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What's your basis for claiming expertise on what makes someone a woman? Do you possess full knowledge of how sex and sex-specific behaviors evolved over millio

What's your basis for claiming expertise on what makes someone a woman? Do you possess full knowledge of how sex and sex-specific behaviors evolved over millions of years and all of the resulting complexity?

hitpointdrew 5y ago
No one needs to be an “expert” to understand basic English and biology. It’s very clear that until, very recently, male and female have always been biological terms. Even today a scientist studying a frog would call the frog “female” or “male”, and everyone would know what they mean by that. No educated, sane, person would protest “Did you ask the frog what gender they felt they were!”
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  Historical precedent is not a very strong argument when it comes to scientific questions. What's the model? How can that model explain the observed phenomena? "XY = male and XX = female" is a very simplistic model and it doesn't seem to adequately explain everything that we see in the world. Perhaps it works for 97% of the cases (just guessing). We can do better than 97%. Let's work on finding a model that explains the world more accurately. P.S. Frogs can't talk :P So yeah, it would be rather silly to try asking it a question.
  - hitpointdrew 5y ago
    What is the model you ask? It’s very simple XX chromosome is female, XY is male. Is that 100% of all cases ever. No, but hardly anything at all in science, or life, is. How do you classify a hermaphrodite? Does it matter? It’s a rare biological anomaly. Life is weird and strange things happen sometimes, that doesn’t mean that you throw the baby out with the bath water. It’s useful in life, science, and medicine to classify things biologically by their sex. If there are a few outliers that just go in “other” then so be it. > Frogs can’t talk That’s the whole point. How a frog feels, or perceives itself, is entirely irrelevant as to weather it is classified as a male or female. So why is it any different with humans? When we talk about male or female with other species there is no notion of a “social construct”, but somehow when talk about humans it’s supposed be different and not follow the rules we use with every other species on the planet? Why? Because some people feel bad? Sorry, not a good argument.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      >with other species there is no notion of a “social construct” That's only coming from our limited human perspectives. We can't communicate with another species at this point in time. We can't ask them about nuance in their social structures. We also can't assume that it doesn't exist because it's hard to observe.
      - hitpointdrew 5y ago
        Nothing you said refutes the fact that biological sex classification is 1) useful 2) has and continues to use the terms “male” and “female” for all species 3) such classification are scientific descriptions, not social constructs at all. Are there traditional gender roles that are social constructs? Sure. Is gender itself a social construct, not even remotely. Reproduction is quite well documented and known, it isn’t some abstract thing that society made up.
        netizen-936824 5y ago
        I'm sorry I don't quite follow. Which part of my comment are you replying to?
xdennis 5y ago
In 99.9 % of the cases you can tell women and men apart in a fraction of a second. We can identify sex from the bones of million-year-old humanoids. For the burka-dressed robbers we could identify they were men just by their gait. You're trying to make it seem like the 0.1 % means we can't know anything about anything.
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  Perhaps I can summarize my position more clearly: 1) We've fucked up in this area before (e.g. being gay was considered a medical disorder), so let's be really careful to not fuck it up again. 2) Humans are vastly complicated systems and our understanding has grown immensely in recent centuries. So arguments like "aspect X of the human experience has always been understood this way" should be taken with a huge grain of salt, especially when people are making scientific claims (e.g. in this case, about biology / psychology). 3) Unless if I have a good reason not too, take people at face value. Treat them with respect. Make small concessions even if I don't fully understand why they want it. It doesn't cost me much, and it makes them happy.
  - gaganyaan 5y ago
    Saying "people have made mistakes before" and "it's complicated" is just... not a convincing argument. You can literally do that with any topic anywhere.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - water8 5y ago
    The problem is that we’re treating personal discoveries like they are universally applicable. Always treat people with respect, but don’t allow pseudoscience to propagate just because you dont want to hurt their feelings. I’ve been through enough coding interviews to know that y’all don’t care that much about hurting peoples feelings =P
  - zen_1 5y ago
pcmoney 5y ago
If we are claiming that biological sex and gender are different than what makes someone a woman goes beyond biology/evolution. If we are claiming that gender is socially constructed then gender dysphoria is a spectrum which we are all probably on as nobody aligns perfectly with all the gender norms in their society. But if it is constructed and everything is on a spectrum then what are we even arguing about?

hitpointdrew 5y ago

No one needs to be an “expert” to understand basic English and biology. It’s very clear that until, very recently, male and female have always been biological terms. Even today a scientist studying a frog would call the frog “female” or “male”, and everyone would know what they mean by that. No educated, sane, person would protest “Did you ask the frog what gender they felt they were!”

dwaltrip 5y ago
Historical precedent is not a very strong argument when it comes to scientific questions. What's the model? How can that model explain the observed phenomena? "XY = male and XX = female" is a very simplistic model and it doesn't seem to adequately explain everything that we see in the world. Perhaps it works for 97% of the cases (just guessing). We can do better than 97%. Let's work on finding a model that explains the world more accurately. P.S. Frogs can't talk :P So yeah, it would be rather silly to try asking it a question.
- hitpointdrew 5y ago
  What is the model you ask? It’s very simple XX chromosome is female, XY is male. Is that 100% of all cases ever. No, but hardly anything at all in science, or life, is. How do you classify a hermaphrodite? Does it matter? It’s a rare biological anomaly. Life is weird and strange things happen sometimes, that doesn’t mean that you throw the baby out with the bath water. It’s useful in life, science, and medicine to classify things biologically by their sex. If there are a few outliers that just go in “other” then so be it. > Frogs can’t talk That’s the whole point. How a frog feels, or perceives itself, is entirely irrelevant as to weather it is classified as a male or female. So why is it any different with humans? When we talk about male or female with other species there is no notion of a “social construct”, but somehow when talk about humans it’s supposed be different and not follow the rules we use with every other species on the planet? Why? Because some people feel bad? Sorry, not a good argument.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    >with other species there is no notion of a “social construct” That's only coming from our limited human perspectives. We can't communicate with another species at this point in time. We can't ask them about nuance in their social structures. We also can't assume that it doesn't exist because it's hard to observe.
    - hitpointdrew 5y ago
      Nothing you said refutes the fact that biological sex classification is 1) useful 2) has and continues to use the terms “male” and “female” for all species 3) such classification are scientific descriptions, not social constructs at all. Are there traditional gender roles that are social constructs? Sure. Is gender itself a social construct, not even remotely. Reproduction is quite well documented and known, it isn’t some abstract thing that society made up.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        I'm sorry I don't quite follow. Which part of my comment are you replying to?

xdennis 5y ago

In 99.9 % of the cases you can tell women and men apart in a fraction of a second. We can identify sex from the bones of million-year-old humanoids. For the burka-dressed robbers we could identify they were men just by their gait. You're trying to make it seem like the 0.1 % means we can't know anything about anything.

dwaltrip 5y ago
Perhaps I can summarize my position more clearly: 1) We've fucked up in this area before (e.g. being gay was considered a medical disorder), so let's be really careful to not fuck it up again. 2) Humans are vastly complicated systems and our understanding has grown immensely in recent centuries. So arguments like "aspect X of the human experience has always been understood this way" should be taken with a huge grain of salt, especially when people are making scientific claims (e.g. in this case, about biology / psychology). 3) Unless if I have a good reason not too, take people at face value. Treat them with respect. Make small concessions even if I don't fully understand why they want it. It doesn't cost me much, and it makes them happy.
- gaganyaan 5y ago
  Saying "people have made mistakes before" and "it's complicated" is just... not a convincing argument. You can literally do that with any topic anywhere.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- water8 5y ago
  The problem is that we’re treating personal discoveries like they are universally applicable. Always treat people with respect, but don’t allow pseudoscience to propagate just because you dont want to hurt their feelings. I’ve been through enough coding interviews to know that y’all don’t care that much about hurting peoples feelings =P
- zen_1 5y ago

pcmoney 5y ago

If we are claiming that biological sex and gender are different than what makes someone a woman goes beyond biology/evolution. If we are claiming that gender is socially constructed then gender dysphoria is a spectrum which we are all probably on as nobody aligns perfectly with all the gender norms in their society. But if it is constructed and everything is on a spectrum then what are we even arguing about?