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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 26th Mar 2018 at 12:53 AM
Default Genders?
I've thought this for a while now, and I recently discovered this 'Debate Room' and I thought "PERFECT TIMING"

You obviously know what gender stereotypes are, and you've probably experienced it many times yourself, male or female.
What I don't get is, why don't we just do away with gender completely?

As i'm assuming, people came up with genders when a person's physical makeup determined whether they would hunt or work in the feild and do hard labor or basically just birth children all the time.
Because let's face it: our bodies aren't the same.

What I don't understand is, now that we are in a time where we don't have to do that, why are there still genders and gender stereotypes?
We don't even need to link how we behave and act to what kind of genitalia we have, especially now that we're always trying to be very progressive.

Why not do away with gender completely?

What are your opinions?

And BTW watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePlriYalzPY
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Alchemist
#2 Old 26th Mar 2018 at 12:46 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Heart Sims
I've thought this for a while now, and I recently discovered this 'Debate Room' and I thought "PERFECT TIMING"

You obviously know what gender stereotypes are, and you've probably experienced it many times yourself, male or female.
What I don't get is, why don't we just do away with gender completely?

As i'm assuming, people came up with genders when a person's physical makeup determined whether they would hunt or work in the feild and do hard labor or basically just birth children all the time.
Because let's face it: our bodies aren't the same.

What I don't understand is, now that we are in a time where we don't have to do that, why are there still genders and gender stereotypes?
We don't even need to link how we behave and act to what kind of genitalia we have, especially now that we're always trying to be very progressive.

Why not do away with gender completely?

What are your opinions?

And BTW watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePlriYalzPY


Probably because it still matters, when finding a mate.
If I announce that I'm a, say, girl, and that I'm looking for a guy... I'm not just looking for someone who identifies as male. I'm looking for someone who has the "right" bits, and is interested in girls. Not everyone who has the "right" bits are interested in girls, and not everyone who identifies as male, has the "right" bits. Same goes for most people, whether it be girl seeking girl, guy seeking guy, guy seeking girl or fish seeking strawberry. Like it or not, gender is a shortcut to a specific set of parameters that we all factor in to how we interact with another person.
If I say that I "identify" as a girl, but not that my bits are female bits, that is already telling anyone that isn't interested in other bits to not bother any sexual/romantic relations. Or if I say I "identify" as a boy, but clearly lack boy bits, it tells people who are interested in boy bits that what they want is not something I can give them. It saves everyone a lot of hassle and heartbreak.
If it doesn't matter to the individuals involved, great. But that's really rare to come by: It's just a fact of life that bits are an important factor in how people choose their partners.

Beyond that, using genders to identify yourself and others isn't mutually exclusive with adhering to gender stereotypes. A girl can be butch and still into guys, or girly and into girls, or a guy can be feminine and still like girls, or masculine and still like guys, or any other combination of expressions and preferences. I think most people are flexible enough mentally to not immediately dismiss someone based on their appearance/mannerisms alone.
Just because gender stereotypes are generally obsolete (There are still people who are comfortable with them and as long as they don't try to force it on others, I'm peachy keen with that), doesn't mean gender is obsolete. That would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.

"The more you know, the sadder you get."~ Stephen Colbert
"I'm not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance." ~ Jon Stewart
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Née whiterider
retired moderator
#3 Old 26th Mar 2018 at 4:53 PM
Like all social constructs, gender is self-perpetuating. In a society where the majority of people believe in gender, you wind up with a lot of other beliefs and practises relying on gender; and in responding to gender - even by rejecting it and many of its trappings - we all perpetuate the belief that gender exists and is important.

I'm hopeful that belief in gender will one day go the same way as belief in the four humours, but there's a lot of work to be done before we get there.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 26th Mar 2018 at 9:47 PM
Gender as it exists in most Western countries has not always existed within rigid terms. I know many Native American tribes understood and recognized that gender is not a dichotomy, having a designation for male, female, and two-spirit individuals. Two spirit people probably translate most neatly into transgender people in American society, though they also envelop people who identify as neither male, nor female, or have no specific gender preference. This is also true among the Hawaiian people, for whom two-spirit was and is also a gender identity. I know that a lot of the modern concept of gender was introduced to many of these cultures by the arrival of Christianity with imperialists who arrived on the shores of the Americas and Polynesian islands, and as their culture was actively suppressed by them, so too was their understanding of gender.

The truth is that gender is a construct and a device used to relegate people to certain roles and bastions of society. People who don't neatly fit into male and female categorization have always existed, and always will. You've got intersex people who are quite literally born with primary and secondary characteristics of both males and females, and even people born with sex chromosomes that don't exactly fall into XX or XY. Some people have three, even! This isn't just humans, either. Animals, insects, hell, even plants are hermaphroditic.

At the end of the day, gender is a social construct. The only thing that can truly, really determine your gender is what you determine it to be, because how you identify as an individual should really be the only thing that matters to anyone else. If you say you're a man, that should be enough. If you say you're a woman, same thing. If you're neither? Cool, tell me your preferred pronouns and I will respect them. If you're sometimes one gender and then feel more like another, cool, that's called genderfluid, and it's a real observable quality in a number of species. Again, still valid and still deserving of respect.

Basically, consult any biologist, psychologist, and/or anthropologist worth their salt and they'll confirm that there's no such thing as a gender binary. Find your place on it, respect others for theirs, and destroy the concept that your gender should somehow determine the things you're "supposed" to do, and enjoy this life you're living. You've only got one, don't let something as base as someone's limited understanding of gender box you in.

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Mad Poster
#5 Old 27th Mar 2018 at 12:04 AM
In lines of work like healthcare it's very important to know which gender (XX/XY/???-wise) a person is, otherwise you might overlook very important things about their health. A very bad tummyache can be a lot of things, but if a person insists they're male but still have female bits, you could overlook conditions related to pregnancy or the female reproductive system (and overlook thypical male conditions in a person insisting they're female but have male bits). Some conditions are more common for the male or female population, and some may only pop up for one gender. Overlooking such things could even prove fatal for the person.

I think it's important to distinguish between genders for such reasons, but at the same time it's also important to consider which gender people identify as, because it's important to them and their wellbeing.

Gender roles have over the time humans have existed been a part of how we've evolved. Over the generations, females have mostly been the person taking care of the kids and keeping the family going, while males did the hunting and protection. Our brains are not wired quite the same, even if both males and females are capable of taking over the other gender role if need be. However, society is changing, and gender roles are more washed out now.

There are people born with "no" gender, having both sets of reproductive systems, having no reproductive system, and even having a "female" or "male" mindset but being in the wrong body, or having multiple sets of chromosomes. In those who identify as the other gender from a very young age, there may be a good explanation in their genes as to why they do. For the rest, I don't know. It may be genetic, societal, or a mix. I honestly don't know.

For the whole gender roles and what people should wear - I think it's up to the individual person. Personally, I think it's strange to see a man wearing a dress, but if they want to wear a dress it's up to them, not to me. I also find it a little strange that two women or two men can be in love, or how anyone in their right mind can enjoy wearing high heels, or how some people can enjoy blue cheese - but my opinion or thoughts don't matter on what gender people identifies as, who they love, what they like to eat, or dress like, or anything else. Their feelings, preferences and opinions are not up to me to decide - just like it's not up to them what I feel, prefer, or have opinions about. People are entitled to their own opinions as long as they don't go around deliberately hurting other people.

I do however have to deal with gender in my work in the healthcare business, and there it does matter to a degree which gender people are. You can't always use the same equipment on a man and a woman, and most of the elderly men and women I work still have a touch of the old gender roles in their societal makeup. You try to talk to an 80 year old man about knitting or dresses, or to a 90 year old woman about cars and technical whatnots, and see how fast hey lose interest. Sure, when people in my generation get to that age, our interests may be completely different, but it's just a couple or so generations ago since most women stayed home caring for the family while most men worked to pay the bills.

If anyone wonders, I'm a woman, but sometimes still identify as a girl because I don't quite identify as 100% adult yet, even if I'm well beyond 18. I like pink and purple, I hate wearing high heels and makeup, I'm interested in computers and technical whatnots, couldn't care less about fashion (unless it's for kids below the age of 4 - I love all those cute little outfits!), and otherwise have a mix of thypical societal "girlish" and "boyish" interests. Today's society, the one I live in anyway, lets me do what I want even if I occasionally get challenged on some of them - and I'm lucky that way.

Not everyone is lucky enough to live in a society where males and females can do what they want. There are still societies where female members are looked down on, and where gender fluidity of any kind is not only frowned upon but is punishable by prison or even death. So if you live in a society where you can worry about whether to call someone "she" "he" or "???", you're actually quite lucky.
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#6 Old 28th Mar 2018 at 9:50 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
In lines of work like healthcare it's very important to know which gender (XX/XY/???-wise) a person is, otherwise you might overlook very important things about their health. A very bad tummyache can be a lot of things, but if a person insists they're male but still have female bits, you could overlook conditions related to pregnancy or the female reproductive system (and overlook thypical male conditions in a person insisting they're female but have male bits).
In this example, knowing what chromosomes someone has wouldn't help you at all - in fact it could be misleading, as (in a hypothetical scenario where people routinely get karyotyped and therefore know which chromosomes they have), it sounds like you might make inaccurate assumptions based on that information. If there's a potential that pregnancy is involved, then you need to know whether that person has a uterus, and whether they are aware of having any conditions which would impact their fertility. The answers to those questions are not necessarily linked to the question of what chromosomes someone has. As a medical practitioner, those are questions you get to ask; if you made assumptions based on someone's chromosomes, or more realistically the gender they were assigned at birth, you'd risk missing something important or misdiagnosing them.

Although lots of conditions do roughly map to gender in terms of their prevalence and presentation, and knowledge of that rough correspondence is an important tool in quickly narrowing down possibilities, it's also important to also understand why that happens - what gendered pattern of characteristics is implicated here? For example, if you were to approach a patient who was a trans woman as if "usually male" diagnoses were appropriate, you could wind up being the wazzock who tells someone they should get screened for prostate cancer because that's a thing that people assigned male at birth should do, when you should be telling them that they don't need to be screened because their endocrinology makes it basically impossible for them to get prostate cancer.

Gender is as blunt an instrument in medicine as it is in everything else. It can be useful, but it shouldn't be relied on alone, because you'd miss an awful lot of vitally important nuance.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
 
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