(August 22, 2017 at 10:10 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(August 22, 2017 at 1:13 pm)shadow Wrote: I think it's important to consider why we'd treat a guy different from a girl. Gender may not be the best metric for that, because it stereotypes (sort of a judgement shortcut). There's a reason we'd treat genders differently, and that has to do with the characteristics of that gender. For example, scientifically, women are on average naturally less muscular than men, so it reasons that they may be less capable at self defense. We can generalize, and that's where we get our societal gender stereotypes from, and maybe they aren't valueless. But, they don't really address the actual issue in this case, which is strength. So they aren't as accurate a way of judging someone as looking at the actual characteristic that influences how we treat someone.
All this to say... I think we generally treat guys differently from girls for a reason, and that reason at it's core isn't as simple as gender. It's a characteristic that is grouped under gender, that may or may not be accurate for an individual. It's a judgement shortcut that, while easy, isn't as valid. So I wouldn't treat a guy differently from a girl for arbitrary gender reasons, but for the characteristics of that guy that form his gender. That is the extent to which I agree with A.
When we try to rationalize, we take instinct as arbitrary. But it's not even arbitrary. For the most part, girls make me feel mushy and I want to make happy chirping sounds. For the most part, other guys make me want to thump my chest and say grrrrrr!
If there's a girl in the office having trouble, I'm pretty likely to come in like a knight in shining armor to unjam the copier or whatever. If there's another guy in trouble. . . dude I have my OWN problems.
I think stereotypes are mainly despised precisely BECAUSE they capture some real part of our experience. If I ask any guy I know a yes / no question, he'll answer with a yes or a no.
Me: Dude, you want a Coke?
Friend: Sure, dude. Thanks!
If I ask my wife that question, it goes more like this:
Me: Hey, you want a Coke?
Wife: Well. . . last time I drank a Coke, I was in the mall with Jenny, and I was a little bloated, so. . .
Me: *start throwing furniture through windows)
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.
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.
