this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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Gender is the cultural outcome of primary and secondary sexual characteristics and in no meaningfully physical way exist. In other words, we traditionally have a "boy" culture and a "girl" culture, not a gender. We are artificially indoctrinated and assimilated into a given culture based on primary or secondary sexual characteristics.
Likewise, it follows that all other gender identities are similarly a cultural phenomenon and not the outcome of some essential characteristic of the individual.
Gender cultures are, at least historically speaking, bad. They've generally been used to persecute people who aren't in the dominant (boy) gender, and the conditions dictating mobility between genders is so intensly arbitrary that it warrants abolishing the whole stupid idea. Gender dysphoria is a symptom, generally, of the tyranny of these conditions.
(PS, I totally am open to being wrong about this.)
I slightly disagree. While the predominant aspects are cultural there is strong links between hormone levels and certain character traits. Also physical aspects do affect the character development. E.g. tall men tend to be more intimidating than small women, so their characters adjust to taking advantage or mitigating these effects.
The important point is that there is no absolutes and people should not be held up to stereotypes, but there is correlation between the physical aspects and character development.
But these traits are secondary and tertiary sexual characteristics (ie they are tied to your biological sex). They are certainly the origin of gender identity, but they don't justify it. My dissatisfaction is not with the concept of sex. It's fair to say, "oh that person has a penis, that person is a woman, that person is intersex," and we should strive to develop better, more diverse sexual classifies, but gender? Na.
Gender roles/ jobs, fem and masculine, the separation of media to cater towards one gender or the other, the gendering of clothes, attitudes, and opinions, and finally the gendering of sex. It's all just caveman talk, imo
I generally agree, but for hard physical labor you will simply find more men doing them even in a perfectly equal society. Simply because the body shape of biological men tends to be more suitable. Of course there will also be "manly" biological men that dont identify as men, or "feminine" biological men that do identify as such, etc. It is important that these are not absolutes, but trends. So they allow for general statements but never to judge for an individual.
I get what you are meaning to say, that secondary sexual characteristics dictate certain trends and limits. I agree.
However, what I find interesting is that historically, the bulk of manual labor was done by the lowest class cultures. It depends on the time and place, but indentured servants, slaves, and women of the household were expected to do most of the labor. These decisions were not made on the merits of absolute physical strength, but rather by ones social status.
In fact, the strongest men. Those with the most physical apitude and power, tended to enjoy leisure at the expense of these lower classes. Including thier women.
The idea that strong men make strong countries, or do the best work, is a myth. Typically, wealth is built by poor men, women, and subjugated social classes, and the mythical status of the strong man gender stereotype serves to justify this arrangement.
So yes, the strongest biological male human will probably always outlift the strongest biological female, but the actual outcomes of who does the work is decided by gender, and historically, the labor fell on the woman. See what I mean about gender being, "bad?"
there are links between hormone levels and certain character traits, but those hormone levels aren't necessarily determined by sex and are 100% mutable in the modern era.