3 ms·

> how is gender different from fashion? In a lot of ways it isn't. Gender is often performative in nature. The idea that gender is binary is fairly reductive,

by 49531 8y ago

> how is gender different from fashion? In a lot of ways it isn't. Gender is often performative in nature. The idea that gender is binary is fairly reductive, and as most people know isn't a very descriptive way to view the world. You're more likely to be a mix of masculine and feminine traits than a binary one-or-the-other. Viewing the world via binary genders puts people into categories that can be negative. This is why gender bias exists, because we view men with certain traits and women with certain traits. If society was less binary in its approach to gender we might have to make less assumptions about people. This is similar to the old way of approaching race science. X people are good at Y, and A people are good at B. We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial.

stcredzero 8y ago
Gender is often performative in nature...We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial. Life is often performative in nature. We need to think about this when it comes to culture and society. If we want ourselves and our community to become wealthy, then we need to model our behavior to people who are well off. Likewise, we need to avoid acting like people who are failing. In this, human beings inevitably reinterpret and change things. In part, it's a matter of figuring out the essentials. (The opposite of cargo cult behavior.)
ravenstine 8y ago
> The idea that gender is binary is fairly reductive Yes, that actually is the idea about having a binary. It's reductive. At the end of the day, a sperm and an egg have to meet for a population to propagate, and seeing as how the vast majority in a population that sexually reproduces have either set of organs that make sperm or eggs, it becomes naturally efficient to rule out who is mating material and who isn't. For instance, a mostly heterosexual person is going to almost always be interested in copulating with the opposite sex, and it's convenient that most people of the opposite sex display gender that is mostly in line with the opposite sex. It's just that most of us really don't find it mostly useful to be using the word "most" when we're talking about things most of the time to acknowledge that mostly nothing is binary, so we decide to fit everything in to categories so we can assess them. If someone falls within a certain circle of a Venn diagram, then pragmatically they are considered within that category even if they don't perfectly match it. > This is similar to the old way of approaching race science. X people are good at Y, and A people are good at B. We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial. We pushed back on "race science" because it's not scientific.
- 49531 8y ago
  > then pragmatically they are considered within that category even if they don't perfectly match it. The problem is that it is not normally pragmatic. It's not pragmatic for a woman in the workforce to be associated with feminine characteristics whether she displays them or not. It's not pragmatic for a more feminine boy to be told by his parents that he needs to act more masculine. A lot of these things are purely social constructs. No one is arguing that sex isn't a thing, or that you don't need a male and female to create life. No one is even saying that your biological sex has zero bearing on your gender identity. The point I am making is that categorization based on a binary spectrum of gender is not pragmatic and is not scientific.

by 49531 8y ago

stcredzero 8y ago

Gender is often performative in nature...We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial. Life is often performative in nature. We need to think about this when it comes to culture and society. If we want ourselves and our community to become wealthy, then we need to model our behavior to people who are well off. Likewise, we need to avoid acting like people who are failing. In this, human beings inevitably reinterpret and change things. In part, it's a matter of figuring out the essentials. (The opposite of cargo cult behavior.)

ravenstine 8y ago

> The idea that gender is binary is fairly reductive Yes, that actually is the idea about having a binary. It's reductive. At the end of the day, a sperm and an egg have to meet for a population to propagate, and seeing as how the vast majority in a population that sexually reproduces have either set of organs that make sperm or eggs, it becomes naturally efficient to rule out who is mating material and who isn't. For instance, a mostly heterosexual person is going to almost always be interested in copulating with the opposite sex, and it's convenient that most people of the opposite sex display gender that is mostly in line with the opposite sex. It's just that most of us really don't find it mostly useful to be using the word "most" when we're talking about things most of the time to acknowledge that mostly nothing is binary, so we decide to fit everything in to categories so we can assess them. If someone falls within a certain circle of a Venn diagram, then pragmatically they are considered within that category even if they don't perfectly match it. > This is similar to the old way of approaching race science. X people are good at Y, and A people are good at B. We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial. We pushed back on "race science" because it's not scientific.

49531 8y ago
> then pragmatically they are considered within that category even if they don't perfectly match it. The problem is that it is not normally pragmatic. It's not pragmatic for a woman in the workforce to be associated with feminine characteristics whether she displays them or not. It's not pragmatic for a more feminine boy to be told by his parents that he needs to act more masculine. A lot of these things are purely social constructs. No one is arguing that sex isn't a thing, or that you don't need a male and female to create life. No one is even saying that your biological sex has zero bearing on your gender identity. The point I am making is that categorization based on a binary spectrum of gender is not pragmatic and is not scientific.