Both: How do you feel about this interpretation of gender?

submitted by BrNated from self.GCdebatesQT

I found an interesting take on gender in a GCdebatesQT discord several days ago, and I'm curious about how other people feel about it.

So bottomline, what the person said was that sex == gender (not biologically, but socially) and thus that there are only two genders.

Basically you are perceived by society to be one of two sexes, male or female. Depending on this and your behavior/appearance/etc, you are grouped by society into subcategories of either the male or female gender.

For example, if you're a male who wears dresses and uses make-up, you're not female-gender at all. Just another subcategory of the male gender.

They also made the argument that historical "third-genders" in other cultures are typically just more subcategories of the male gender (aka men who are castrated, homosexual men, men "who dress/act like women," or simply men that deviate from the stereotypical male norm).

I think it's an intriguing take on sex relation to gender boogaloo. What do you all think?

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[–]SnowAssMan 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Masculinity has never been as narrowly defined as femininity, that's why there are way more female non-binary people than male ones, because you're already kind of non-binary if you're male. You can be analytical, artsy, a leader, a follower, brainy, brauny, & none of it ever compromises your gender identity as a man. The trouble comes when someone male conforms to femininity in some way. That's so taboo it's easier for society to view them as literal women than it is to accept them the way they are. Everything seems to be "masculine", or neutral if practised by men, except for a few things that are feminine.

I'd argue that it's not actually a masculinity vs. femininity issue, but rather a norm vs. other one. In which case there is only 1 gender: femininity. Our society values size, power, strength, competition, hierarchy etc. just because the cultural other is excluded from this & associated with things society doesn't value doesn't make everything society values "masculine".

So in a way, yes, all these other genders including completely neutral ones that aren't genders, like agender are just "masculinity" (if that's what you mean by "male gender").

I think saying "masculinity & femininity" or equivalent, is confusing, because it sounds like 50/50. Norm vs. other has much more clarity. Regarding gender, "masculine" should be replaced by normative, while understanding that 'feminine' is just the gendered word for other. Other is deviance from the norm.

To be a woman is to be other. Female is an othered sex, where male is considered the default, & femininity is the othered gender. When you combine both of these others: female & femininity, you get a normative woman, or a normative other. If a woman does not conform to femininity then she is an othered woman, or an othered other.

So if the normative other tries to behave like the normative norm (man), instead of becoming more normative she becomes more othered for deviating from the norms of her other class.

[–]terfy_delight 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is a great interpretation and I agree! Society sees men as people, and women as not men.

If a woman does not conform to femininity then she is an othered woman, or an othered other.

I've experienced this and I've described it as a being a wrong woman. But there's no place for women like me in "man" or "masculine." It also explains why society is more focused on making feminine males into women (bc they're just "not men"). Women who aren't feminine don't have a place at all, bc we're never going to be considered men. It explains the difference in how TW and TM are seen and treated. TW are being forced into the woman category and TM are an afterthought that nobody seriously believes are men.

[–]BrNated[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Thank you for your reply. This is an interpretation I've never heard put this way before - I'll have to look more into it.

This kind of reminds me of like the Roman interpretation of gender where it's thought there is the "normative male" gender and then everything else beneath it where women are typically forced to the bottom.

[–]SnowAssMan 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I believe Simone de Beauvoir made the observation before I did. In her work she said that man represents what our culture regards as neutral & positive while women represent what our culture regards as negative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy)

I'd heard a lot about binaries & how they are always mysteriously hierarchical, but this didn't satisfy me, so I went in search of an explanation that made more sense to me, until I found the norm vs. other thing. It's related to 'marked vs. unmarked' too.

Man was just a word for all humans, but 'woman' came about as possibly the earliest example of a phenomenon known as: language feminisation.

You can see language feminisation happen in real time. If a mixed group of people are referred to using one label, someone will inevitably create a second label for the women. If the label is "leaders" for instance, someone will invariably say "leaders & leadettes" or something equally ludicrous. If this catches on no one will be able to say 'leader' without immediately following it up with "...& leadettes" or else be considered non-inclusive.

'Woman' is essentially a euphemism, or formal slur. It's also distancing language (which is the first step to dehumanising language), I'd even argue that it matches the definition of what Anita Sarkeesian calls a 'feminising gender indicator'.

'Man', by contrast, is used similarly to 'normal' – almost never, except in order to further distinguish 'woman' from the norm. 'Woman' is pretty much just a synonym for 'abnormal', just as all the negative halves of every "binary" (which aren't truly binaries, just as 'normal vs. abnormal' isn't a true binary, or truly hierarchical): dark, night, black, wet – their opposites just refer to a lack, the default, & therefore can't be as easily defined.

Give someone or something a name & a definition & it becomes easy to other, which is why I try avoiding using the word 'feminist' as a noun. It's important to label patriarchists/conformists/misogynsts & not label feminists, so that people feel abnormal/othered for being conformists to ideologies like traditionalism/patriarchy/andorcentrism.

I suspect it was an anti-feminist who coined 'feminist' as a noun, just as it was an anti-feminist who described feminism as an ideology even though it isn't one, androcentrism is an ideology, feminism is a counterculture. Unfortunately feminist as a noun & feminism as an ideology have caught on, even among feminist women. I think it's harder for women to notice the othering quality of being labelled. "Cis, straight, white men" hate being referred to that way, because all their iives they have viewed themselves & have been viewed by society as individuals, making them hyper-sensitive to the othering qualities that labels endow.

Anyway, this comment is too long.

[–]Spikygrasspod 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Huh. I never heard that feminism was coined by an anti-feminist. That's interesting.

[–]SnowAssMan 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I only suspect as much. In any case, not 'feminism', but 'feminist' as a noun/label to describe a person (as opposed to the adjective 'feminist'). It's the labelling of people we have to be wary of. Back in the day feminism was referred to as Women's Lib. "Women's Libbers" quickly became a disparaging way of referring to any woman who wasn't behaving the way a man wanted her to.

I'm much more sure about the fact that is was anti-feminists who perpetuated the false notion that feminism is an ideology, thereby shifting the focus from the ideology that feminism attempts to analyse & dismantle. Ideologies are specific recipes for how life ought to be lead, like heteronormativity or natalism. Feminism is just critical of these & doesn't offer counter-ideologies in their place. Feminism, like any counter-culture is about freedom from ideology. But this has been twisted in the general discourse & even feminist women repeat it, not realising the implications of what they are saying.

(when I say ideology, I am referring to the Marxist definition (Weltanschauung), synonyms of which include: Engels' false consciousness, Plato's noble lie, Gramsci's cultural hegemony, Orwell's orthodoxy of ideas, Chomsky's manufactured consent, Bernay's propaganda, Schlüssler Florenza's kyriarchy & the social science's socialisation or culture, basically: the status quo).

[–]BrNated[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don’t think your comment is too long - I’ve always thought that gendered words like that were just characteristic of a lot of languages (I.e. language gender such as in German). This is a new perspective I’d like to look into. Thank you for introducing me to it.

[–]Spikygrasspod 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That sounds like gender-as-social-class, AKA sex role, sex caste. That's one definition, and it's useful for critiquing inequalities based on our sex class, which is almost always the same as our sex (but not always, because you can still be socially positioned as 'woman' if you are 'presumed' female due to your appearance). Philosopher Sally Haslanger thought 'women' should be defined in this way; people placed in a subordinate social position due to being actually or presumed female. It was meant to help delineate the class of people with whom feminism should be concerned. I think it was a bad idea to try to redefine woman for political purposes, but the concept of gender-as-class is an important tool for feminist analysis.

[–]DistantGlimmer 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's interesting. GNC people will be seen as being closer to the other sex's gender. Particalarly by people who do not like other people being GNC. Personally I think gender is a spectrum of expression but that doesn't seem too far off from this view. "male and female gender" though is a nightmare of a term for it if you're arguing with a TRA who actually believes people can change sex based on presentation and secondary characteristics.

[–]catoborosnonbinary 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, it is exhausting dealing with these TRAs because we do not share a common view of reality.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

That description makes sense to me. I feel like there has to be some way to describe what it’s like to be seen as a female or male, even in circumstances where you might not actually be that.

[–]BrNated[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I've seen the phrase "sex class/caste" be used to describe which sex society perceives you as as opposed to biological sex (e.g. a case where a person has XY chromosomes but also CAIS and is thus raised as a female - even though some would debate whether that person is a biological intersex male or intersex female, they'd still be treated as a female in society, typically).

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I've seen the phrase "sex class/caste" be used to describe which sex society perceives you as as opposed to biological sex

Do you feel like this also includes trans people who are seen as the opposite biological sex? I’m not sure how many trans people actually pass like that and it’s difficult to know. I just feel like GC would flip if any trans women were included in a term like that. It wouldn’t apply to things like fear of pregnancy for example because some things only matter because of your biological sex.

[–]BrNated[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If a trans person was sufficiently passing enough, then they'd technically be of the sex class of the opposite biological sex I guess (just not actually that biological sex). Which means you have the strange situation where you could call them a passing trans woman a woman based on sex class instead of sex which I think at least some GC people would have an issue with...

I'm personally lean a bit more on basing terms like man, woman, etc on biology rather than something like sex class though I wouldn't be completely against the latter. But as you said, a decent portion of GC people would have an issue because regardless of the label, trans women for example still don't have to fear pregnancy, needing an abortion, etc and thus don't have the complete "lived experience" which I find understandable.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm personally lean a bit more on basing terms like man, woman, etc on biology rather than something like sex class

Me too! I feel like there isn’t any reason actually passing trans people would need the words to change because it doesn’t affect us. Women and passing transsexual women have the same interests. It hurts that trans rights activism is pushing to change words like woman in ways the harm everyone’s ability to advocate for those interests.

[–]Porcelain_QuetzalTabby without Ears 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's basically the gender is based in perception point most transmeds including me make when talking about the concept.

[–]theblackfleet 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think it adds another layer of complexity that isn't necessary.

[–]catoborosnonbinary 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think this focusses on gender expression, rather than gender identity which in my view defines trans (GNC cis people are not trans). I think there are two components, feminine and masculine, of gender identity and gender expression, but these can be different, and an individual can have some combination of components for each.

I mostly agree with Genderbread Person v4.0 Poster. However, I think that sex is binary and immutable; some trans people change sex characteristics, but not sex. Genderbread lumps these together.

[–]valleyoftherogue 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"Gender" is sex roles and sex-role stereotypes. That is it. There is nothing else to add.

There are ONLY two "genders" or groups of sex roles. There aren't fifty or one hundred or twenty--ONLY two groups: masculinity and femininity. That is because there are only two sexes. Those "genders," a term I hate and use sex roles instead, which was the original phrase, are supposed to be complementary to each sex. They are a hierarchy, so the personality traits men don't like or the work men are too lazy to do or think they are too good to do, they force on women. It is as simple as that. We don't need to overthink it.