I endorse this article: 5 Ways That Science Supports Feminism – Not Gender Essentialism. It’s making the point that when you actually study the relevant sciences, you discover that they fundamentally support a more complex view of sexuality than the usual boy/girl dichotomy. Here, in brief, are the five points it makes:
1. There Are More Than Two Sexes, Not to Mention a Vast Range of Gender Identities
2. The Environment Impacts Human Development from the Very Beginning at the Cellular Level
3. Socialization Is a Powerful Force
4. When Studies Do Find Gender Differences, They Are Often Too Weak to Serve as the Basis for Generalizations
5. Gender Means Different Things in Different Cultures
One other factor that leads people to adopt gender essentialism is a kind of innumeracy — I swear, I think the only statistical measure most people understand is the mean. But statistics was developed to describe variation, in addition to taking data sets and crunching them down to a single number.
There is also deficiency of logic. If you take any diverse set, divide it in two, and calculate the mean of any given parameter for both, you’ll get…two numbers. This does not validate your initial division as appropriate. It does not mean your artificial dichotomy reveals an absolute truth about the world. It does not mean you have encapsulated the essence of your two groups in a single simple metric. In particular, it’s possible to have a mean that does not describe a single individual in your group accurately.
Can’t we just get away from the whole concept of “gender”? Why does it have to be part of one’s identity? I think it’s about as harmful as “racial identity” and both are as ridiculous as a hypothetical “hairstyle identity” would be.
Some thoughts about semantics. Words have multiple meanings. Suppose “male” is defined as “having an XY chromosome pair”. Then we could use “male” for everyone and everywhere we would otherwise use “having an XY chromosome pair”, which makes writing and conversation shorter.
The problem is that “male” doesn’t just mean “having an XY chromosome pair”. Suppose “male” also means “being good at math” then there’s a problem when someone has an XY chromosome pair and is not good at at math. Of course the problem is with essentialism but it’s easier to put the blame on the deviant.
In short: gender essentialism sucks. It expects people having XY chromosomes to also have a penis, enjoy beer and sports, feel attracted to people with XX chromosomes, et cetera. And it expects people having XX chromosome to have breasts and a vagina, enjoy tea and chat, nurse the kids and do the household. Or better: it doesn’t expect it, it demands it, and that’s where the real problem starts.
re 1:
exactly. re “hairstyle identity”: reminicent of the ’60s attempted insults at “hippies” with long hair, “U girl or boy????”
At least TARGET is heading in the correct direction, by removing the gender labels from their aisles of toys for kids.
~
How many centuries before the clothes depts lose gender labels. (like ‘girl jeans’ vs ‘jeans’)??
This. This is literally my problem with gender essentialism. You know, apart from the fact it’s actively harmful. And the mere fact that it’s an innaccurate generalisation stemming from pre-conceived notions means it’s entirely self-sustaining.
“There are men and there are women”
“Well, that’s a little simplistic, but…”
“Is not! Look, here are some statistics that prove, PROVE, that women have more accidents when attempting to park a car than men do. Because brains.”
“…what?”
“Because they’re worse at physics and spacial awareness.”
“Wait, seriously, what?”
“Here are some statistics that prove, PROVE, that there are less women physicists and less famous female sports personalities. Ergo…”
Repeat ad nauseum.
It’s begging the question, is what I’m trying to say.
@prae #1 – Sorry, won’t work. I quite happily identify myself as male. I sympathize with anybody who also identifies as male¹ and whose identity is not accepted by others. Can’t we just accept people the way they are? Methinks that is a better question.
¹ or female, or neither, or both.
I don’t think we can get rid of ideas of either race or gender, short of some sort of apocalyptic event forcing humans to change their life styles and cultures entirely.
We are where we are. Race and gender aren’t just present now, they have a huge complicated past, a past that is influencing lives of pretty much everyone. I can’t even say I hope we make skin color or gender identity about as relevant as hair color – many societies still hang on to a hell of a lot of stereotypes involving hair color. People are assholes. There is no helping us.
What we need is to work on equality for all, regardless of race, gender, nationality, age… anything and everything.
@rietpluim #6: I think getting rid of labels would be an important step in accepting people. And I myself probably wouldn’t even notice if I woke up as a woman tomorrow.
But well, I do have trouble understanding transsexuals. From what I overheard it’s really important to them to be called using specific gender-coded pronouns, having a specific gender-coded name, wear specific gender-coded clothes… why?! I would understand it perfectly well if they just would want to have a different kind of body, but those things? It makes absolutely no sense to me. Maybe someone here could explain…?
One of the major benefits of being cis is I don’t have to constantly fucking explain myself.
… I am a man!
Sorry. Can’t believe no one’s gone there yet.
prae, #8
But all those things are true of cis people too, so why single out trans people about it as if it’s something they uniquely do?
It’s really important for a lot of cis people to be called using specific gender pronouns, having gender-coded names, gender-coded clothes, etc.
Prae, if I woke up tomorrow and my body was now in possession of a penis I would be beyond horrified. I am a woman, and I strongly identify as such, even when much of my behavior is coded “masculine “. A penis would be like those face hugger aliens to me : something terrifying and awful.
That you don’t understand this is not my problem. Just accept that to some, to many, people gender is important.
@6 – The victims of labelization are not the ones empowered to get rid of labels. It’s the people who are privileged and using the labels to discriminate against others that are the ones who need to get rid of labels. Yet, they never do so. However, when the discriminated against group decides to own the label that has been assigned to them, and use it as a source of inspiration and power to negate the discrimination coming against them, that’s when the privileged start whining about how there should be no labels at all. Kinda like the the “All Lives Matter” nonsensical response to the “Black Lives Matter” slogan.
I’m cis male, and I cannot understand WHY transsexual people would want to do certain things they choose to do. But you know what? As far as I am concerned, my understanding is completely irrelevant, because the stuff they want to do is absolutely their choice and the only justification, if any, they need for it is that they want to do it. Unlike the actions of the people spewing hate against them, their actions don’t hurt anyone else.
Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought @ 7;
In the short to medium term on a civilisational timescale, I tend to agree – people like their shorthand means of identifying general groups for convenience if nothing else, and it will be extremely difficult to force them to abandon gender, race or other social identifier words and their associated concepts entirely because that aspect of our system of language is so widespread and entrenched.
Here, I hope you are wrong. The road will no doubt be long and difficult, but language and social norms have changed in the past, and I believe they can change again. I still think humanity can be more, can be better than it is – we need to have the conviction to strive to take the first small steps on a path toward change, in the full knowledge that none of us, and none of our children or perhaps even our children’s children, will ever live to see the goal realised. That the fight will be long, and that we will all fall before the opening skirmishes even come to a close, does not mean that it is unwinnable. We owe it to future generations to try.
This is the crux of it – as you say, if we can bring forth genuine and meaningful equality for all, then at least that will help take the sting out of the deficiencies of our language as it is commonly used. If we can forge a true principle of practical equality in day to day life, then the conventions of language will most likely follow, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Rowan@12: My own anecdotal data point is the opposite – if I woke up tomorrow to find my penis had been replaced by a vagina, I’d… well, I’d be concerned about the practical problems transgender people face when transitioning, like my legal identity, being acknowledged as the same person by friends, family, coworkers, etc. But horror at the personal level wouldn’t be one of them.
However, all that means is that you and I have different levels of emotional attachment to a particular gender – you identify strongly as a particular gender, I don’t. You’re certainly not wrong, any more than a trans person is wrong to strongly identify as a particular gender (which, in their case, doesn’t happen to match their external anatomy).
Incidentally, I’m also quite aware that I still count as cisgender as far as privilege is concerned – I’m comfortable with publicly identifying as the gender that matches my anatomy, so I don’t have to face any of the problems trans* people face.
prae @8:
No offense, but how hard have you tried?
Seriously, there is a wealth of information on the internet about this. Have you tried digging any up on your own?
Despite what they may say, most people can only intellectually handle tjhree proportions: 0, 50%, and 100%. This is why you see so many retorts to a general problem, say discrimination against blacks, that reference a single contrary data point (say Obama’s presidency). Since they’ve now proved the likelihood of black success is not zero, it must be 50/50, just like everyone else.
To the people engaging in the “what if I woke up with a penis/vagina” thought experiment, you are reducing the whole of gender to a single anatomical part. It just doesn’t work that way. For example, if as a man you suddenly had a vagina, and that would be the only thing that changed, how does that turn you into a woman? Hint: it doesn’t. You are still the same person, with the same personality, and the same gender identity. Sure, you might or might not feel discomfort with the situation, and you might or might not want to take steps to remedy it, but in the end you’re a man if you’re a man, regardless of anatomy.
You’re being way too kind. Hardly any could define it, and most couldn’t distinguish it from the mode or median if pressed.
@Dauphni #18 – Interesting thought experiment though. If I suddenly had a vagina, it wouldn’t turn me into a woman, but it would turn me into a trans person. I wonder how that would influence my identity.
Dauphni, you are right and I apologize. I was attempting to engage a particular point and failed to realize the implications, and that was wrong of me.
rietpluim @ 20:
There’s a whole lot of missing the point going on in the thread. Early on, importance is placed on genitals, and if I were emperor, this one thing I’d get rid of – the instant association of gender with genitals. Gender is in the brain. If you can’t understand that, you’re not going to successfully understand much at all.
I am not so sure that it is innumeracy that is the problem as it is a fear of and a reluctance to actually think. It is just too much effort and too risky. The fear of doing it wrong and ending up on the “wrong side” of an issue and being vulnerable.
In this issue in particular there is also the realization of the personal abuse and sexual abuse are not a rare thing but is something that is usually kept secret. It is twisted at the root all the way down.
to have all the equality issues resolved favorably will take time how long is the question and probably depends on the level of civilization and its interaction continuing at this level at least. As we see it is starting in some smaller subsets of the population first and by accepting these changes in understanding and what they imply we can foster the spread of these ideas and attitudes.
And that is not a small feet.
uncle frogy
@1:
Doesn’t seem likely. We care about the gender of our (neutered!) pets.
Assuming you’re genuinely coming from the same place I was, and not just “never thought about it before, what’s the big deal?!”…
Not everyone experiences gender the way you do. Even people who have ever, in their lives, given a single critical thought to societal gender messages. “Degree of gender identification” is another trait that varies among people at what appears to be a deep neurochemical level. It’s as important* for people who have a weak sense of gender identification (or “attachment” per mithrandir’s rendering) to understand this and not try to project their own feelings onto others as it is for people who have a strong sense of attachment.
*to a first approximation.
I’ve had responses like prae’s, before I educated myself. It was the part where trans people had clearly actually thought about gender messages, rather than unquestioningly accepting the societal messages as I assumed cis people with a strong gender attachment had, yet (apparently) embraced a slight varient of gender essentialism*, just decoupled from physical anatomy, that baffled me.
*that is, the idea of “maleness” or “femaleness” as A) coherent and B) a “package deal” C) whose content, for the most part, was consistent with The Societal Messages.
@Caine #22 – I think that is exactly the point of this experiment. Dauphni already argued that gender is not defined by genitals. Many people think it is. Asking them “if you woke up tomorrow…” may help them see differently.
@Caine #22 – For clarity: I wholeheartedly agree with you, I just think the thought experiment is interesting nonetheless.
Neural beings are we, not this crude genital matter.
come on. I have no problem with the vast majority of that article (though I could quibble). Certainly no problem with the conclusion that “The way we treat people based on their gender is a stronger force in the perpetuation of sexism than evolution. Let’s not contribute to it. ”
But come on. This:
is true enough of “gender expression”, but to say that it means that “There Are More Than Two Sexes” is just stupid, if the concept of biological sex has any meaning at all (as, it is universally acknowledged for all sexually reproducing organisms except by some sometimes for humans, it does).
There are two (2) functional biological sexes in mammals (as in almost all other sexually reproducing organisms). There are rare-to-rarish individuals that are difficult to categorize phenotypically, and rarer individuals that simply cannot be categorized into either sex, but these people do not constitute third or fifth or whatever sexes. There are still just the two that can (and must) function together in reproduction,, and then people who don’t fit into either. The distribution of biological sex is not a smooth spectrum at all; it’s massively and overwhelmingly bimodal. I’m not talking about ‘gender’ in any of its meanings. The author conflates the concepts.
So some unfortunately ideology-over-reality hyperbole there imo.
@18: To the extent that my discussion of the “anatomy change” thought experiment might have reinforced the societal tendency to reduce gender to anatomy, I apologize for that. I’d also like to apologize for any other errors I have made in that post that I lack the understanding to articulate.
I guess the thing I most wanted to do with that post was to emphasize that one should not tell other people how they should define gender for themselves, what aspects of themselves (anatomical, psychological, social) they consider important to their gender, or how important their gender identification should be to them.
Also: that one of the many cis privileges is that we cis people don’t usually have to think about how we define our own gender or how strongly we identify with our gender, much less how other people define it for us.
If I suddenly had a vagina, it wouldn’t turn me into a woman, but it would turn me into a hermit.
So what is it?
The tension between those two blockquoted statements deserves honest exploration.
Hm, basically what I’m meaning is: there is no f*cking way there is some gene which makes you to want to wear dresses or being called Carl instead of Charlene, so why does it matter?
Hypothesis: a mechanism which didivdes people into “male” and “female” has to be present in the human brain, otherwise monosexual orientations wouldn’t work. So, could there be some kind of a “role model orientation”, which forces you to aquire behavioural (and other) patterns from a specific gender from your social group? Could I be on to something with that?
Shorter Prae? : “I don’t get find it important, so it’s stupid that you do.”
Per your hypothesis, no, because those behavioural patterns are explicitly taught and enforced based upon genitalia. When I was in grade school, I wanted to do the things that boys did. I did not display any of the stereotypical behaviours that girls are trained to exhibit, because my parents actively encouraged me to do whatever activities that I *wanted* to do. I wasn’t told “no, you can’t play in the creek you’ll get your dress dirty.” I wasn’t told “no, you can’t climb the tree.” I wasn’t told “no, frogs are icky.” At least, I wasn’t told those things by my *parents*. And I have enough of a native stubborn streak that when teachers tried to have me sit quietly and do ‘girl things’ that I absolutely refused. I was told I was acting like a boy, as if that was a bad trait for a girl to be having.
So… no. Your hypothesis is point blank incorrect.
All hate Tpyos, go get that get, oh greatest of dogs!
@18 Dauphni
I don’t think a vagina/penis would do much either. Functional ovaries or testes though would likely be a different matter.
chris61, you might want to think about the implications of that answer – plenty of people don’t have functional ovaries or testes yet we don’t deny them recognition of their gender. For the most part, I would have absolutely no idea if an adult of young to middle age I meet is fertile or infertile, without knowing much more about a personal history.
@37 IMPERATOR XANTHIOSA
I wasn’t thinking of fertility but of the effect of hormones produced by functional ovaries and testes. Not that hormones define gender but that the sudden presence of unfamiliar hormones would likely have an effect, both physical and possibly mental.
prae @33:
Clearly it does matter to some people. Now go find out why. It seems like you’re expecting people to spoonfeed you rather than doing a bit of work on your own.
@prae
I don’t think this gender stuff is very much different from people’s other identities/personalities and preferences. If you understand preferences in general, and if you understand identity/personality in general, then this is just another subset of all of that.
I have a preference for certain colors. You could ask “why” and be really confused about it, but sometimes it’s difficult to find much of an answer. Sometimes the preference is just there. And even if there is an explanation we could discover or describe, that explanation is really much less important and doesn’t really change much. The preference is still there.
@Tony!
Or we could use the comment section right here to discuss questions that people have.
I mean, people should research things on their own, but sometimes asking questions is part of that.
@8 prae
I have no idea how getting rid of labels would help. Getting rid of bad labels such as slurs, yes of course.
But know this: many people who find labels for themselves are very happy, it is very useful for them. Labels are often good for oppressed groups. And they had to deal with problems even before they had a label.
Notice that trans people are not he only ones who wear gender coded clothes. And many non trans people change their names also, and they too usually choose names that conform to gender categories. As for the pronoun thing, plenty of people are uncomfortable with being referred to with the wrong pronouns, but trans people may be even more uncomfortable due to the fact that there is a good chance the error is not innocent, the error could be driven by bigotry.
So I don’t think it makes any sense for you to suddenly be confused about these ordinary every day things when it is trans people doing them. If you understand ordinary people, you understand trans people. You shouldn’t need to single out trans people as the ones you don’t understand. You either understand all people who do these things or no people who do these things.
I would like to call attention to the fact that prae was offered several answers to the question they asked, and in response they simply restated the question.
Gender essentialism is not the opposite of feminism. While it is true that all anti-feminists (to my knowledge) are gender essentialists, it’s also true that some feminists are gender essentialists.
There’s an interesting paper by Prof. Alison Stone that examines the philosophical and political implications of essentialism in feminism (PDF alert).
chrislawson @44,
Considering recent arguments on this very blog, I don’t think many people here are unaware of the existence of gender-essentialist feminists.
@Azkyroth #43: yeah, that would be great, it is kinda confusing the way it is. Also, I didn’t quite consider any of the replies to be an actual answer, so I assumed I phrased it wrong. But I guess I should address the points that were made there:
@Saad #11 + @Brian Pansky #42: Well, I as a (mostly?) cis male personally only consider that important for social acceptance. Aka, my choices in clothing are only limited to male-gendercoded, because I don’t want to be ostracised for wearing a dress or something. My name is quite unisex already, and I think being called “she” would be only a matter of getting used to. Apparently I actually used to address myself as female when I just started talking, because I had much more contact with my mother than my father. So what I’m trying to say: for me, these gender-coded things are 100% about what other people think, this gender-coding exists in THEIR heads, not so much in mine, and I (usually) conform to it because it’s their world, and I have to somehow coexist with them. For example, I definitely would wear skirts in summer if I could get away with it, simply because it’s f*cking hot in pants and (from my limited experience with kilts) they are really comfortable.
@Rowan #12, 34: well, I WANT to understand it, that’s the whole point for me. Regarding your example and my hypothesis, I could propose something similar to the Kinsey scale, in that you are not 100% fixed to a gender from which you aquire your behaviour. But ok, I admit I haven’t thought about tomboys and similar people at the point I wrote that. And where did I call you stupid? I am sorry if I sounded like that, but please do not jump to conclusions, some people are not mean, just socially inept.
@Tony #16: what I found was mostly explaining the differences between sex, gender and sexual orientation. What I’m interested in is how gender actually works, why it has such an impact on humans, where the connection between innate brain functions and cultural role expectation is, these things.
@Brian Pansky #40: Hm, now that you point it out, I do have trouble understanding other sources of identity, too. Identifying yourself with your country seems just as weird to me as doing it with your gender, now that I think of it… And for color preferences: I talked to a transgender person a long time ago, and while she wasn’t able to explain the why to me, she told me that being assigned the wrong gender can lead to serious depression and similar mental problems. So, it seems to be WAY more serious than just some preference.
I’m probably wrong here, but here are my thoughts; I’m happy to hear argument.
There is a lot of debate here concerning physical gender differences (i.e. sex) versus psychological gender (is there a better term for this? Calling it psychological sounds minimizing).
Many people here seem to argue that it would be better if gender roles were completely dissolved, and the concept of gender somewhat extinguished. However, the effect on ones’ life from being one gender or another is primarily, in our society, determined by gender roles (isn’t it? Maybe I’m not using the term “gender roles” correctly here). If the the concept of “gender” implied no differences in behavior, outlook, and psychology, then how could we justify a trans person’s realization that they’re female instead of male? Of course a female doesn’t suddenly realize she has a penis; instead, she realizes that she, emotionally and psychologically, identifies with all of the traits that we ascribe to “being male.” And so we call this person “he” and accept that he is a man.
I guess my question is this: what does it mean to “be male” or “be female” (or “be other”) if we are not discussing the physical traits that make up the genders, regardless of whether these traits are dichotomous or continuous? Doesn’t this require defining malefemale characteristics which are necessarily different at different ends of the spectrum? If so, then what are these characteristics, and does having them promote sexism in any way?
I like the graphic at the top.
Where did it come from?
#48 @chigua:
I tracked it down to here: LGBT! In my spare time I made a little graphic the community is free to use!
Thanks, Marshall.
Miri has a good post up about labels and identity: Sexual Identity Labels Are Maps, Not Territory
@prae
Ah, well people generally don’t bother with those deep details, they just get enough of a grip to be able to handle it all in day to day life. So you’ll probably have to consult some serious literature to get into that. I suspect lots of that isn’t even presently known.
Similar questions could be posed for why children grow up to want to do a certain career and get pissed off when their parents want them to do a different career. It’s just the way we are and I don’t really know why.
*especially when the parents are pressuring them to do a different career, or making it into a big conflict.
1. Words are not things. They are sound images that represent mental concepts which inadequately represent things.
2. Thought experiments a la ” if this very extreme but totally impossible thing happened to me I wouldn’t mind, therefore i dismiss your lived experience ” don’t make you look smart, or intellectual, or inquiring. They make you look ignorant and uncaring at best and assholish at worst.
3. Humans are a species that shapes its own reality. Gender is real because it is given great importance. That doesn’t mean it has to have importance forever and all times, but here and now it does.
People who most vocally represent the trans community seem to be making gender essentialism a cornerstone of their position. I see the political necessity of this, but it won’t be sustainable in the long run.
So what if we find one person in the world who really did change from male to female, even on the inside, even by choice? Does that make being trans that person’s “fault”? Hell no, it’s none of our effing business, he/she still deserves the same rights and respect as everyone else.
The gay community has been hounded into a similar position that one is either born gay or born straight. The subtext is that if you can’t choose then being gay isn’t your “fault”. This not only denies human fluidity but also concedes to the bad guys that gay is somehow a flaw. It’s an interesting question but it should only be an academic one.
And all that without the complexity of 21’st century relationships. I”m not gay, but my boyfriend is.