A contradiction in the liberal view of gender

[shadow]

Now, there are exceptions, but overall it's been my experience that way more girls are going to scream and stand on a chair around spiders, and men are more likely to hit walls and doors or to throw furniture when they feel frustrated.  And that's one thing I don't like about the modern narrative-- that stereotypes are evil.  It's expecting people to CONFORM to stereotypes, or assuming in particular cases that they must have conformed to them, that is evil.

I'm a girl and I don't give a crap about spiders. Having eight legs doesn't make something more dangerous than if it had six.

I generally agree with your statement, though. Stereotypes can be used as judgement shortcuts to basically size someone up when you don't know anythings else about them. To that extent, they can be useful. But they become harmful when they start to define a person and make it so they have to live that stereotype every day, even if it doesn't describe them at all. From my experience, when I'm falsely stereotyped it's frustrating and a little demoralizing, so I try to avoid inflicting that upon others as much as possible.

[The Grand Nudger]

Good luck with that, when it comes to gender, Shadow.  You'll need it. Funny thing about gender constructs, we don;t usually recognize when the gender construct is arbitrary - not a stereotype..just flat out arbitrary. You, for example...opined on spiders. That betrays a gender construct in your own mind.

"Im a girl, but" - but what? The but is the construct - and it still exists even if you don;t happen to be afraid of spiders. You mention that because it plays oin you. In your experience, are girls afraid of spiders? Is that somehow stereotypical of the sex..or might that be manufactured? Might it be arbitrary?

[shadow]

Good luck with that, when it comes to gender, Shadow.  You'll need it.

Thanks?

Funny thing about gender constructs, we don;t usually recognize when the gender construct is arbitrary - not a stereotype..just flat out arbitrary.  You, for example...opined on spiders.  That betrays a gender construct in your own mind.

I don't understand your last sentence. Could you clarify?

"Im a girl, but" - but what?  The but is the construct - and it still exists even if you don;t happen to be afraid of spiders.  You mention that because it plays oin you.  In your experience, are girls afraid of spiders?  Is that somehow stereotypical of the sex..or might that be manufactured?  Might it be arbitrary?

Ben said that. I don't think it's an accurate stereotype, whether it has any validity to him would depend on his own experience. Stereotypes are by definition a very imprecise form of judgement. I'd agree it's hard to distinguish between when stereotypes have any inherent validity and when they form a sort of self fulfilling prophecy.

[The Grand Nudger]

Funny thing about gender constructs, we don;t usually recognize when the gender construct is arbitrary - not a stereotype..just flat out arbitrary.  You, for example...opined on spiders.  That betrays a gender construct in your own mind.

I don't understand your last sentence. Could you clarify?

Sure, you racked your mind for ways to defy what you saw as gender indicative, as a stereotype.  What came out was "spiders".  You're a girl, but not afraid of spiders.  This is to be taken as informative of something.  Despite you thinking it's not an accurate stereotype, it still stuck out at you.  This is an exposition on an arbitrary gender role.

It exists, it exists in your own mind, it exists in the minds of others, regardless of whether or not you think it;s "valid" - human beings are funny that way, eh?

So, lets run with it. If someone wanted to be identified as or live as "the gender that;s afraid of spiders" - then...okay, whatever, right - regardless of whether or not they were born with peen or vag, hmn? Regardless of whether or not the gender referenced is "valid"..and regardless of whether or not the designation is arbitrary.

Yes?

[bennyboy]

Stereotypes are a strange kind of self-reinforcing phenomenon; they start a statistical tool of the brain to identify and categorise the common features of something. But then on top of that, you get the social effect of people conforming to stereotypes, which reinforces them but kind of distorts the data set that they work on. So like a snowballing or gravity well effect they get stronger, at first relatively accurately, but later, less accurately as a result of this distortion.

When I first came out I played into the gay stereotypes big time. I don't know exactly why I wanted to pigeonhole myself like that but I did; I think it was probably to do with wanting to belong/fit in and to do with having solid and clear expectations. But as I've got older I don't do that any more... now I don't pigeonhole myself at all... I'm just me.

Good post!

That's something to seriously consider: that once a stereotype's in place, people may consciously strengthen it. Or, even more insidiously, they may fall into step with that stereotype just because that's how people work. They say if you tell a kid he's bad, he'll almost certainly act badly. I guess if you tell a young man he's super-gay, he'll act super-gayly.

I wondered about that when I was young, actually. Some of the gay guys in Vancouver were way too la-dee-daaaaa for my comfort (I mean, they really seemed to be going for maximum swish!), and I wasn't sure if that was just a social thing (like valley girls talking the way they did), or if something about being gay makes you lisp (I mean, I can imagine what might do that, but zomg it would have to be a LOT of that), or if it was a social cue so they could more easily identify each other at a glance, or what. But to me, the degree of drama they (I mean this particular kind of gay man that I was familiar with in the 90s) exhibited didn't seem to have anything to do with gender or sexuality. It seemed like Hollywood drama rehearsal 24/7

Since then, I've met some gay soldiers, teachers, and so on, and some of them are WAY more masculine than I am, and almost all of them are smarter than I am. If I knew that when I was in my teens, I think I would have benefited from that knowledge.

---

Now, there are exceptions, but overall it's been my experience that way more girls are going to scream and stand on a chair around spiders, and men are more likely to hit walls and doors or to throw furniture when they feel frustrated.  And that's one thing I don't like about the modern narrative-- that stereotypes are evil.  It's expecting people to CONFORM to stereotypes, or assuming in particular cases that they must have conformed to them, that is evil.

I'm a girl and I don't give a crap about spiders. Having eight legs doesn't make something more dangerous than if it had six.

I generally agree with your statement, though. Stereotypes can be used as judgement shortcuts to basically size someone up when you don't know anythings else about them. To that extent, they can be useful. But they become harmful when they start to define a person and make it so they have to live that stereotype every day, even if it doesn't describe them at all. From my experience, when I'm falsely stereotyped it's frustrating and a little demoralizing, so I try to avoid inflicting that upon others as much as possible.

There's really no practical application of thinking girls are scared of spiders, except for this: when girls start screaming and hopping around, I know to look for spiders, mice, etc.  I certainly wouldn't say that because some girls lose their shit around spiders, women shouldn't be allowed to be police or soldiers or anything.

[The Grand Nudger]

lol@ maximum swish.

I'd have loved to hear you deliver that one in dat voice of yours.

[shadow]

So, lets run with it.  If someone wanted to be identified as or live as "the gender that;s afraid of spiders" - then...okay, whatever, right - regardless of whether or not they were born with peen or vag, hmn?  Regardless of whether or not the gender referenced is "valid"..and regardless of whether or not the designation is arbitrary.

Yes?

I don't think there is one gender that's more afraid of spiders. So I would never say I would rather be the gender that is not afraid of spiders. I'm simply not afraid of spiders. I wouldn't validate drawing a correlation between gender and spider fear.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's your intellectual conclusion, but the fact that you chose it as an informative example should inform you as to what gender roles exist ion your own subconscious.

Similarly, it;s the intellectual conclusion that gender roles are arbitrary - and the ethical conclusion pursunat to that is that a person should be able to conform to whatever gender role they choose, and that we have a compulsion to afford the the dignity of treating them as they wish to be.

It's really easy. I have a trans buddy. I use a feminine descriptor. Ta-da, done. It doesn't actually matter that I have trouble understanding why she's uncomfortable in her skin, or wants to be referred to as female. It doesn;t matter what sexual or gender issue she's dealing with. It doesn;t matter that -I- think that sexual or gender stereotpyes are nonsnsense......it's not -about- what -I- think.

I make it a habit to use feminine terms of endearment, even - because why the fuck not. It;s no sweat off my sack and means the world to her. She wants to be the belle of the ball. I can do that.

I'd introduce her to my baby brother as a girl and see if it stuck, lol.
(it totally would, he secretly wants the peen)

[shadow]

That's your intellectual conclusion, but the fact that you chose it as an informative example should inform you as to what gender roles exist ion your own subconscious.

Similarly, it;s the intellectual conclusion that gender roles are arbitrary - and the ethical conclusion pursunat to that is that a person should be able to conform to whatever gender role they choose, and that we have a compulsion to afford the the dignity of treating them as they wish to be.

It's really easy.  I have a trans buddy.  I use a feminine descriptor.  Ta-da, done.  It doesn't actually matter that I have trouble understanding why she's uncomfortable in her skin, or wants to be referred to as female.  It doesn;t matter what sexual or gender issue she's dealing with. It doesn;t matter that -I- think that sexual or gender stereotpyes are nonsnsense......it's not -about- what -I- think. 

It's an expression of empathy, not of logic.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and Statement A implicitly claims that our gender roles are not strictly logical. That gender a doesn't actually follow from possessing peen, and gender b doesn't actually follow from a lack thereof. That they are meaningfully -arbitrary-.

I'm not offering this as a judgement of you, merely trying to help you understand that you, too, have ideas regarding gender.  I do as well, we all do, even when those ideas don;t jive with what we know, intellectually.  Such is the compelling nature of social programming. So, too, do trans people.....and whichever gender they identify as or wish to have been - I have an ethical compulsion to accept. Statement B.