Disclaimer:
This point of view is uber radical and extremist and may cause you to projectile-vomit and then bleed copiously. Not really. But it is rather extreme, and understand that I am not forcing it upon you, nor expect you to agree with me, nor am I under any delusion that this sort of view will have any actual effect on how society works in the vaguely foreseeable future.
I do not believe that gender should exist as a social concept. I think that society would be better if instead of Men and Women, we just have People.
Obviously, sexes exist. That is undeniable. Some people have male bodies, some female. And only when these bodies link up can babies be made. None of that is under dispute from me, so anyone saying "gender obviously exists! Look at science!" is missing the point. Science shows that sexes exist. Sociology alone makes gender a thing (in my opinion).
Gender, of course, is a concept which has existed in society for ever and ever. Pretty much. People with male-bits have always been socialised to act one way, with those of a female stature being socialised to act another.
The reason I don't think this works very well is that it has only brought misery and illiberalism to the world. What it has meant is that women were held back for centuries from going for certain jobs, getting proper education, voting, owning property; effectively, they were prevented from doing anything but being baby-machines. Now, with the rise of feminism, we have been shown that women can do much, much more that make babies. Then can do, roughly speaking, everything which men can do.
It has also lead to the whole homophobia thing. Because men and women have been told to have certain roles (which involves being with each other), and homosexual relationships do not conform to those roles, homosexuality has been condemned as "weird" and "unnatural". This is also being steadily countered by research today- more and more evidence is emerging to say that homosexuality is a natural trait in those who bear it.
Still today, too many men react to successful businesswomen with unease and judgementalism. Still today, we often snigger behind the backs of men and women who remain permanently single, or enter same-sex relationships. And, really, what's the point?
We cannot go on expecting people to act a certain way because they were born with certain organs. Human nature is too diverse and too complicated to lump together about half of everyone in the world and say "these people will do this, this, this and this." I accept that there are certain traits which are more common in one of the sexes than the other (map reading for men, rapport talk for women, etc). But for every rule, there must be over a million exceptions (I am hopeless at reading maps, and I know several men who are far more chatty than any of my female friends). As such, I really don't think that making these generalisations helps us in any way.
I know a lot of people may be thinking "well, okay, we say that men and women can act in all the same ways, but what's the point in saying men and women don't exist? Surely that's unnecessary?" But what people often don't understand is that gender is behavioural. If we eradicate expectations of behaviour for the genders, then we eradicate gender anyway. As such, it would be pointless to use the term "man" or "woman".
Aaaaaanyway.
That's all I have for now.
This point of view is uber radical and extremist and may cause you to projectile-vomit and then bleed copiously. Not really. But it is rather extreme, and understand that I am not forcing it upon you, nor expect you to agree with me, nor am I under any delusion that this sort of view will have any actual effect on how society works in the vaguely foreseeable future.
I do not believe that gender should exist as a social concept. I think that society would be better if instead of Men and Women, we just have People.
Obviously, sexes exist. That is undeniable. Some people have male bodies, some female. And only when these bodies link up can babies be made. None of that is under dispute from me, so anyone saying "gender obviously exists! Look at science!" is missing the point. Science shows that sexes exist. Sociology alone makes gender a thing (in my opinion).
Gender, of course, is a concept which has existed in society for ever and ever. Pretty much. People with male-bits have always been socialised to act one way, with those of a female stature being socialised to act another.
The reason I don't think this works very well is that it has only brought misery and illiberalism to the world. What it has meant is that women were held back for centuries from going for certain jobs, getting proper education, voting, owning property; effectively, they were prevented from doing anything but being baby-machines. Now, with the rise of feminism, we have been shown that women can do much, much more that make babies. Then can do, roughly speaking, everything which men can do.
It has also lead to the whole homophobia thing. Because men and women have been told to have certain roles (which involves being with each other), and homosexual relationships do not conform to those roles, homosexuality has been condemned as "weird" and "unnatural". This is also being steadily countered by research today- more and more evidence is emerging to say that homosexuality is a natural trait in those who bear it.
Still today, too many men react to successful businesswomen with unease and judgementalism. Still today, we often snigger behind the backs of men and women who remain permanently single, or enter same-sex relationships. And, really, what's the point?
We cannot go on expecting people to act a certain way because they were born with certain organs. Human nature is too diverse and too complicated to lump together about half of everyone in the world and say "these people will do this, this, this and this." I accept that there are certain traits which are more common in one of the sexes than the other (map reading for men, rapport talk for women, etc). But for every rule, there must be over a million exceptions (I am hopeless at reading maps, and I know several men who are far more chatty than any of my female friends). As such, I really don't think that making these generalisations helps us in any way.
I know a lot of people may be thinking "well, okay, we say that men and women can act in all the same ways, but what's the point in saying men and women don't exist? Surely that's unnecessary?" But what people often don't understand is that gender is behavioural. If we eradicate expectations of behaviour for the genders, then we eradicate gender anyway. As such, it would be pointless to use the term "man" or "woman".
Aaaaaanyway.
That's all I have for now.
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