You create the impression that you’re opposed to the concept when you say things along the lines of not seeing why it should be a concept.
I know it isn’t your intention to convey dismissiveness. That doesn’t mean that you’re not, which is why there’s a fair amount of pushback.No one expects you to know, and you can get away with always using gender neutral without any issues.
You are expected to show people basic respect even if you don’t get it and listen if they correct you. If I get your favorite programming language wrong and you tell me, it would be rude for me to keep referencing your passion for intercal or what have you.But I am intending to be dismissive, because you are not putting forth any arguments.
Ok, lets go back to the basics. Is gender a social construct?
If you say it isn’t, then you are enforcing the Man/Woman duality of gender that is linked to sex. This is transphobic and not linked to any science.
If you say it is. Then gender has value only to people who care about it. Just like programming languages only have value to people who care about that.
So in a fair and just world, if you say, people need to care about the gender of another person, then equally they should care about the favorite programming language, and so on and so on with everyone’s thing. So my question is, ok, where does this end? What constitutes which things need to be acknowledged during a social interactions and which things don’t.
My argument, is you can strip it down to just a name. That is all you need. This is the ideal we should work towards.
Do we drop pronouns and genders today? No, I have never claimed that. I specifically stated in my first post like 200 years from now, when we are all dead.
First, I was saying that you weren’t intending on being dismissive of people’s identities that they cared about, but thanks for specifically clarifying that you’re being rude.
you are not putting forth any arguments.
And you’re evidently weak in reading comprehension.
Gender is more complex than a binary. It’s not an inate thing, but it’s also not entirely a social construct.
As you brought up: transgender people. If gender were a pure social construct then they wouldn’t feel wrong with the gender assigned to them by society. Other parts of gender are clearly socially defined.
Even biological sex is more complex than a man woman duality and is partly mediated by social forces. (What biological properties matter for sex, and what variations of those result in being a different sex? Is an individual with xxy chromosomes male?)I never said you needed to care, I said you needed to be polite if you make a mistake, and that people often take offense to being told that things about themselves they feel to be important don’t matter.
You’re entirely correct that we could all interact with each other only referring to each other by unique identifiers and the “I” and “you” pronouns.
That’s an assinine conclusion though. It kinda glosses over the whole “people like to talk to each other and socialize” thing. People often like to discuss pointless things like “how they’re doing”, “their interests”, “their families” and “hobbies”.
You’re not obligated to care or engage in these discussions, but people will take offense when you tell them that you don’t care about their children because they’re irrelevant.where does this end? What constitutes which things need to be acknowledged during a social interactions and which things don’t.
I don’t know how to tell you how to have a normal social interaction. If you have difficulty keeping track of what to do in social situations like that you might consider talking to a professional. Most people are able to use context to determine what needs to be shared in an interaction and don’t have a hard rule or checklist.
Typically people start with basic biographical information, then some personal trivia to help bootstrap the stereotyping of what sort of person they are (I like to cook, I work in computer security, and I enjoy nature), and then information about how they fit into the social network (spouse, children, siblings, religious or social organization membership).gender has value only to people who care about it
And shockingly, a lot of people find their gender to be important to them, and don’t like being told it doesn’t have value. Which is why, as I said before, people are giving you a lot of pushback.
There’s resistance to the notion that the only details about people that matter are the ones that are needed for others to address them. It turns out that people have a notion of “identity” that extends beyond their name, and that beyond having that identity they would like to express it.I am glad I went back to the basics.
Gender is more complex than a binary. It’s not an inate thing, but it’s also not entirely a social construct.
No! It is just a social construct and by saying that you made yourself a whole lot of transphobic friends.
What it means to present as a man/woman changes over time. So there is no way gender can be innate to people.
If gender were a pure social construct then they wouldn’t feel wrong with the gender assigned to them by society.
Gender dysphoria is real but that doesn’t make gender not a social construct. If you want to be a woman and women wear dresses, you will want to wear a dress. If women wear hoodies, then you want to wear hoodies.
I never said you needed to care, I said you needed to be polite if you make a mistake.
Ok, from now on, every time you call me “deaf_fish”, I will tut tut you as say I think you mean “deaf_fish who likes the C programming language”. If you don’t remember to address me as such I will feel bad and it won’t be very polite of you.
Edit: I have a question for you if English never had gendered pronouns, would you still be disagreeing with me?
You’re confusing gender expression with gender identity, and not doing a great job at reading comprehension as well.
Transphobes think gender is synonymous with biological sex. People who almost get it think that gender is entirely independent of biology. The truth is that gender is complicated. The link I shared gives a decent overview.
Do you think trans people transition because one day they decided to on a whim? Do you think if you flipped a coin to pick a child’s gender that that’s what they’d be?Set aside that you’ve decided to argue and actually think for a moment. Where do you think gender dysphoria comes from?
I don’t think your little argument is as compelling as you think. If you ask me to address you by a different name I would, and it is impolite to refuse to use someone’s preferred name.
Let me guess, your one joke is “and I identify as an attack helicopter hyuck hyuck hyuck”?The crux of the matter seems to be that you think you shouldn’t need to be respectful to people except when it suits you, and you’re irritated people might judge you for that. You’ve also got that trumped up conservative "there’s so many rules nowadays! You can’t just make a joke anymore!” energy.
Yes, if English never had gendered pronouns I’d still think gender as a concept would have reason to exist.
