitch_PhD's conception of this is that she seems to take it (as many feminists do) as being wholly social in origin -- that is, society, in the form of the big bad Patriarchy, defines oppressive gender roles which, by definition, oppress us.

You, on the other hand, at least based on your loose discussion above, are looking at it from a very individualistic perspective, asking "what does science tell us?"

What I'm interested in is the nexus between what happens at the individual level and what happens at the social. It's just not enough to focus on one or the other. But, y'know, it's actualy really hard to get a sensible dialogue going on this sort of thing.

Feminists are too busy "blaming the patriarchy", that kind of thing.

Actually, this is a ridiculous statement.

To some women, this softcore alt.porn site is an intrinsic part of the patriarchal web of oppression. By definition, no correspondence to be entered into.

To other women, it's self-expression, it's a fun place to play, and sometimes it can be positively empowering and affirming to be part of this.

Women can disagree mightily on what they believe the enemy to be.

You misunderstand my position. In fact, we are almost in total agreement.

I didn't intend to come off as viewing things as being wholly individualistic. I understand that there is also a social aspect to it. I was merely mentioning the individualistic aspect as it seems to be totally ignored by some members such as Bitch_PhD, and I think it is important to stress it.

And my statement of physically/physiologically not being able to defy certain gender roles has nothing to do with wearing dresses.

It transcends to a much more complex level than such simple things such as wearing a dress or listening to a certain kind of music... it encompasses absolutely EVERYTHING that society considers being a man or being a woman whether it means being or not being able to give birth, being able to sustain an erection, being a suductress, being seduced, being sensitive, being insensitive, being supportive, or being competitive. No single man can defy EVERY single one of these things that identifies a man as a man and adopt all the things that identifies a woman as a woman. If he does, he is no longer a man, but a woman. Truly.

It comes back to some of the simplest philosophy in the world.

If all mice squeak, have white bodies and have tails, is a mouse without a tail still a mouse?
What about a mouse with a brown body and without a tail?
What about a mouse that meows, is brown and has no tail?

The fact is we must either accept that the term "mouse" applies only to white mouse-like creatures that squeak and have tails.

OR we accept that the definition of what a mouse is, is inseperable from the existence of mouse itself. That is to say, it is self-defining.

The first option is close-minded, and would require that there be more recognized genders than just "man" and "woman". We would require millions, -billions even- of intermediary genders as very few people fit perfectly into the definition of what a "man" or "woman" is.

Therefore society adopted the second ideology. THEREFORE, to define what identifies a man as a man, they had to look at men, and find some recurring traits.

The first is XY sex chromosomes, though even to this there are exceptions (Down's syndrome, genetic abnormalities, etc)

A penis (once again, there are exceptions)

As we progress down the list, there are more and more exceptions. Not all men are strong. Not all men are logical. Not all men like football.


In the end, it becomes very hard to seperate the individual level and the social level, because in the beginning the two were the same.

Over the years of course, the "social" level has diverged from the "individual" level. This is the result of social changes in views on the two genders because of religious doctrines, political ideologies and the like.


Likewise, the "individual" definition has changed over the years too. There's scientific evidence that women's body have adapted to be expressive and more emotional over the millenia. Why? Because men were too thick-skulled to understand the fact that a woman was sad unless she could show it physically. Thus women evolved the ability to cry.

In the end, the "social" definition of what it means to be a man or a woman is abstract. It exist only in the common thought. It is the result of the feminist movement. it is the result of pop-culture and media's portrayal of the two genders. It is the result of religious teachings. It is an alteration made on the physical man and the physical woman. It is seen as a way of improving upon what we have and what we are. Many see it as a goal to aspire to in the future.

The "individual" definition is more concrete. Is is based on things that exist in the physical world as physical entities. It is based on evidence, on observed events and on the established past.

Since some people will go with the social definition and some will go with the individual definition, and some will go with a mix of the two, we end up defining men and women in a matter of averages between the two definitions.

In my mind, the true definition lies somewhere in between the two. Stuck somewhere between the social definition and the individual definition, stuck somewhere between the future and in the past, the true definition is here in the present.

However, the present is ever changing, and therefore, the debate of what it is to be a man or to be a woman will never be settled. The definition, as I already said, is self-defining. And CONSTANTLY so. That is to say, it is constantly REdefining itself in the collective human consciousness.. And there's not a shit we can do about it.

Agreeeeeeed.