4 ms·

Physical gender stereotypes? The differences in physical appearance, like the shape of the bones in your face and the fact some people have penises and other pe

Physical gender stereotypes? The differences in physical appearance, like the shape of the bones in your face and the fact some people have penises and other people have vaginas, caused by activation of the SRY gene (the sex determinism gene), are not social constructs.

daenz 7y ago
Physical gender stereotypes are things like hair length/style, whether makeup is applied, eyebrow grooming etc--all things that these apps are doing. These are not determined by sex. They are physical gender stereotypes, and are social constructs. Apps like these are upholding those stereotypes. I'll put it another way. If apps like these were framed with a right-wing narrative of "this is what men should look like" and "this is what women should look like," people would be furious. But that's exactly what these apps are implying right now yet I don't see anyone speaking out against them.
- temp1831 7y ago
  The shape of the jawline differing between men and women is not a stereotype.
tobr 7y ago
The makeup and haircut applied by the filter are social constructs, though.
- deleted 7y ago
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  - deleted 7y ago
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s_kilk 7y ago
Sex != Gender
- adammichaelc 7y ago
  Biological sex and gender are the same thing. Doesn’t mean a minority of people _feel_ differently, but the science is beyond any question that XX and XY are distinct genders. They come with different hormone levels, XX can carry babies and lactate, etc.
  - Raphmedia 7y ago
    > but the science is beyond any question that XX and XY are distinct genders. They come with different hormone levels, XX can carry babies and lactate, etc. What about XX with, say, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia? They have excess androgens and sometimes ambiguous genitalia. Estrogen insensitivity syndrome also comes to mind, where the body is unable to process estrogen. Those XX individuals have the body shape usually associated with an XY. Or perhaps XY individuals with 5α-Reductase deficiency? They cannot process androgens and are sometimes born with genitalia that look like one typically associated with XX. They used to be mistakenly raised as individuals of the female gender. In a similar vein, there's Aromatase excess syndrome where the XY individual has male genitalia at birth and female secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. What is their gender? Are XXY females and XXY males their own separate gender? Then what about XYY and XXYY syndrome? Even ignoring those rarer genetic differences, what about women with polycystic ovary syndrome who are unable to conceive and have high testosterone levels? Or XY who went through menopause and have their estrogen and progesterone production limited or even halted, do they stop being women? There's a reason both the words "gender" and "sex" exist.
    - Faark 7y ago
      You're describing reproductive biology. I have a hard time categorizing this as anything but "sex". But turns out actual biology doesn't just a give clear separable binary male vs female distribution. Thus "bimodal" is a better word and allows for the many cases of "its complicated". "Gender roles", in contrast, are by my understanding more what society expects men/women to behave like, including how to present themselves.
- tuxxy 7y ago
dang 7y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900606 and marked it off-topic.

daenz 7y ago

Physical gender stereotypes are things like hair length/style, whether makeup is applied, eyebrow grooming etc--all things that these apps are doing. These are not determined by sex. They are physical gender stereotypes, and are social constructs. Apps like these are upholding those stereotypes. I'll put it another way. If apps like these were framed with a right-wing narrative of "this is what men should look like" and "this is what women should look like," people would be furious. But that's exactly what these apps are implying right now yet I don't see anyone speaking out against them.

temp1831 7y ago
The shape of the jawline differing between men and women is not a stereotype.

tobr 7y ago

The makeup and haircut applied by the filter are social constructs, though.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

s_kilk 7y ago

Sex != Gender

adammichaelc 7y ago
Biological sex and gender are the same thing. Doesn’t mean a minority of people _feel_ differently, but the science is beyond any question that XX and XY are distinct genders. They come with different hormone levels, XX can carry babies and lactate, etc.
- Raphmedia 7y ago
  > but the science is beyond any question that XX and XY are distinct genders. They come with different hormone levels, XX can carry babies and lactate, etc. What about XX with, say, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia? They have excess androgens and sometimes ambiguous genitalia. Estrogen insensitivity syndrome also comes to mind, where the body is unable to process estrogen. Those XX individuals have the body shape usually associated with an XY. Or perhaps XY individuals with 5α-Reductase deficiency? They cannot process androgens and are sometimes born with genitalia that look like one typically associated with XX. They used to be mistakenly raised as individuals of the female gender. In a similar vein, there's Aromatase excess syndrome where the XY individual has male genitalia at birth and female secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. What is their gender? Are XXY females and XXY males their own separate gender? Then what about XYY and XXYY syndrome? Even ignoring those rarer genetic differences, what about women with polycystic ovary syndrome who are unable to conceive and have high testosterone levels? Or XY who went through menopause and have their estrogen and progesterone production limited or even halted, do they stop being women? There's a reason both the words "gender" and "sex" exist.
  - Faark 7y ago
    You're describing reproductive biology. I have a hard time categorizing this as anything but "sex". But turns out actual biology doesn't just a give clear separable binary male vs female distribution. Thus "bimodal" is a better word and allows for the many cases of "its complicated". "Gender roles", in contrast, are by my understanding more what society expects men/women to behave like, including how to present themselves.
tuxxy 7y ago

dang 7y ago

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900606 and marked it off-topic.