• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

The lets-challenge-gender thread

Jamshyd

Jamshyd

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Aug 26, 2003
Messages
15,492
Location
Not on a train, sadly.
First, read this:
"what does make someone a man ?"

Now, since the above thread has been apparently reserved to those who who are comfortable with man-boxes, I thought it'd be a good idea to start a new thread for those who are willing to step outside these limits and challenge the ideas of gender. I have said what I want to say in abovementioned thread, and would appreciate everyone's views.
 
I believe gender lies on a continuum, with "male" and "female" being on opposite ends of the spectrum. The terms "male" and "female" are simply conglomerates of traits that we have assembled based on cultural assignment of identity. I believe that gender is largely unrelated to biological sex. Of course hormones and other evolutionary programming will most certainly sway us in the feminine or masculine direction - no one can deny that biological women are (nearly) universally more nuturing than men, etc - but cultural programming has the most influence on gender as far as I can tell. All the latest psychological studies back me up on that point, so I'm sticking with it.

All it takes is a look back to Classical Greek standards of "male" and "female" to see that gender is a hugely changing thing, dependent hugely on cultural paradigms. I guess I've said what I want to say. I hope I've made myself clear...
 
Last edited:
gender agenda

point taken>

i think gender has 2 aspects:
a> a biological basis (male, female, hermaphrodite).
b> a social personality constructed on behaviour (acceptilbe 'girls' behaviour vs. 'boys' behaviour), dress code (Masc Vs. Femm fashion) and signifiers of sexuality.
(metrosexuals, transvestites, 'straight' Vs. 'camp' behaviour).

while the biological is fixed thethe social personality changes with the fashionable trends of the day:
for example in the 18th(?) century men wore wigs and makeup whilst maintain their 'masculinity' and power and in the 20th century women wear pants whilst maintaining thier 'femininity'.

do you agree?
 
heres a question for yall:

do you think the staggering number of homosexuals in todays society is solely the result of a greater acceptance of that way of life, or are there chemical reasons aswell?

for example: ive heard on several occasions that estrogen is used in the production of plastics, and our water and food is processed using plastics.
 
Greater acceptance, period. I'll bring up ancient Greece again. Homosexuality was widely accepted and practiced. Every good soldier had a young male trainee who was almost always a sexual partner as well. The word "lesbian" comes from Lesbos, an Island near Greece. What do you suppose all the women there did? ;)

The estrogen/estrogen-like compounds in plastics probably have an effect on us, but it wouldn't promote homosexuality.
 
Also, how would one factor in the rising number of lesbians that are comming about in society.

Im sure that many people were gay decades ago but the lack of acceptance from family, friends, and the church was large part a reason to not be openly homosexual.
 
>>do you think the staggering number of homosexuals in todays society is solely the result of a greater acceptance of that way of life, or are there chemical reasons aswell?>>

Is the number of homosexuals really staggering? The fact of the matter is, same-gender sexual acts have been performed since before the beginning of our species (I encourage you to hang out with some Bonobo Chimps), but "gay" (and by extention, "straight") as a sexual orientation is a relatively recent development. Kitty' is right. It is homosexuality as an IDENTITY that's gaining more acceptance.

I should also add that sex, as a binary category of classification, is also inadequate. Intersex births are rather routine, and their labeling as pathological is a social phenomenon.
...
Gender...while I know that ideas of masculinity and femininity, man and woman, are reifications, I cannot help but see people (myself included) as men and women most immediately. The intellectual cannot tame the aesthetic immediacy, even when that immediacy bears conceptual content.

ebola
 
I'm with Kitty with the continuum. Masculine and feminine can be thought of as complimentary modes available within each human being with each of us exhibiting various levels of both. While both modes of being are available to all of us, we still tend to be grounded in our sex. For example, autonomy can be seen as a masculine quality, while linking relationships can be seen as a feminine quality.

Yet while homosexual men are stereotypically known to be feminine they average over a 100 partners per year, While homosexual women average about 1 every 7 years.

Upon closer examination there is generally a grounding of some sort in the qualities of ones own sex that probably isn't cultural. Even so any healthy individual should have a balance of both. In the case of the qualities of autonomy and linking relationships. If one is too autonomous one alienates themselves from everyone else. On the other if one defines themselves by their relationships with other people alone they will form unhealthy attachments and get lost in them.


Ken Wilber has alot of good literature on this subject.
 
yougene said:
I'm with Kitty with the continuum. Masculine and feminine can be thought of as complimentary modes available within each human being with each of us exhibiting various levels of both. While both modes of being are available to all of us, we still tend to be grounded in our sex. For example, autonomy can be seen as a masculine quality, while linking relationships can be seen as a feminine quality.

Yet while homosexual men are stereotypically known to be feminine they average over a 100 partners per year, While homosexual women average about 1 every 7 years.

Upon closer examination there is generally a grounding of some sort in the qualities of ones own sex that probably isn't cultural. Even so any healthy individual should have a balance of both. In the case of the qualities of autonomy and linking relationships. If one is too autonomous one alienates themselves from everyone else. On the other if one defines themselves by their relationships with other people alone they will form unhealthy attachments and get lost in them.


Ken Wilber has alot of good literature on this subject.
Click to expand...


Yep. That pretty much sums it all up. It seems to me that the terms used to categorize sexual preference are just as bias and wrong as identifying race as an indication of ability.
 
ok... this seems more appropriate of a thread to consider the truth... sexuality is, generally by western world media, portrayed by physical traits... ie, having a dick. However, western world media also portrays the stereotypical masculine and feminine personallities/psycologies. In all honesty, in my opinion, a man is someone who declares themselves a man, and a women is someone who declares themselves a women. I've met people from Tonga (south pacific island nation) who, even though male, where raised completely as females. Now, they are considered freaks, but there's no doubt that they are more female than male, despite no physical difference.

As for me, I'm a physically male female, with the exception of declaration.
 
^i remember watching a thing about some tribe in africa or something where there is a very rare genetic disorder which will cause someone to be born a boy, then at puberty, his dick will fall off and a vagina and breasts will from.
 
>>In all honesty, in my opinion, a man is someone who declares themselves a man, and a women is someone who declares themselves a women.>>

I dunno though. I don't think the ascriptional theory of concepts is really adequate. Our concepts do have SOME sort of content and consequences.

ebola
 
Re: Homosexuality in the classical cultures: Although it was more widely practiced by people than heterosexuality - both "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" are new words that stand for new concepts.

In the eyes of the Greeks and Romans did not see homosexuaity as being homosexuality, and therefore did not have a concept of either it or heterosexuality. To them, it was all sex, it made no difference.

I think the apparent "increase" in homosexuality today is nothing more than through growing reportage from the media.

Gay Culture (or as I like to call it, Gay Ghetto - ghetto in the original sense of the word) on the other hand, which is most definitely very, very new (in the sense that it evolves every day), and is actually simply a reaction (probably collectively unconscious) against the intolerance that existed and is still growing strong. That is the reason I call them ghettos - it is a sort of gay "nationalism" that is a reaction against the rejection of the status-quo. Neither this nor that is conductive to any optimism from my point of view.
 
ebola? said:
I cannot help but see people (myself included) as men and women most immediately. The intellectual cannot tame the aesthetic immediacy, even when that immediacy bears conceptual content.
Click to expand...

That's my biggest contention with letting go of the whole idea of gender. There must be some reason why I can look at the pictures of 1000 people and guess the gender correctly 99% of the time.
 
elemenohpee said:
That's my biggest contention with letting go of the whole idea of gender. There must be some reason why I can look at the pictures of 1000 people and guess the gender correctly 99% of the time.
Click to expand...

Although I hate cliches, I guess I will have to use this one: for a long time most people considered the planets all orbited the earth. It only makes sense - when I look at the sky, I can't help but deduce that the sun is going around the earth, and not the other way around.

Same with gender. Yes, I will always assume that a male human is a man and a female human is a woman, but the fact that these are constructions is always at the back of my head.

I have met several males with extremely masculine bodies yet unbelievably feminine personalities. When you get to know them, it can be very shocking :).
 
elemenohpee said:
That's my biggest contention with letting go of the whole idea of gender. There must be some reason why I can look at the pictures of 1000 people and guess the gender correctly 99% of the time.
Click to expand...
lets say there are 1000 people and instead of pictures, you interact with them but cannot see their physical features--they are in a plain white mask/suit

i believe youd still be able to tell with accuracy (not sure what %) which people are men which women. i do think its much more than physical appearance

it must be learned though, beacuse of how differently the roles were in other times, they are apparently very socially influenced. so no one can say "this IS manlike" when the roles are transient over time and changing faster than before
 
I'm still sort of confused as to what we're arguing here. Roughly half the population is male, and the other half female (not counting transgendered). I don;t think anyone would try and argue that. Jamshyd, what you are arguing (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the brains of all newborns are essentially the same, and all the traits that we associate with masculinity and femininity are socially learned, correct?
 
Jamshyd said:
I have met several males with extremely masculine bodies yet unbelievably feminine personalities. When you get to know them, it can be very shocking :).
Click to expand...

Hahaha, gay as shit.

Sorry, that was my masculine construct.
 
^ heh.

LMNOP: Yes, that is exactly what I'm trying to say :). I have no reason to disagree that half of the human population is male and the other half is female, and although this is relevant to biology, it is of little significance to personality or behaviour. And yes, although newborns may have differing body chemistry, their psyches are "blank slate" as they say. The personalities form through socialization and the reactions of body chemistry to socialization. So although the correlation between body chemistry and psychic constitution seems like a chicken-or-egg thing, I strongly think that socialization is the active principal that dictates the transformation and interaction of the two.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top