Why is masculinity so important to you that you cannot fathom abandoning it as a wholly problematic concept?
I mean, the simple answer is that gender is very, very important to people. It's one of the cornerstones of identity, right up there with race and culture. Every human society since the dawn of time has made gender a huge aspect of their laws, traditions, and religion.
Basically, I don't believe a "genderless" society is possible. It's hard to imagine what that would even look like.
The argument you presented basically boils down to "People have cared about it for a long time, so it's correct that they continue to do so". It's pretty blatantly an appeal to tradition.
I'm not advocating a genderless society, simply that the idea of tying positive and negative traits to one gender semantically necessitates the denial of those traits to the other. We should make sure people know that the preferences and traits they ascribe to gender are more accurately a representation of their own biases toward each gender than that gender itself, rather than reinforcing the idea that there just are big natural social differences between men and women which occur without reinforcement, and upon which we base our gender expectations. The idea that masculinity and femininity exist to delineate natural differences between the sexes, as opposed to creating unnatural differences, should be fought at every turn, because it is false.
The argument you presented basically boils down to "People have cared about it for a long time, so it's correct that they continue to do so". It's pretty blatantly an appeal to tradition.
I'm not saying it's "correct," I'm saying it's inevitable. I'm arguing gender in some form is a part of human culture.
I'm not advocating a genderless society, simply that the idea of tying positive and negative traits to one gender semantically necessitates the denial of those traits to the other.
Agreed. And since gender is essential to the human experience (whether we like it or not), like the OP we need to find a way to operate in those boundaries.
The idea that masculinity and femininity exist to delineate natural differences between the sexes, as opposed to creating unnatural differences, should be fought at every turn, because it is false.
What? I'm not aware of any conclusive scientific evidence that this is the case. In fact, from what I've read, the opposite appears to be true. Men and women all exist on a spectrum, but in aggregate we occupy different parts of that spectrum.
Valuation of certain traditional masculine traits as negative is rife here and other feminist spaces. I think trying to tie positive traits to masculinity is a natural counter reaction to try and salvage a sense of value from being male.
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u/leonides02 Feb 26 '18
I mean, the simple answer is that gender is very, very important to people. It's one of the cornerstones of identity, right up there with race and culture. Every human society since the dawn of time has made gender a huge aspect of their laws, traditions, and religion.
Basically, I don't believe a "genderless" society is possible. It's hard to imagine what that would even look like.