A contradiction in the liberal view of gender

[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.

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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.