/lit/ - Literature

>>10599782

>>10599782
sorry ot break ito you bub but there are none. get fucked you tryhard fukk

Biology. Frolic in whatever field of your mind, but when interacting with humans stay on Earth.

>>10599782
"gender is something external that is found"?

>>10599782
Unironically look into writings about trans issues (try Julia Serrano)

>>10599809
Yin and Yang isn't a construct, yet they can be appreciated as male and female

>I want to have an argument but I can't support my position

>>10599811
I think people often confuse "gender is a construct" with "gender isn't real" or "gender is meaningless." Gender can be real without gender essentialism being real.

>>10599782

I donno but they gotta be out there somewhere. Theres no way someone like YOU could be wrong about something...

>>10599788
>what are intersex people
>what are male-brained females/female brained females

>>10599823
Nah they aren't using it correctly

Its like say "math is arbitrary to our number system"

>>10599826
>what are hermaphrodites
>what is a sexual spectrum

>>10599828
Who isn't using it correctly?

It quite obviously is.

>what da difference between sex and gender lol
>also i am retarded lol

>>10599787
I'm glad we agree.

>>10599782
Gender is a construct but it's a small part of motivation and behaviour, and one shaped by biology at that.

People who say "gender is a construct" also believe in a blank state view of human nature that is unsupported by science or common sense.

So the arguments you are looking for are arguments against the blank state model (see pic related if you need help).

>>10599782
Gender is a social construct, you're not a fucking genius for figuring that out, but it is also biologically derived (like most things in society)

For example:

Boys liking Blue and girls liking pink is a social construct. There's no biological/evolutionary reason why boys would like blue and girls would like pink

Another example: Men being depicted with facial hair and woman aren't is biologically constructed aspect of gender, because of hormones and whatnot which allow men to grow facial hair

>>10599837
People that OP is quoting

>>10599782
>make up a word to give a "psychological" explanation to basic biology
>claim that your made up word is a construct

>>10599870
Sure, if you're looking at people who write thinkpieces for Slate or something. But people like Judith Butler mean something quite different from the common misinterpretation

>>10599826
>what are intersex people
mutants
>what are male-brained females/female brained females
bullshit pseudo science based on some weak interpretations of data that isn't anywhere near studied enough by people who already had a conclusion and where looking for an excuse to justify it

>>10599882
Well for one gender in human terms has been dictated by the hierarchy that has been put in place since we were primitive beings, and we are just now evolving out of that stage.

>>10599893
>we are evolving out of hierarchy
how the hell did you arrive at that conclusion?

>>10599893
I doubt she would disagree with the gist of what you're saying, but the "put in place" thing is weird. Gender roles would have likely still been distinct if there wasn't a large differential in physical strength between men and women, but there would not have been such a disparity (if any) in social power

>>10599782
My fist is a construct!

>>10599909
Look up anything having to do with human ecology and it's relation to the division of labor by sex, which has been historically present in all societies but declines in places of relative abundance where physical strength is not such an important part of life

>>10599931
>Look up anything having to do with human ecology and it's relation to the division of labor by sex
in what time span? you cant ignore the people constantly attempting to meddle with it, just look at how people lived under communism
>the division of labor by sex, which has been historically present in all societies but declines in places of relative abundance where physical strength is not such an important part of life
there is a strong biological reason behind the division of labor by sex and it isnt just physical strenght

>>10599823
>Gender can be real without gender essentialism being real
how

>>10599909
Easy, look at the current social structure and look at the impact the liberal voice movement has been.

Also, with technology the way it is, we are going to be moving into a renaissance in the arts and religion very soon.


>>10599920
Wrong again, remeber old tribes were run with with the leaders of the hunting trips, and the leaders were the 'alphas'.

Woman that were with the better males had more social power in the sense that they could use their husbands influence to get what they wanted.

This is a total flip from today.
Now woman are allowed to be the leaders, and men can instead handle the social power dynamic.

Lol this thread shows how fucking retarded, brainwashed and liberal this board is. Agreeing with populistic opinion doesnt make you progressive or smart you fucking pseuds.

Male and female are different. Girls prefer playing with girly toys, dolls they love pink and boys prefer action figures, war simulation, guns etc. Go check your test levels if you seriously think you having a dick is a social construct

>>10599998
sex isnt the same thing as gender buddy :)

>>10599959
>in what time span?
All of human history, and pre-history

As for the division of labor being based on physical strength, yes it is an oversimplification but it's way closer to the truth than "women are meant for this, men are meant for that." Humans are so successful because of our ability to rapidly adapt to drastically different environments. We're able to do this because of the role culture plays in our lives - culture has a large effect on behavior but can change much more quickly than biology. The environments in western, rich countries are no longer such that a sex-based division of labor is beneficial (i.e. would confer fitness benefits)

lemme construct my dick into your vagina, fagget!

>>10599865
slate

>>10599984

“Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all, -but that they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all ‘language.’”

Your pleb is showing

>>10600013
Women are meant to get pregnant, they have been doing it since there was such a thing as women, I think that's a pretty good reason behind it, how are we going to adapt to women not getting pregnant anymore? How is culture going to create human life?

>>10600050
translate that into plain speak i cant focus at all right now lmao

>>10599782
History. There are basically 3 definitions of gender:
1. synonymous with sex.
2. a linguistic categorisation (pretty much being synonymous with 'type' but more narrowly applied than its etymological origin and the word 'type' itself)
3. a social construct, characteristics and actions that are feminine and masculine (often corresponded to sexes but not necessarily). Sometimes this includes the acknowledgement that many of these things align or derive to/from sex, sometimes not. You can think of this definition as a subset of definition 2. An extension of this definition is all the gender studies and social science additions. Like other genders, and elaborations on characteristics/actions/roles. You may be able to consider this a 4th definition.

So basically, you should indicate what you actually mean otherwise the person you're interacting with will not know what you mean. Given that there are 3-4 definitions, and a lot of room for subjectivity and debate. For me, I think it's useful to distinguish what is social and what is biological, obviously there is a distinction, but that's not to say they aren't very related. It's a matter of details and specificity.

>>10599998
>Girls prefer playing with girly toys, dolls they love pink and boys prefer action figures, war simulation, guns etc.
Wrong. Any retard need only 'think' to understand that. I don't know what to tell you if you can't look through yourself and culture, to find objectivity.

>>10599782
the argument that "gender is a social construct" is proposed by social scientists and humanists who examine everything using the tools of social science and the humanities - i.e. problems are always social problems, solutions are always social change, words are important, and everything can be explained by social/cultural factors (i.e. 'nurture' is the only relevant factor and 'nature' is dismissed)

because they operate in an academic silo, they disregard milder alternative and cross-disciplinary explanations of phenomena because these would ultimately tell boring and politically complex stories...

instead, they follow perverse incentives to create simplified political narratives which never leave the "humanities and social sciences" domain of knowledge, so they can endlessly publish garbage papers on a conga-line of intractible "social" problems whose complexities probably lie in cross-generational genetics/epigenetics as much as socioeconomic factors (which can arguably be viewed as a symptom rather than a cause of some social problems passed down through intergenerational trauma/addiction/etc. long divorced from environmental circumstances or events which could easily overturn them without extreme interventions)

it is true though that basically the best chance some people have is to optimize environmental influences at as young an age as possible... however, it seems borderline insane, extremely arrogant, and dystopian to enact a mass culture environment where every single person is treated as a potential gender minority

it takes huge social pressure to attempt this dumb gender revolution shit, and it is entirely the wrong problem to be solving when ordinary people are basically staring down the barrel of literal refeudalisation fuelled by globalised labor, automation, and asset price inflation

>>10599984
>marxism can be real without every single person falling neatly into the "worker" or "capitalist" classes
how

>>10600053
Women can still get pregnant, but it's only 9, 18, or 27 months out of her life. The capacity for pregnancy doesn't need to dictate the rest of women's lives, especially now that the physical consequences of pregnancy and childbirth can be helped by medicine. After the child is born, her life is necessarily effected because she is a parent. But there is no need for motherhood to be so different from fatherhood. In fact, women (and men) are happier when parenting is shared and both the mother and father are active and involved to an equal degree.

also, artificial wombs

>>10599996
>we are going to be moving into a renaissance in the arts and religion very soon.
what does that have to do with the disappearance of hierarchies? true art and true religion need very strong hierarchies to make any sense

>>10600079
pretty much this, the underlying belief is that they can socially engineer society to flatten hierarchies, everything else on top of that is just whatever is more convenient for the main goal

>>10600085
A golden age creates an equilibrium throughout society as virtues and morals become raised

>>10600081
im not a marxist? haha what

>>10600081
i was just asking why the poster thought that no need to turn this into a 4chan debate you bored fagg

>>10599996
Indirect social power (i.e. power that can only be used through a male conduit) is not comparable to direct social power.

Your last assertion needs some backing up

>>10600094
it doesn't matter what you are, i am just saying that most categories have fuzzy borders in one way or another, this doesn't mean that they are meaningless

>>10600083
But how do we abolish the division of labor? Men should be producing babies too, the fact that you think the biggest biological difference between men and women is physical strength already tells me you are batshit insane, you are fucking built to be a mother like it or not

>>10600100
Exactly, we are moving away from indirect social power.

Females can now hold actual social power using social media

>>10600065
Basically he's saying that concepts can be connected by overlapping similarities, without any single trait being essential for category membership. Look into fuzzy categories and family relationships.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#LangGameFamiRese

I feel bad for calling you a pleb now when you genuinely wanted to learn more, we've all start somewhere

Ooh I wrote a poem about this

I ponder, what is this beauty, if we can't grasp it, and molest it bound to paper?

I wonder, how do I know If I've seen it, when others can never see where I got this glean?

My mind, is but of sodomy, it is a mine, like a frontal lobotomy.

What are you?
I, muse, my God?
Three is this your only Key? What are you trying to tell me?

Have you touched me so, do others also feel this glow?
To the one, with no window, I stow these thoughts bellow
>>10600118

>>10600108
The division of labor is being eroded whether you like it or not, it's a response to outside conditions that will be hard (and undesirable) to roll back. Doesn't mean we can't help it along the way though

I never said physical strength was the biggest difference, only that it was a meaningful one that helped determine which groups have been able to have social power

>>10600110
lol

>>10599826
>what are intersex people
Rare, deformed, and frequently lacking sexual function.
>what are male-brained females/female brained females
Ill. I assume you meant "female brained males".
>>10599885
That second answer isn't entirely true. I'm no Brainogrophist, but there are apparently measurable hormonal differences in many people with gender dysphoria.

>>10600128
All categories are just a way to sacrifice complexity for coherence

>>10599782
Gender barely has a coherent definition in the first place, the same goes for "social construct".
That sentence can literally mean andything and everything.
But if you think it means "there are no inherent differences between men and women in physical and mental traits", you're just flat out wrong and creationist-tier.

>>10599826

Using this sort of logic, you cant claim the following to be true

>humans have arms
>humans have legs
>humans have eyes
>humans have frontal lobes

Because there are very rare conditions where people are born without those things.

>>10600161
But it doesn't really sacrifice anything

>tfw preop uktrabutch lesbian transsexual woman (male) who likes sports and smoking cigars and playing poker and uses he/him/his pronouns and the woman's center at my uni can't get me expelled for invading their space and blowing smoke and farting at them because according to their own bullshit I'm really a woman even though it's all just a lie to fuck with them

>>10599826
>what are intersex people
People who aren't relevant to the discussion since we're talking about gender, not sex.
>what are male-brained females/female brained females
It's amazing how feminists bring up the male-brained thing only when trannies and tranies-related matters come up. Otherwise it's a completely sexist thing to say.

>>10600182
It's turning something concrete into an abstraction and erasing any details or relationships that you deem to be irrelevant at the time

>>10599782
Gender is a social construct determined by biological sex. That is so. But it's idiotic to try and deconstruct it because its core is based in evolutionary psychology. There might be aberrations but the vast majority of men and women will behave along genetically and hormonally predetermined lines. Experiments with babies and toddlers have shown that. Go to Sweden and look what total equality has done in terms of job choice.

>>10600193
We do that literally all the time without thinking

>>10600219
Yes, and?

>>10600224
I'm showing nothing is ever sacrificed, but it's always an existing form of thought organiztion in the human psyche

>>10600230
Yes, I'm saying the system of human thought organization necessarily sacrifices complexity and distorts the world into coherent stories when none may be there

>>10600235
Or misses aspects of things that would otherwise be visible. We are limited by our need to prioritize our attention

>>10600235
>when none may be there
>millions of years of evolutionary history with similar/identical patterns of behavior in other animals

>>10600077
How is that wrong you fucking idiot? Do some research instead of reading retarded facebook articles your friends liked on facebook.

Just because millenials are retarded and have nothing to do in their lives and start making things up doesnt make it true. This is all a consequence of easy life today

>>10600235
>>10600241
Nah the inner and outer are part of the same experience as a being

>>10600242
Sure, sometimes the stories may be true. We can discern meaningful relationships between things. But that doesn't change the fact that we are living in a world that is more complex than we are able to understand, and our brain will distort reality in an effort to reduce this complexity

>>10600250
What do you mean?

>>1060025
(Inner experience is subjective)
(Outer experience is objective)
Being is the one who sees between both

>>10600264
But inner experience is the only experience, the outside world provides stimuli (i.e. information)

>>10600269
No, the part between the two experiences provides the stimuli. (That part that has free will, the part of the I that dictates thought)

>how do you know your not looking into your body right now, and the "outside world" is nothing merely but the place you originally come from
>if you view the other side, you see the place become

>>10600274
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with your greentexts, but I know I'm not going to solve free will tonight so I'll choose to agree to disagree. If you're quoting something can you post the source?

Goodnight anon, this thread's been more fun than I would have expected from the OP

>>10600324
Sorry its all from me, if you find a source that says the same thing let me know

But I studied clinical pyschology and Buddhism

The brain in each sex has different specializations which are complementary. Men present more asymmetry in their brains, which means more specific specialization for each brain module. More activity in their limbic system means that they are more likely to use physical agression as an outlet for emotional distress, while women have more activity in the thalamic are which means they tend to use verbal agression instead. Women are also more symmetry in the brain (not as specific specialization in each hemisphere and more connections between them). As a general trend, men are better wired for spatial tasks and motor habilities. They tend to surpass women in mathematical rationalization, too. Women, on the other hand, are better at perceptive speed, in verbal fluidity and surpass men in manual tasks which require precision. Both models are complementary and have helped the species to survive, which is why they have been selected.

The reason why this happens is decided by which chromosomes you have and afterwards the genes they activate. With the chromosome Y, you get Testis-Determining Factor (TDF), which would turn the genotype Y into a fenotype Y. Failure to activate the TDF means a person which a genotype Y but with a X fenotype. In other words, someone with XY chromosomes and a female appearance (with undeveloped gonads). It's rare for these things to happen, as usually the fenotype coincides with the genotype and determine both brain structure and hormone production. There are also exceptions which aren't as extreme, but men and women ARE different.

There's an interesting experiment from 1965: David Reimer was subjected to a sex change as a baby because they had burnt his penis when doing circumcision. Because of that, they decided to raise him as a girl. In spite of that, he continued to act like a boy and felt like a boy even though they never told him about what had happened. He ended up commiting suicide as an adult.

Now, since humans are social creatures as well as biological ones, we DO make social constructs, but those are built upon biological factors. The fact that pink is associated with women is a social construct (as it only started being like that in the 1950s) or even what clothes people wear and their associations with gender (skirts are associated with women, but in a lot of cultures men wear or wore skirts). There are social constructs, but the biological factors and imperatives will be the base of everything.

>>10600401
Tldr

I've never heard the arguments for "social constructs" even being a real thing.

>>10599826
But doesn't the term female or male brained imply that gender is real and not a social construct?

>>10599782

No one beside PC tryharders can make sense of the notion of gender as separated from biological sex.

>>10600434
>Too long didn't read
>Literature forum
Things that make you go hmm

Impossible to answer since I don't know if you are a retard who thinks contemporary libfems hold that belief or a libfem arguing against radfems.

>>10600460
Lobsters

>>10600460
this is a Jordan Peterson forum, and his lectures are available in video form

>>10600434

And that's how gender studies were born.

Gender is a construct, you probably want to say sex is not a construct, but then you'll have a very awkward time.

The problem with sex as a construct is that most people don't realize science doesn't care about your feelings, and if your body goes through or has one of the opposite criterion (which is common) you can't rely on "But I'm really a man, it's just the cancer that gave me some XX profile along with my XY profile", because science says "Gender is a construct and your bloodtest says your SEX is a mostly female hermaphrodite now"

>>10599998
>Male and female are different. Girls prefer playing with girly toys, dolls they love pink and boys prefer action figures, war simulation, guns etc. Go check your test levels if you seriously think you having a dick is a social construct
2/10 bait, you aren't even trying. The shortest bit to explain is that pink was a masculine color for most of human history.

>>10599782
The existance of sexual chromosomes.
At such not much of an argument, but that's fine because "gender is a social construct" itself isn't an argument but a collection of logical fallacies.

>>10599782
Tfw in my language there isn't even a word for gender. Gender-idiology is just part of a greater agenda with cultural marxist roots.

>>10599782
Gender doesn't exist

>>10599782
question to the gender studies majors ITT
Doesn't being a transgender only further cements the concept of binary gender roles? if gender isn't real then why do transgender people feel offended when one misuses their pronouns

>>10599782
language is a social construct too so your words don't mean anything. i win.

>>10601154
pronouns reflect sex (male or female), gender are the specific rules of conduct expected from each biological sex.

Trans people don't have gender issues, they have SEX issues. Their identity tells them they belong in a opposite sex body, regardless of what set of socially constructed rules (gender) feel more close to.

Mental health is a social construct. Autism isn't any less healthy than the ideal in Western Society and you have no basis to claim otherwise

>>10599782
Bruce Reimer experiment.

>>10599782
I don't know because I don't waste time researching stupid shit.

>Determinists often imply that a man’s ideas are necessarily determined by the ideas of others, of “society.” Yet A and B can hear the same idea propounded; A can adopt it as valid while B will not. Each man, therefore, has the free choice of adopting or not adopting an idea or value. It is true that many men may uncritically adopt the ideas of others; yet this process cannot regress infinitely. At some point in time, the idea originated, that is, the idea was not taken from others, but was arrived at by some mind independently and creatively. This is logically necessary for any given idea.
So, if you trace the concept of gender to its origins, a clear relation with the biological difference of males and females can be seen, therefore, it's not a social construct. You can use this argument against the whole concept of a social construct if you want, not only gender stuff.

>>10599826
>female brained
>male brained
>gender is still a construct though

>>10599782
I think the best argument is to say that if you're looking at it from a social constructionist lens then everything is technically a construct, same with gender. However, these constructs are generally informed by biological truths and as such have a strong basis in physical reality. That said when we consider these two suppositions in context it's rather clear that the nature of gender as a construct is largely irrelevant to any discussion involving gender besides defining the semantics.

In short, the best argument is to say that the fact that it is a construct is completley pointless statment. Pointing that out in any serious conversation is akin to walking into a high level biology lecture at some university and shouting "MY MOM FUCKED MY DAD", like, everyone there fucking knows that you retard why the fuck are you even bringing it up? Might as well shout that the sky is usually blue or that ice is fucking cold.

The best argument is just to say "who fucking cares?"

What are the arguments for it?

Much evidence suggests that men and women are different: different levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, different genitalia, different consumer behaviour, different in a lot of ways.

There is a smaller, but growing body of evidence that suggests these differences persist even when society attempts to control for "pressure" that might "force" women and men to develop along these different paths.

There is an intuitive and simple evolutionary and psychological explanation for why these differences exist.

Pitted against all of this are two things:
1. complex and incredible theories that make little or no intuitive sense and which are almost totally unsupported by any data
and
2. a maniacal commitment to a warped perception of equality

You do not need to argue that gender is not a construct, because we are all still waiting for someone - anyone - to provide actual empirical data suggesting that it is. From the USSR to the Kibbutz to Sweden, every time women and men are treated the same and left to their own devices women turn out to be women and men turn out to be men. Women grow tits, men grow balls. Not controversial. Women are agreeable, men are competitive? Call the thought police.

>>10601298
What is "cold" is a social construct anon. What is cold to an African vs. an Eskimo, for instance. To define something as cold within our society can excludes those who either don't feel cold at what we define as cold or people who would label it worse. I'd even go as far to say as the label of "cold" is created by society to benefit those who see a certain temperature as cold vs. those who do not.

>>10601171

This.

>>10601341
Kind of my point. If you're looking at things from a social constructionist lens then you can use this kind of logic to redefine literally everything based on some individual's perspective on the matter. Provided someone else has a different perspective then you can define a completley new or even contradictory definition to all the previous definitions.

That being said, if your definition has no clear basis in fact then it's going to be rejected by the vast majority of people, as such pretty much all socially accepted definitions for these terms, including gender, have some sort of physical even if their definitions go beyond just plain physical descriptions of things and go into social norms and such.

For example, if you put a svelt male into a dress and a wig and give him some makeup, I think it would be safe to say that a lot of people would be at least reasonably comfortable with saying "Sure if that person wants to identify themselves as a woman that's fine, whatever." They might have reservations about it, they might not agree with it personally, and they might have their limits there, but most people would probably go along with it provided the situation is otherwise reasonable.

However, if put a shirtless bald male Norwegian bodybuilder with a handlebar mustache in front of someone and tell them to start flexing I don't care WHO you put in front of him, NOBODY is going to identify that individual as a woman, no questions asked, full stop. It does not matter how socialized they are, what culture they come from, what sort of ideology they subscribe to or what sort of lens they like to think they view the whole world through, that individual is going to identify that person as a man and a male. There is no amount of social conditioning that can change that.

It's kind of like if you have someone stick their hand in some water. They'll tell you if they think it's hot or cold, and their awnser will depend on their personal perspectives and what's been going on around them for their whole lives, sure. However, if you then ask them to stick their dry hand in liquid lead they'll tell you "fuck no that's too hot" and if ask them to do the same thing with liquid nitrogen they'll say "fuck no that's too cold". It doesn't matter who they are, where they come from, or what kind of rationale you try to give them, the response is going to be the same unless they're unhinged.

>>10601154
It does if you're a TERF, which is an unpopular position these days. Trans people won't be offended if you use the wrong pronouns as long as you're making a good faith effort. Look into trans critiques of feminism.

Look at wild humans

>>10600154
WRONG. The study that was based off of used people who had already transitioned i.e pumped full of hormones already

>>10599782
If genders are a social construct, that means they are real. Cultural objects are real and they don't change at our will. ALso, a part of gender roles is atrictly linked with sex, biology.
They claim other civilizations had different gender roles, but have they found any civilization without any kind of gender role?

>>10599826
Genetic aberrations. It's like saying "two eyes, a nose and a mouth is a construct because some people are born or end up with malformed facial features".

"Gender" is a meaningless term based upon the research of a kike hack child abuser whose entire work was predicated on a hypothesis which failed (and resulted in the suicide of the child he was experimenting on).
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kjAiVAzJ_Q

Men have worn dresses (togas), plaited their hair, worn kohl and powder and wigs, hell they even invented high heels, as peacocking and displays of patricianhood, wealth and status have existed everywhere, but always the male/female power dynamic has expressed itself very clearly, and where it hasn't expressed itself, the society has degraded into entropy (e.g. the handful of failed matriarchies, the "progressive" Celtic tribes that were allegedly rife with catamites, women partying while the lands are invaded, their weak men suitably bulldozed by rivals etc).

"Gender" is a meme. If you have any self respect you'll stop using it. The correct term is "sex".

>>10603539
fuck, that video made me mad and sad

>>10599826
Lol imagine telling a feminist shes female brained as a fucking white male. Youd be crucified.

>>10599782
its definition is that of a construct, you can't argue against that i guess

>>10603548
same :-(