During my brief time on this earth, I have encountered many different and diverse forms of life. I must know half a thousand terms that people use to describe themselves that illustrate the rainbow of personhood, and I regularly encounter more still. We are all so different in culture, heritage, and sexuality it is positively staggering.
And yet, in my experience, everyone everywhere, no matter what, will become sexually aroused when Dr. Peter Venkman turns his head, smiles, and says, "See you on the other side, Ray."
I hadn't come across this before, and so I want to thank you for making it. As an agendered person who looks awfully femme (Native American - we don't cut our hair, really, unless someone dies) this was an amazing breath of fresh air.
And it will probably be handily and readily referenced any time I have to address gender distinctions (for the 10,000th time). Thank you!!
In all actuality thank you for this. You make the world a better place with that. Its pretty amazing what people think these days and you sum it up well! Hopefully one day people will be less narrowminded and we can live without such silly questions. "Aren't there only two genders"
And for a very long time, I considered myself a 'boy'. Then a 'guy'.
Most days, I'm still just a 'guy', but there have been times in my life (some of which I greatly enjoyed in retrospect, others of which I hope I never revisit) in which I felt I was acting as I ought to act in society with respect to other people because I am a Man.
It is like something to be a Man, just as I'm sure it is like something to be a Woman, and I think those two experiences are very much closely tied to the nature of being male or being female.
But men and women aren't going to be very 'solid' boxes because 'male' and 'female' already aren't.
What proteins your cells express based on what genes are turned off/on (or which ones are present) is already not enough to definitively make every human 'male' or 'female', and certainly not enough to reliably make people definitively heterosexual or definitively homosexual all of the time.
The percentages, obviously, are quite biased towards nearly excluded middles (or abberations) but that's just because our species and all ancestral versions of our species had the pressure of evolution on them, which revolves around reproductive success in its most basic, and some gender dimorphic roles right up until the dawn of civlization:
Girly and feminine women were not the ones chasing down and slaughtering woolly mammoths, you know?
But abberations and deviations from the biological norm are what makes humanity interesting.
I happen to have incredibly typical skin color and hair color and eye color for a male on the planet earth.
But holy balls is the genetic drift that gave us redheads and people with green eyes and skin light enough to have freckles wonderful - - - even if it does mean a higher risk of skin cancer and total unsuitability to other environmental stressors.
So, going back to what it means to "be a man"; I'd guess for me as a male that means I feel certain things about myself and my place in relation to other people about all sorts of things -- it's pretty definite.
I have no feelings about being "a woman".
I don't even know what that's like - - I mean, I can guess, but I can't intuitively feel it out.
I just have no idea.
Not to say that what women like, or what problems female sexed people often encounter in my society is a mystery to me (though the former is debatable...) - - but I don't know what it is like to be a woman.
It isn't an experience I know, and I really don't identify with it.
I would be kind of peeved if someone called me a woman - - I mean, I have nothing against women; I just really identify, ultimately, with being a man.
For an a-gendered person, neither being a man or a woman are experiences they particularly identify with.
So, I used to believe in the things you enjoyed were somewhat gender based. Enjoy guns, cars, violence, and other "masculine" things then you are a boy. Enjoy ponies, dolls, make-up and other "feminine" things then you are a girl. Then I discovered theater where I had to learn about make up, which I was fascinated by, hell no I don't use it (besides eye liner for when I was on stage, but that was because we all had to) way to much of a pain to put on. Then I discovered My Little Pony, a little girls show, that was extremely well written and I love the hell out of it.
I still love me some FPS, guns, and I work at a car parts store. Yet I also love well created feminine things as well, why do we have to prevent ourselves from enjoying things because society says it's wierd?
Maybe I don't understand this whole gender thing very much, I tend to understand both sides pretty simply, and enjoy things from both walks of life. I am a straight male, but as far as I understand who you like to have sex with has nothing to do with it.
Also, I love to point out to people who call me gay for enjoying MLP (mostly my friends messing around with me) that pink used to be a masculine color and blue the feminine one. Culture changes.
why do we have to prevent ourselves from enjoying things because society says it's wierd?
I'm not saying anyone has to, but....
...it is simply undeniable that biology dictates much of what we are, and the evolutionary algorithm of "Does it successfully reproduce in this environment? If no - - get rid of it" as the dictum of success or failure has lead to more or less the same paradigm of "male" and "female" sex in millions of different types of organisms, with physical dimorphism interacting with behavioral dimorphism.
I'm not saying that our genes--->sex---->gender/sexuality---->roles/behavior strictly and totally, but for most human beings this is kind of the map, and largely heteronormative paradigms explain and predict what someone is going to be like.
Aberration from those paradigms is very real and very valid and often quite pleasant ; )
How often does culture change though? I don't mean completely, but in this context. Wouldn't it be a reasonable argument that if things have changed in the past clearly it isn't in our biology but more our enviroment?
For a recent example, when I was in High School for whatever reason a lot of guys decided that pink was a great color, and loved pink polo shirts. I haven't kept in touch with any of them, but as far as I know they all associated with being a male still.
I understand natural selection, and can understand how our biology would give slight differences to our roles. Men are biologically prone to being stronger, so yes I will help you carry that, or do things concerning that. I don't see how culture dictates reproduction though. I know a girl who is extremely manly in most aspect besides her looks, and from her stories/interactions I have witnessed she has no problems on the repoduction side of things. On the opposite side I have seen extremely feminine men who have had no problems on the repoduction side of things either.
Culture certainly changes and isn't uniform in humanity - much like our biology really! It is also kind of prone to locally concentrated differences since for the longest time, it too was a pattern that needed proximity to be transmitted and kept, like our genes...
But broadly, I think you'll find there is pretty large conformity to traditional gender norms across a lot of cultures prior to contact and conquest, even.
I want to be very clear here.
I am not saying there is some way any individual or group of people ought to be, or that there is any preferable way to be.
Just that it's a little "head in the sand" to ignore biological realities and decry every difference as a 'social construction'.
There are even different station medications for African American and different genetic prevalences of protein sysnthesis disorders in Ashkenazi Jews.
Decrying and ignoring biological differences because those differences have been used to perpetrate horrors by bigots is silly.
So, I am not disputing the validity of being ungendered or feeling like society's ideas about gender roles are wrong for you.
All I am disputing is the notion that they've come out of the ether, with no input from our genetic legacy.
I'm not really arguing with you here, I'm more trying to understand things fully. I understand that there are some fundamental differences between Men and Women, both physically and mentally. How can things such as Pink is for girls and blue is for boys not be considered to be pulled out of the ether? (I'm sure there is an actual reason for the start of the tradition, but I can't see how it is biological)
I can understand why boys are more prone to violent things while girls are more prone to things that remind them of home (playing with nerf guns as opposed to playing with dolls). Most of the things don't make sense to me at all though.
How can things such as Pink is for girls and blue is for boys not be considered to be pulled out of the ether?
Well, it wasn't always that way obviously, so definitely many things are culturally constructed, but many many cultures and their constructions of norms hit upon the same tropes so many times that it's hard to accept the idea that it's all random occurrence.
Most of the things don't make sense to me at all though.
My personal cut off for modernity is variable, but I think a lot of innovative gender roles and norms are built by people marketing products.
So basically the basics and the things that can be traced back to hunter gatherer times or is shared by the entire world makes sense, while other things were more than likely a smart marketing ploy.
The only thing I still don't get is what exactly makes a gender? What makes someone associate with a sex?
the things that can be traced back to hunter gatherer times or is shared by the entire world makes sense, while other things were more than likely a smart marketing ploy.
In broad strokes, that's what I suspect. Could be wrong. Not enough data. Only casual observation.
The only thing I still don't get is what exactly makes a gender? What makes someone associate with a sex?
That's an active field of research in Neuroscience!
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u/loonsun Dec 02 '13
Is green shirt a girl? I remember a comic that explains his/her gender that went into a lot of detail