What is Gender?

[Dalton_Holt]

We all know what biological gender is, also known as sex. I used to think gender and sex were interchangeable, in fact I never understood the concept of gender as it is truly defined. It's basically nothing more than a personality type. That's it. In fact, if you're going to detach gender from sex, then first of all, you have to STOP calling it gender. And you have to stop labeling genders as male, female, and even transgender. It's the labeling that created this whole mess anyway. That creates all this discrimination and confusion. If you want to call it anything, call it personality types. Better yet, don't label at all and let people think for themselves.

There's no such thing as masculine and feminine. While yes, there are generally differences between the behavior of men and women, brought on by testosterone/estrogen and simply slight differences in the brain, there is no binary way to distinguish between them. There are often exceptions, as seen by transgenders, agenders, etc. While testosterone might make men more aggressive, it does not make them a totally different type of human. Most of the differences between men and women were brought on by gender and social norms, not by biology. The whole pink and blue thing was created by corporations to sell gender specified items, same with action figures and dolls. Gender is programmed into our brains from childhood, we are literally brainwashed into being "cisgender." The idea that your genitals somehow pre determined your entire personality, into a convenient label.

What's ironic is that I actual give myself a label. Agender. Meaning no gender. And my theory is that everyone is agender. I prefer to call myself "just me", or something similar. And really, that's what everyone is. You are just you. You decide how you want to be. So I give anyone who reads this the following advice: Think about who you are as an intelligent human being. Define yourself in your own terms, and ask yourself, "am I really the 'gender' that was forced upon me?" Then ask, "do I fall under any specific label? Or am I just me?"

[northy]

I think that gender is more to do with which biological sex you identify with. I don't think that my gender is a personality type, we have Myers-Briggs for that and you can get male, female and other genders all with the same Myers-Briggs indicator. Also, I think that the gender of someone does affect their personality. If we go back to before corporations and such, humans evolved so that men (for example) want sex and women want security to raise their children (seen today as money usually). We don't fully understand how DNA works, but by natural selection, the human race in general has these traits associated with the biological sex.

[Dalton_Holt]

I think that gender is more to do with which biological sex you identify with. I don't think that my gender is a personality type, we have Myers-Briggs for that and you can get male, female and other genders all with the same Myers-Briggs indicator. Also, I think that the gender of someone does affect their personality. If we go back to before corporations and such, humans evolved so that men (for example) want sex and women want security to raise their children (seen today as money usually). We don't fully understand how DNA works, but by natural selection, the human race in general has these traits associated with the biological sex.

Yes but they are not always true. There are biological men who feel more like women. Many men are asexual or simply have a low sex drive, not caring much for sex but rather interesting in the emotional aspects of a relationship. Men also typically are more confident, more analytical and logical, are more kinesthetic or auditory thinkers. Women on the other hand tend to be creative and imaginative, visual thinkers. These traits give to many more sub traits, like whether they remember faces or names easier. But I can name so many cisgender people who don't necessarily follow these traits. They are not constant, they're not concrete, they merely are generalizations. Stereotypes.

But is it really different enough to define by two opposite labels?

Since the beginning of humanity there have been gender roles. The man usually went out hunting while the woman stayed home or gathered. Later on the men went to war and the woman stayed home to care for the kids. All this makes sense, due to the physical nature of the sexes. Men are stronger, they are more adapted to hunting and fighting. If they have kids, the mother will have to stay with the kids. Since the bond between the child and mother is the strongest, it again makes sense that the woman would stay with the child.

This resulted in men and women being raised differently. Men were supposed to be strong, dominating, and emotionless. While these are natural traits that are more common in men, they were emphasized more. Since they were supposed to be going to war, they were trained to think less about orders and abandon compassion. Women were raised to be more gentle and caring, since they had to care for a child.

In today's society, there is no use for gender roles. While there is war, it is pointless and needs to be put to a stop. Raising men to be future soldiers just makes them more easily brainwashed, takes away some freedom of expression, and makes them less compassionate. Since both men and women work, and modern technology makes them equally strong in combat, there's no need to raising them as "masculine" and "feminine." However, corporations took advantage of the gender roles, and strengthened them even more. Creating the blue and pink associations, the boys and girls sections, etc.

What would happen if you raised a boy and a girl in exactly the same way? Not even calling them boy or girl, he or she. Keeping them isolated from gender enforcing propaganda. How different do you think they'll be?

[UNKNOWN8198]

I think that the idea that biological gender is basically nothing more than a personality type is, at best, misguided. I think I understand the idea behind it, but by saying that it can be defined as a group of personality types (which is quite similar to defining it as 'male', 'female' etc anyway for the most part) means that it must be, and stay, a constant feature about a person, which it doesn't always. Personally, I don't have the foggiest what my 'gender' is, because it varies on a daily basis, so defining my gender by any sort of 'grouping' wouldn't work, because I would flit between groups all the time.

Also, as for detaching gender from sex, it is. That's why we call it 'gender' and 'sex'. If you were to give 'gender' a different, but for all intents and purposes equivalent, name, then the same problem would arise.

I do agree that the current system of attempting to group things (like gender and sexuality) doesn't really work, however you hit the problem that the majority of people just don't care, so nothing about it is going to change. However, the use of the grouping system can sometimes be helpful, if far more convoluted than need be. Also, as with any grouping system, there are always going to be anomalies that don't fit in, or can be put in multiple groups. Also you then get the problem of when to stop classifying. For example, if I wanted to sort colors, I could look at something blue and go 'that's blue', someone else could go 'that's sky blue' and someone else could go 'that's azure'. Because everyone is unique, and everyone has a unique perspective, you could class everyone in their own group, but then the whole point of having a classification system is lost. Then again, if you don't do that part of that persons identity is going to be lost, so the classification system has flaws. See the problem? We could go by your idea of going 'I'm just me' but then what is the point at all, because that doesn't give anyone any information about you. It may be true, but in the long run doesn't help anyone and you may as well just refuse to answer the question.

[northy]

Yes but they are not always true. There are biological men who feel more like women. Many men are asexual or simply have a low sex drive, not caring much for sex but rather interesting in the emotional aspects of a relationship. Men also typically are more confident, more analytical and logical, are more kinesthetic or auditory thinkers. Women on the other hand tend to be creative and imaginative, visual thinkers. These traits give to many more sub traits, like whether they remember faces or names easier. But I can name so many cisgender people who don't necessarily follow these traits. They are not constant, they're not concrete, they merely are generalizations. Stereotypes.

But is it really different enough to define by two opposite labels?

Since the beginning of humanity there have been gender roles. The man usually went out hunting while the woman stayed home or gathered. Later on the men went to war and the woman stayed home to care for the kids. All this makes sense, due to the physical nature of the sexes. Men are stronger, they are more adapted to hunting and fighting. If they have kids, the mother will have to stay with the kids. Since the bond between the child and mother is the strongest, it again makes sense that the woman would stay with the child.

This resulted in men and women being raised differently. Men were supposed to be strong, dominating, and emotionless. While these are natural traits that are more common in men, they were emphasized more. Since they were supposed to be going to war, they were trained to think less about orders and abandon compassion. Women were raised to be more gentle and caring, since they had to care for a child.

In today's society, there is no use for gender roles. While there is war, it is pointless and needs to be put to a stop. Raising men to be future soldiers just makes them more easily brainwashed, takes away some freedom of expression, and makes them less compassionate. Since both men and women work, and modern technology makes them equally strong in combat, there's no need to raising them as "masculine" and "feminine." However, corporations took advantage of the gender roles, and strengthened them even more. Creating the blue and pink associations, the boys and girls sections, etc.

What would happen if you raised a boy and a girl in exactly the same way? Not even calling them boy or girl, he or she. Keeping them isolated from gender enforcing propaganda. How different do you think they'll be?

Look, I'm not saying that gender is limited to male and female. I think that your sex and thus your genes affect your personality. Also, with blue and pink associations, I know a boy who is obsessed with pink things and find that a lot of the young males like pink. I also don't understand your obsession with the 'corporations', best put on the tin foil hats?
As to your question at the end, yes. I think that they would be different.