Greetings, all.
This is a bit of a controversial subject for some; so here is your trigger warning.
Now, I have recently been witness to several debates between MRAs and Feminists about Sexual Identification. (How one perceives themselves in regards to their gender). Most of these debates which I am referring to are in the form of comments on a video, or in forums. An episode of "The Big Questions" featuring Milo Yiannopoulos and Kate Smurthwaite got me thinking.
There seems to be a general consensus between Feminists that one's gender is
wholly socially constructed.
However there is also a consensus that people can be
born with the wrong brain.
(remember Jazz?)
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.
The thing is that these ideas are in direct contradiction. I would like to know everyone's opinions on the matter.
Are the quirks and behaviors of Men and Women dictated by our biology?
Are they built, slowly, through social conditioning?
They cannot have it both ways, and I believe that our (mental) gender is a result of both social conditioning and biology.
The first question is "what is gender?"
Or, perhaps, "How important is gender?"
It is correct to say that Gender is a social context. It is how we perceive the notions of masculinity and femininity. It is also how we communicate within the social context of gender, as well. How we dress, for example, is a form of nonverbal communication within social situations and contexts. It is why people like to change out of their work clothes, typically, before engaging in social functions - they want to change into something that has a non-verbal message beyond "I'm working."
Even people who have jobs that rely heavily upon social interaction (such as salesmen and the like) tend to prefer to change clothes into something else prior to attending a social event.
Within this, we can understand that gender is derived largely from the concept of nonverbal communication as it pertains to biological ***. While gender concepts build beyond this - it is from the biology from which our reference comes.
This leads to some interesting things. For example, in Asia, where women have largely been in domestic roles, the pelvis has widened to appeal to the male desire for a curvy figure. However, in many parts of Europe, where women have been taking on roles equal to men since the ice age out of the need for survival, the widening of the pelvis to appeal to male desires for wide hips leads to an increase in the likelihood of hip fractures. Therefor, the hip-to-waist ratio is somewhat larger among Asian women than it is among women of European descent.
This has also led to considerably different views of the role of women within European and Asian cultures. Women's rights have long been a cause for revolutions and various social movements within Europe. During the various European plagues, women took over a lot of jobs from their deceased husbands, brothers, uncles, etc. Society still had to operate and it didn't have the privilege of reserving certain functions of society to various sexes.
Still, partially due to biology, women tend to choose less physically demanding work when the option exists. Where men would work mines, women would tend crops. Where men would tend crops, women would work looms. Women have a somewhat higher fat to muscle ratio than men, and tend to develop less muscle than men. Their bodies are, biologically, geared toward the process of gestation - developing an embryo into a child. This is a considerably demanding process in its own right, and lends itself toward specialization.
Of course, there is also a sort of evolutionary-sociology aspect to this. From a logical standpoint, one man can impregnate a whole tribe of women, if need be. One woman cannot be impregnated by many men. Logically - if there is a risky role, it is better for the species to bias itself to risk the male as opposed to the female. As far as the survival of the tribe is concerned, a tribe that risks females will be at a far higher chance of losing its reproductive viability than a tribe that prefers to risk men and conserve its women.
Thus, Gender can also be seen, from an evolutionary aspect, as a survivalist concept. Certain roles are assessed according to their risk for injury and those with the higher risks of injury are 'masculine' and those with the lower risk of injury are 'feminine.'
Thus, 'real men' are willing to put themselves at risk to do the jobs that would put the ability to reproduce at risk, and any man doing a 'woman's job' is seen as unwilling to accept that risk and as putting a woman at risk. Women who choose to put themselves at risk are doing so unnecessarily - although such women do tend to appeal to men who see it as a display of physical superiority, willpower, and intelligence (that will, logically, be passed on to children).
Basically - we are wired to establish 'gender roles' - though exactly what those 'roles' are can be relative to the state of society at the time. Generally - jobs seen as being the most risky will be reserved to men while jobs with the least risk involved will be reserved for women.
Societies that have not had external forces acting upon this ranking system for long periods of time will display very deep stratification of their society and gender roles will not be 'choices' so much as 'just the way things are.'
On the other hand, societies with many external forces acting upon this ranking system will have much less stratification. Frequent changes in the real or perceived risk of actions (such as through advances in technology), chaotic events imposing high mortality rates upon the riskier segments of the society (frequently staffed by men) would also do this.
Basically - humans are wired to create the concept of "gender roles" as a sociological burden that is balanced against the biological burden of *** (meaning to have a distinction between males and females, biologically - there is a reason for it - it's actually linked in my signature). When the sociological burden of maintaining gender roles is greater than the burden of *** - then gender roles are annulled until the two re-establish balance.
The more men relative to women - the less risk women will tend to undertake (and the more political power they will tend to hold). The fewer men relative to women - the more risk women will tend to undertake (and the less political power they will tend to hold).
This is what we generally find throughout history and throughout existing populations.
The idea that people are "born" with a gender different from their *** is just ridiculous and is not supported by any research whatsoever.
There are people who are born with communication disorders who do not understand how to communicate. We have generally only applied this to concepts of verbal communication, but researchers into Asperger's have noticed that people with the condition will generally make inappropriate facial expressions or other non-verbal cues. The idea that non-verbal communication disorders (such as an inability to understand gender in much the same way that some forms of autism have difficulty understanding the concept of spoken language) exist has been something that has been the subject of more recent studies.
There are also people who are born with various compulsive disorders - people who check to see if the stove is on twenty times before they leave the house. The -thought- that the stove could be on prompts a nearly irresistible compulsion to produce verification. Likewise - various compulsive disorders with respect to gender should also be found. The realization that a person has 'committed' a 'feminine' role results in a compulsion to verify one's ***.
Thus, we get people who 'want to wear pretty things' (as opposed to things that communicate gender appropriate for their ***) without regard; and other people who feel the need to change their bodies to conform to the compulsion that they are some *** other than the one they were born.
Of course - there are biological factors involved in both communication and compulsive disorders, as well as factors of environment. Autism correlates to family environmental factors more strongly than currently speculated 'genetic markers' for the condition (though whether this is due to certain types of families being more likely to bring their child to medical professionals for diagnosis or not can't be determined from the studies I've seen; one would need to actually conduct a random sampling of people for an evaluation of autism, first, and then compare the prevalence of genetic markers and family environmental factors).
So, even then, the idea that one is 'born' to be a certain way is overly fatalistic and just not supported within medical findings.
Which is really nothing to say for or against the concept of 'gender roles.' They have a place within human history and within the continued survival of the human species. There is a need to distinguish between 'manly' things and 'womanly' things that is quite likely wired deeply into our brain (well - except for some like I mentioned, earlier). Even if we have since reached populations and industrial capabilities that largely render this need moot - it is, in itself, a compulsion born from survival.
And I would hesitate to say that it is "no longer needed" - since we are very capable of conceiving of apocalyptic scenarios where those who fail to understand the concept of 'manning up' will likely unnecessarily risk women and be wiped out.
After all, these same people like to suggest that global warming is going to destroy us all (well, many of the feminist field tend to hold the liberal left's views that also include climate change alarmism) - so having men around willing to sacrifice life and limb to keep them alive long enough to have some kids -should- be seen as a good thing.
But, I've long held the view that liberalism is a mental disorder... so... you know... it shouldn't surprise me that the notion of abolishing gender has suicidal implications.
