Gender is not real.

[Nomad_X]

Gender is a social construct.


Many people, if not a vast majority of people have Gender roles confused with the sex of a person. Sex Male or Sex female.


I'm going to leave this here... I could write loads more but I wanna see how you guys go from here with little foundation for this debate...


GO! DISCUSS!


:):D:yes:

[Sugaree]

Gender is a social construct.


....No, it's not. Good and bad is a social construct. Popularity is a social construct. Gender is a construct of nature, it is what we are assigned at birth, and with the miracles of modern science, something we can now change through reassignment surgery.

[JoeJoeyJoe]

sex is a construct of nature

gender is how a person sees themselves, my cousin is trans born a boy but feels he's a girl.

gender as a social construct, some forms are, a feminine boy gets bullied so he becomes quiet or 'mans up' in my cousins situatun though society didnt tell him to be a girl instead

[Nomad_X]

sex is a construct of nature



Exactly.

At Birth we are either Sex male or Sex female (we'll leave out intersexed for the moment)

Gender is a social construct. We are told in these social constructs that male and female, the two basic genders, the expectations that society expects from the sex male or sex female. If the sex male or sex female does not conform to thier societies expected norms of the gender expected then this is where one's place in society starts to get in trouble.

[Quick_Sylver]

You're right, to a point.

It's not just "society". We are society. What happens is, a select group of individuals surrounds the young and parrots what they were told all their life. And if you're still owned by a theoretical duo who disagree when you start developing your own thoughts and logics? You're going to get put on the outs, fighting, and chaos. Because you're not working with the system then.

Please don't say we are either male/female. That terminology is painful on a very large scale, and erases a lot of people, even if you're "leaving intersex" people out for the moment. Not cool.

Gender is not gender roles. Gender roles is what you seem to really care about, so I'll elaborate on that for you. Gender roles are the logic that in a homosexual relationship, one of you is the "girl" if you're two individuals with penis', or one of you is the "man" if you're two individuals with vaginas. Gender roles are what cause a lot of men to believe they must be superior in all their mucho macho masculinity, they have to be tough, they're not allowed to be fragile, to show emotion, to care. While women are pressured by gender roles to believe that unless they're the prettiest, the thinnest, the most beautiful, fragile, dainty, can cook, small - who could love a girl who's as tall as a guy?(Direct quote from my friend). Gender roles are what incites violence in a society when people get angry about sexism - when in many cases, though not all, women ask to be treated the equally as men(Ignore the hypocrisy of some of them for now.)

Gender is not Gender roles. Gender is also not binary.

I'm a boi, a guy. I'm trans. I like to knit, to cook, to play dress up, and to wear makeup.
I'm not going to change liking "feminine" things to "prove" I'm a guy. I don't have to prove that to anyone. That's not why I live. I live because I live. Gender is not forced upon me, Gender is not a requirement of society, but Gender is something I choose to put against the word, something I can't "fix" because my sex doesn't match my gender. So it is a social construct in the sense that people attempt to make it everything, because so many people believe that sex is everything.

[ksdnfkfr]

Gender rolls is a social construct.

[britishboy]

As far as I have ever known it is male or female but stopping time gave me a link which I trust which informed me that gender ia to do with gender rolls

[workingatperfect]

I guess I kind of agree. The way I see it is, gender roles are made up, so if there were no standards to fit into, you couldn't be "the wrong gender" right? If there were no characteristics (hobbies, personality traits, etc) associated with having a a certain ratio of hormones and set of reproductive organs, you could not possibly say that you have the wrong personality for your body?

I don't know, just how I see it. Not exactly that gender is made up, but that it's based on a made up concept and therefore couldn't stand on its own... So yeah I guess it's made up?

[sqishy]

Gender is a psychological construct as opposed to biological sex, but it does not mean it is not 'real' or less useful. It clearly serves a useful purpose, as it has things more organised. But gender does not have to conform to the person's sex. That is the person's choice.

[Lovelife090994]

Gender roles are social constructs to a degree but some people do align to them, some girls are feminine despite how restrictive you say that is and some guys are extremely masculine despite the fact that no one is 100% this or that. Sex is not. Sex whether it is the action or the thing, your gender, male and or female, is from nature and by DNA, those exist.

[Pittsburgh]

I believe gender and role are not the same

[Vlerchan]

Gender roles are social constructs to a degree but some people do align to them, some girls are feminine despite how restrictive you say that is and some guys are extremely masculine despite the fact that no one is 100% this or that.
I don't think you understand what a social construct is.

A social construct is an object - cash; gender; race; etc. - that has no inherent characteristics or values but instead has specific (imaginary) characteristics or values imposed on it. I consider gender to be a social construct because regardless of how large the majority of males who attempt to act tough - 'masculine'; whatever - is I believe that this trait is not inherent or natural to the male gender but rather it's apparent to such a degree in society that many males subconsciously conform to it. This isn't wholly relevant to my point, but it gets the message across. (http://thefeministagenda.blogspot.ie/2009/04/social-construction-of-gender.html)

[TheGuest]

Men are men and women are women. We are biologically made to be a certain way. Men are are better than women at certain things and women are better than men at certain things. Women tend to be more feminine and men tend to be more masculine.

[Lovelife090994]

I don't think you understand what a social construct is.

A social construct is an object - cash; gender; race; etc. - that has no inherent characteristics or values but instead has specific (imaginary) characteristics or values imposed on it. I consider gender to be a social construct because regardless of how large the majority of males who attempt to act tough - 'masculine'; whatever - is I believe that this trait is not inherent or natural to the male gender but rather it's apparent to such a degree in society that many males subconsciously conform to it. This isn't wholly relevant to my point, but it gets the message across. (http://thefeministagenda.blogspot.ie/2009/04/social-construction-of-gender.html)

Do you have an article that is not a blog? If gender was gone completely that wouldn't be good, if the roles evaporated that would be worse. Race exists, people are all of different races and origins but we are all human. Money is a concept but one tht will not go away for a long, long time.

Men are men and women are women. We are biologically made to be a certain way. Men are are better than women at certain things and women are better than men at certain things. Women tend to be more feminine and men tend to be more masculine.

Even by our features naturally the two genders are different and shown.


-merged double post. -Emerald Dream

[CharlieHorse]

Gender is real
It's called sex chromosomes. Look it up.
However, the roles of genders are social effects result from what early human males and females were able to do best. The males were usually stronger and better hunters because males naturally have more muscle mass and stuff like that. Females naturally have more of a loving connection to children (oxytocin bond with childbirth) so they were given the role of taking care of the child.

However in this day and age, there is no need to hunt, and the man or woman can raise a kid, so they're not necessary. They're still common though.
Gender inequality (for example in pay) is existent, but completely stupid and wrong, so it'll change to be equal in time.
Lets let the last generation die out. A lot of older folks think it's ok for there to be gender inequality.

[Vlerchan]

If gender was gone completely that wouldn't be good, if the roles evaporated that would be worse.
Could you expand on this? The avocation of gender roles - such as what you're doing now - genuinely confuses me. I fail to see how allowing a woman to chart her own life unhindered by our current social norms is a bad thing - on the contrary I believe it is a great thing.

The Wikipedia article is the best I can find - or the best that I can find that doesn't contain explicit images on the page. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_gender_difference)

[Lovelife090994]

Could you expand on this? The avocation of gender roles - such as what you're doing now - genuinely confuses me. I fail to see how allowing a woman to chart her own life unhindered by our current social norms is a bad thing - on the contrary I believe it is a great thing.

The Wikipedia article is the best I can find - or the best that I can find that doesn't contain explicit images on the page. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_gender_difference)

You have the two confused. Yes, let someone live however but a woman is still woman, a man still a man.

[Canadian Dream]

Actually, the defenition of gender includes both gender as a role and biological gender, so I will ask you to specify that term. In fact, biological gender is a nature construct, while gender roles are a social construct.

[Tarannosaurus]

biological sex is real I agree that gender is a social construct. I think gender exists insofar as what sort of physical body/genitals (male/female/both) you want and feel comfortable with and identifying as male/ female in that sense. Apart from that I don't think you can feel or 'think as' just male/ female, those are too constricted. For example, I identify as female because I am comfortable in the female body not because I 'think' as female, or have certain traits, etc.

[Syvelocin]

I'm just finishing up with an Interpersonal Communications class. As you can imagine, gender has a lot to do with communication.

What I hated about the class was it was very black and white that way. During the gender segment, the professor discussed differences in gender communication. Of course, the majority of the women communicated like women and the majority of men communicated like men. I'm a mix. I thought like the men in the class on many topics, but I can't deny that's the same with so-called female traits in my head; that's one reason I identify closer to genderfluid or neutral than female or trans. But biologically, all my chromosomes are good. I'm 100% female. There's debates about varying levels of different hormones and their effects on babies in the womb, but other than that I think most of what gender is results from nurture. The rest of the psychological differences, whatever amount we're left with, are certainly due to sex, but my point is these could actually be much fewer than some people think.

Like, say, girls who grow up with brothers are more likely to be tomboys. Same with boys with lots of sisters. I read an article about a couple who's raising their child completely gender neutral. I'm interested in the results of that because nurture shapes who are for the rest of our lives. We have control over who we become, but it's a lot harder to be who you are when it's been suppressed your whole childhood. We learn so... deeply as kids. It's strange to think how drastically different of a person you'd be if you didn't have the gender stuff pushed on you, who would the true you be? I can't even know that about myself because I was raised a tomboy. It feels congruent to me now because that's who I was before the pressures of my teen years hit me, but if I was raised as neither gender or both genders equally, would I choose one or would I fall in the middle?