Actually there was some study or doctor commenting recently that it might be more healthy for women to do this, because we have far fewer pregnancies and children these days, and therefore more periods than our bodies would have had in more traditional societies/primitive times. A female doctor pointed out that the only reason there’s a seven-day gap was that some “grey-haired researchers” back in the sixties decided that women should have a period every month.
IANAD, and I’m not on the pill, so I don’t know what’s true or not.
Yeah - but the cigarette too! (Or is it one of those “smokeless” nicotine-substitute ones?!!)
Well, for one thing, the enemy is more than likely smoking also, and it’s true that smokers don’t smell cigarette smoke unless it’s overpowering (like coming home after a vacation). I’ve never tried it, but I imagine it takes longer to burn a tampon than it does to smoke a cigarette. My personal hypothesis is that burning blood would have quite the stench!
Becuase we’re still living in a mainly patriarchal society, and all of us, men and women, have inhereted the idea that “manly” things=good and “womanly”=bad, which is sort of what you are saying here:
This also gets tangled up with women’s “liberation,” which, in my translation anyway, is about freeing women from shackels imposed by men. In other words, men have been keeping women down by forcing them to stay home and be housewives. Here, even women seem to not value their role (when they choose it) of homemaker. Liberation seems not so much liberation from lack of choice, but liberation from the home, which, IMO, is the wrong slant.
I find it interesting that being forced to stay home is opression, while being forced to work outside of the home (“forced” as in, “need to have a 2 income household in order to make ends meet”) is seen as freedom. Part of why we have basically a two income model for the middle class is because of the scorn with which everyone looks at “homemaking.”
Oh, and Zoggie,
I’d also add that women doing what “women do” (although I don’t know if I’d put it quite that way) is kind of iffy. IMO, if you’re a woman and stay at home, people either assume you’re rich or lazy, both of which are looked down upon to some degree.
It’s also the case that throughout the nineteenth century, when the study of the classics and humanities was thought to be crucial to the makings of a genteel intellect, the great majority of upper-class and upper-middle-class men studied these subjects, while women were said to be incapable. Women, it was believed could not study Greek and Latin because they weren’t thought to have the logical capabilities.
Now that there is no longer a predominant social value attributed to a “liberal” education, men no longer seek it out in droves–and neither do women for that matter. Though it’s true that the number of young women in liberal arts colleges and in degree programs in the humanities is now, nationwide, greater than the number of young men.
And now, as above, a new generation of ignorant people makes a new set of ignorant interpretations about sexual “nature”–and it’s as though history might never have been.
Society is still patriachal, as evidenced by the United States’ lack of a female president. On what grounds have no women ever even run in the past two hundred and twenty years?
However, I think that as long as men and women think about each other differently, there will be discrimination.
Thanks.
I agree with your first sentence, but disagree with a statement as broad as: “as long as men and women think about each other differently, there will be discrimination.” There are definite differences between men and women (that’s why/how we differentiate between the two). Prohibiting someone from doing something based on no information about them but their sex is wrong, but acknowledging the differences between men and women as it may pertain to certain things seems like a wise thing to do.
Eonwe: Just how do you differentiate between men and women? For that matter, why do you differentiate between men and women? What are these so-called differences, and why are they relevant?
Personally, I dislike the word “patriarchal” because it implies that each and every man in our society enjoys the status of a patriarch.
While the most powerful people in our society are, by and large, men, the great majority of men are themselves fairly powerless and subject to all kinds of inequities. One can easily find examples of women–educated, professional, usually white women–who enjoy much more autonomy than many men. Hence, men who feel themselves to be very much under the thumb of powerful institutions and powerful people naturally resent a term–patriarchy–that suggests that they are powerful victimizers of women simply because they pee standing up (amongst other colorful details).
Yeah, eonwe, there are fundamental physiological and especially reproductive differences between men and women. No point in not acknowledging them. No point in calling for unisex toilets, or the death of gendered pronouns (IMO). But once one gets beyond those basics, how much difference should one assume?
As I see it, it makes sense to recognize that sex (male/female) describes a basic biological category, but it is a big mistake to assume that sex (male/female) necessarily corresponds to gender (masculine/feminine). That is especially true given the fact that what is meant by “masculine” and “feminine” differs widely across cultures and across historical epochs. Do you agree?
Actually, that’s partially what I wanted to know, Mandelstam. When you break it down, what are the real differences? Now that we’ve introduced the notion that you don’t have to make career/lifestyle decisons based on your gender, what distinguishes males from females? And does masculinity and femininity mean anything anymore? I’d hope it would mean more than masculine = strong/tough and feminine = girly/passive. But when you say a masculine guy you usually picture a tough John Wayne-esque fellow and when you describe a woman as feminine, it still means someone curvy and nicely dressed. And both of those are obvious stereotypes, because we can break out of those set roles. Now that we’ve done so, do the adjectives masculine/feminine mean anything apart from separating words in certain Romance languages?
How do I differentiate between men and women, and why? Well, I’m going to give an answer that I think you won’t like, but here goes.
Consider this explination to work like a focus, or a zoom lens. From far away you might make certain assumptions about what you see, but as you get closer you may see that what you thought you saw is not what is actually there.
First, I differentiate by looking. Does a person look like what I consider a man or a woman to be.
Then, I’d differentiate by determining whether or not the person has breasts (most obvious), a vagina, or a penis.
Then, assuming I’m in conversation with this person, I’d probably learn how this person thought about him/herself.
Why do I differentiate? Well, in part because I always have, as have 99.9% of the people I know, and in part because observation tells me that there’s a difference. In almost all cases, women have breasts and vaginas. In almost all cases, men have penises (peni?). The smallest people I have known have all been women. The most muscular people I have known have all been men.
I’m not holding anyone to these, and as I am trying to make clear, these are all qualified by “most” and “in my observation.” The point, though, is that I can make general assumptions about either sex, and I think it’s fair to do so. What is not fair is for me to say to someone, “no, you can’t have this job; you’d have to carry heavy things and you’re a woman,” when it is obvious that the person can do the heavy lifting.
Also, another difference is that most men I know have a tendancy towards masculine behaviors and interests, and most women I know have a tendancy towards feminine behaviors and interests. Whether or not these are inate is besides the point; the fact that I can make that observation about the men and women I know entitles me to make general assumptions about other men and women I may meet later. This is how I (and I assume other people) interact with anybody; we take what we have learned from our interactions with others to shape our relationships with people we meet in the future.
You could tell me that I’m wrong in my definition of man and woman (what is your definition by the way? No sarcasm here, sincere interest), and perhaps from a scientific standpoint I am, but from an emperical standpoint I’m absolutely on the button, and I am going to govern my interactions with people based on my experience, tempered with what I have learned in other ways.
I don’t know if I’ve answered your questions to my satisfaction, but that’s enough to chew on for now.
Mandelstam,
You said:
I do agree that it’s a mistake to assume that sex “necessarily” corresponds to gender. I do think though that assuming certain gender traits when approaching a man or woman is useful in communication and understanding that person’s thought process.
Zoggie,
I do think that masculine and feminine are very meaningful words. The fact that we can sit here and talk about them in this relatively long dialogue proves that (ok, I’m finished with the glib answer ).
If we divorce masculine and feminine from male and female, I think they might make more sense. Masculine traits are those that have been traditionally associated with men and similarly with feminine traits and women. Surely as long as society perceives a difference between men and women, there will always be a need for masculinity and femininity.
Unless you move in unusual social circles, I very much doubt that this is true. I have never checked to determine what sort of genitals another person has. I have personally seen the genitals of only a few people, and only a few people have seen mine. I suspect that most people would respond violently to any attempts on your part to determine whether their genitals matched up with the sex you guessed they were based on their general appearance and manner of dress.
The genitals are vitally important when it comes to reproduction, but are minimally so when it comes to social and gender roles – if only because they are almost always kept under cover.
Eonwe, I think if you actually followed the approach you claim to follow, you’d be posting from jail. Very few people will idly stand by while random people who haven’t even talked to them yet inspect them for a vagina or penis. I imagine the number of people you’ve actually inspected for a vagina or penis is rather small, and that by the time you were in a position to do so you already had a pretty strong concept of what their gender was.
I’m also curious how you cope with people for whom your identification process gives either conflicting or unclear results. Your three-stage process will not always yield clear and consistent results, and I’m wondering how you “break ties”, as it were.
Well the first thing I want to emphasize is that you’re asking two very different questions: one quite simple, the other very complex.
What distinguishes males from females?
Some very obvious things: genitalia, chromosomes, hormone levels. Most of the time, within a different age span, these are accompanied by differing reproductive capacities. On average size and strength will be greater for men than women though you’ll certainly find some women who are stronger and/or larger than some men.
Now as to the second question: does masculinity and femininity mean anything more? Well, let me detour to Eonwe, by way of answering.
Eonwe, as Lamia, and KellyM have already suggested, you’ve described a greeting process more characterstic of a curious dog than of most humans ;).
The thing is that it’s actually extremely easy 99.9% of the time to determine a person’s sex. In all my life I have met only one person–a waiter/waitress in a restaurant–whose sex I couldn’t determine (probably a transgender person); and this is including many gay and lesbian friends, and a few cross-dressers.
Even in the few cases where the eyes don’t quite do the trick, the ears can usually pick up a difference that clinches the deal.
On the other hand, with all the thousands of people I’ve met, there were perhaps only a handful, twins aside, who were so like another person that I almost confused them. People are so very individual: they vary by age, by class, by education, by profession, by nationality, by ethnicity, by political persuasion, by taste, by style of dress, by sexual preference, by intelligence, by race, by religious or philosophical beliefs, by language, by culture, by talent, by life experience and, most important of all, by who there favorite Beatle is ;).
So while it makes sense in greeting people to register their sex–male/female–just as we’d register their age–child/young adult/etc.–it really doesn’t make sense at all to do as you suggest by…
“assuming certain gender traits when approaching a man or woman [because it] is useful in communication and understanding that person’s thought process.”
On the contrary, I’m willing to bet one of two things (both of which might well be true in your case):
that if you really do make most of your assumptions based on “gender traits” that those assumptions are probably doing more to thwart communication and understanding than to enhance them and
that in actuality you are probably basing your assumptions on many more factors than “gender traits,” with the latter often being a subordinate factor.
I’m willing to bet, for example, that the assumptions that you’d make if you met, say, your neighbor’s 16 year-old-daughter who had just come back from cheerleading trials at her school would be very different than those you’d make if you’d met, say, Condoleeza Rice, Margaret Thatcher, or Janet Reno.
Now back to Zoggie on the question masculinity/femninity.
As briefly as I can: stereotype-prone as these terms indeed usually are there is enormous range here once you detach the terms from the expectation of male=mascuine; female=feminine.
In fact, historically and cross-culturally there are hundreds of kinds of “masculinities” and “femininities” and they appertain to different people, at different stages of their lives, and also to the same person at once. We could describe all kinds of recognizable traits that we might want to call female masculinities, or male femininities.
But mostly I think what we have are just people, and they aren’t reducible to these categories, even if the categories were themselves less slippery and historically and culturally variable.
Traditional gender stereotypes, and any stereotypes for that matter, are dangerous because they do not allow for change. They have set standards about what is and isn’t allowable. Traditional gender roles say that women are pretty, fluffy creatures that like to mother everyone and cry when they break a nail. Those roles also say that men tend toward violent, destructive behavior; they only care about sex and fixing their trucks. On an individual level, these dictates are rarely true, but stereotypes would have us believe they were.
In a hypothetical situation, a woman is faced with two choices: Going out and getting a job or staying home and raising children. Traditional gender roles label one choice as “good” and one choice as “bad,” instead of just letting them be two different choices.
In reality, neither is better than the other. Women—anybody!—should be able to make the choices in life that most reflect their needs/abilities/etc., but the perpetuation of gender stereotyping makes these choices harder to make.
So should we challenge traditional gender roles? Absolutely. Should we challenge them on the grounds that it is bad for women to want to be nurturing and stay at home with her children? Absolutely not. Should we challange them because women should act like men? Absolutely not.
In general, no. Certainly not my household, and I am not aware of any gay couples where one has a defined “masculine” and the other a “feminine” role. Any differences would be more due to unique interests of the individual… one may prefer to do the cooking and the other changes the oil. My partner and I are fairly balanced in the various household activities. In other couples, one may gravitate towards the “feminine” role (housework, laundry, etc.) but may very well preoccupy himself infront of the TV to watch a football game while the cake is in the oven. This is not to say there are no gay couples who take on some sort of a masculine/feminine role-play situation. Anything’s possible in this world of ours.
Man = Man
Two Men = Two Men
From what I understand, at one time gay couples were often asked the question “Well, who’s the man and who’s the woman?” I’ve personally never been asked this, but I suppose it still happens. I suppose if I was asked I would hopefully have a good comeback line.
I wasn’t being facetious, and I don’t see how I contradicted myself. First, I never said that either sex had a “monopoly” on anything. I stated that the different sexes demonstrated various strengths and weaknesses in certain areas, when looked at from a large-scale statistical standpoint. Big difference, there. Second, the bit I said about there being fewer female writers from past ages due to the patriarchy was meant to be taken seriously. Historically, women didn’t write much, because they weren’t taken seriously by men. Or if they did write, often their works weren’t widely circulated. I’m reminded of a movie Impromptu, about the female writer who published under the name of George Sand, because as a woman, no one took her seriously. My knowledge of past writers is pretty poor, but I believe this was based on a true story.
Jeff
That may well be the case. Doesn’t mean that overall, women don’t tend to shy away from them. I recall at UC Davis that the engineering departments were doing everything they could to recruit women, and still very few were biting. My average engineering class had maybe 5% women tops, and many of them were all guys. And it certainly had nothing to do with the women being oppressed, or anything - the professors always loved having women in the classes; they thought it was cool. And they male students certainly weren’t complaining.
Ok, good point both of you, KellyM and Lamia, and I retract “step two.” You both are absolutely right, that was just a stupid thing to say. I suppose what I really do is make assumptions about what sex organs a person has from other things about their appearance and what have you. I apologise for being stupid there, I’m just trying to pull a lot of thoughts together here that I’ve never really communicated before (or necessarily even thought about before).
And it’s true, KellyM, that at any rate my “method” as it were does not always lead to conclusive results. I think, though, that I might not break the tie, and possibly say, “oh, he’s a little of both,” or, “she’s neither,” but probably use the pronoun that the individual would want me to use.
I’m not too concerned with not being able to pin someone down, though. The fact that they fall outside, or half in and half out of my personal man/woman ruberic doesn’t mean I value or treat that person any differently than anyone else. It just means that I won’t be able to apply many of the assumptions that I apply to people who are IMO clearly men or women.
If I have a method for identifying apples and oranges, just because you hand me a pear doesn’t mean that apples and oranges don’t exist, or that my method of distinguishing apples and oranges is somehow wrong.
This sort of leads me to a question for you. In an earlier post you asked me:
Which leads me to believe that you don’t differentiate, or think that there are any differences, and that if there are they certainly are not relevant to anything. Is this really what you’re saying? I’m just confused as to whether you actually believe there are any “so-called” differences, and if you don’t then I’m wondering why it matters what anyone thinks of anyone’s sex, because male and female would then be the same thing (which, IMO, they are obviously not).
On preview, I’d like to reply to you too, Mandelstam.
This is absolutely true, and I hope I haven’t been giving off the impression that I make most decisions about people based on their sex. I think I might not be communicating all that clearly. I think, since you brought up age, that I’ll use that as an example. When I meet you, I’ll probably be able to judge your age with some degree of accuracy. If you’re a young person I might ask you if you play any sports in school, or an instrument, or things of that sort. If you look to be of the age where most people tend to be out of school I might ask what you do for work. If you look to be quite old I might ask if you’re retired or do you have a job.
All of these are different ways I might engage in communication with someone based on appearances tied to that person’s age. Now, there is nothing biological, and everything cultural, that says that a 16 year old is in school, but I still can make that assumption, and use that assumption as a starting off point to help me learn more about the person. I may learn I’m wrong, and that’s fine too.
It’s true that sex is just one of many many many characteristics that define who someone is, and I’m not trying to assign any more importance to a person’s sex than to anything else. I’m just asserting that it is a significant trait about a person. A really quick example here, 'cause I think I need to post this before I get nailed again for my last post ( ), but I think it’s fair to say that in general a woman would much less readily ask a man where a good place to buy a dress was than she would ask a woman. Why? Because typically men don’t buy dresses. Now, maybe I, a man, actually do know some great dress shops because I shop with my girlfriend a lot, or perhaps I wear dresses, contrary to stereotypical gener roles, but I was never asked because I’m a man. Well, I think that’s fine. Maybe if the woman asking knew me better she would learn that I have a fine sense of where to buy dresses, and once she learned that I would assume she would keep me in mind for similar questions.
However, I think the woman asking was totally correct in asking another woman instead of a man for the advice (again, assuming she didn’t already know that I knew a bit about the subject).
Also, can I just add that IMO the tone of this conversation has been wonderful, and I think it’s rare that an issue that can be so personal can be discussed here without name-calling and insults and that sort of thing. Group hug everybody!!
Actually, I haven’t said anything so far. I was asking you to explain your positions because you’d previously asserted that it was possible to be able to differentiate male and female, and I wanted you to explain why you thought it was necessary, and how you went about doing it. Similarly, you asserted that there are differences, and I wanted to see a discussion on these points because they’re not necessarily as obvious as you might think.
You may take this as evidence of actual disagreement or merely as diabolical advocacy, as you wish.
).