Thats my impression too, the built in differences stem from the fact that the parent that invests the most in reproduction and child rearing is the more selective sex when it comes to mating. There are some species of birds where the male invests more in procreation and child rearing than the female, and in those species the females pursue and try to woo the males and the males are the more selective sex when it comes to deciding who to mate with.
But as far as humans, a woman can have roughly 1 child a year from ages ~14 to age ~45. So she can have at most maybe 30 children (excluding twins, triplets, etc).
A man can theoretically have 3 to 6 children every day of his life from age ~14 until he dies around age 85. Thats over 100,000 children.
I find it interesting that there is a persistent trend amongst and across cultures to draw a distinction between the genders. When you examine many cultural manifestations of this man/woman divide, it oftentimes tracks back to basic biological imperatives (I.e. women’s clothing tends to focus on reproductive characteristics, such as her hip/waist ratio, or her breasts).
As such, I wonder how much we can truly say that gender is a social construct. I mean, it is, but are social constructs themselves biologically based?
Every aspect of human nature provides an upper and lower limit on how much a society can embody on not embody that feature.
E.g. Humans vary in their selflessness. And that variation is around a central most common value. There is no requirement that the size and shape of the tail on each side of the most central value are the same.
A society could develop which very much values, or dis-values, selflessness. But it’s unlikely a society could develop which demands utter selflessness from everyone, a la a bee colony, nor one which demands zero selflessness = utter selfishness from everyone.
Metaphorically speaking:
There are a vast array of things you can build with wood. There are also many things you cannot. The timber of humanity can be fashioned into many different cultures. But not every logically possible culture is consistent with the nature of human timber.
Bottom line:
The in-built physiological and psychological features that vary by sex provide (loose) boundaries on what is culturally possible. But it’s very easy for people to argue for cultural determinism far in excess of reality.
I doubt it. Nature doesn’t really have many hard boundaries like that, assuming you’re including all humans, including hermaphrodites and other interesting genetic cases. And, once you get into behavior, you really won’t be able to find hard boundaries.
Female humans have XY chromosomes: Well, usually, but here are some of the exceptions
Male humans have a penis and no vagina: Well, usually, but here are some of the exceptions
And so on and so forth.
Squares have four equal-sized sides: yes! But, true squares don’t exist in the world.
Unlike math, nature tends to have fuzzy boundaries for everything.
The one I’m not sure about is facial hair. So far as I can tell, it’s just differentiation for differentiation’s sake (which is also a thing, of course).
Yes, yes, facial hair is a result of testosterone, but that just pushes things back one level: Why do facial follicles respond to testosterone?
Modern western society certainly did. That’s not universal.
The Wiki page on two-spirit gives an account of both the modern creation of the term, disliked by some, and numerous examples of actual terminology used by Native Americans for people in non-traditional roles.
Other indigenous peoples have equivalent roles as well.
That may be a bit of evidence that civilization itself cast more fluid roles into hard and fast categories of behaviors. Cities, of all descriptions, require rules, hierarchies, and categories to function smoothly. The benefits of cities have always appeared to outweigh the costs of narrowing some possibilities. People who didn’t conform had to hide or take off.
What happens if this is no longer true? Modern western culture is undergoing that change today. Many people don’t like change that basic to their identities. One excellent way of fighting that change is to exaggerate differences between men and women and declare them to be fundamental, obfuscating the real similarities and differences.
No male I know of could enjoy 13 orgasms in an idyllic afternoon.
My much younger than me lover at the time could and did.
Hands on experience so to speak.
Better wiring for sexual pleasure…no need to reload the tubes,
I think it does, since “ability to have multiple orgasms” is not a bright-line distinguishing characteristic between men and women. Even leaving aside trans-women for the moment, the fact that some cis-women can’t have multiple orgasms, or can’t have any at all, makes your point fail as a distinguishing characteristic.
In human sexuality, the refractory period is usually the recovery phase after orgasm during which it is physiologically impossible for males to have additional orgasms.[1][2] This phase begins immediately after ejaculation and lasts until the excitement phase of the human sexual response cycle begins anew with low-level response.[1][2] It is generally reported that females do not experience a refractory period and can thus experience an additional orgasm (or multiple orgasms) soon after the first one.[3][4] However, some sources state that both males and females experience a refractory period because women may also experience a moment after orgasm in which further sexual stimulation does not produce excitement.[5][6] - SOURCE
Not really, since some cis-women can’t orgasm and some can’t have multiple orgasms, so you can’t say, “well, a cis-woman is a person who can have multiple orgasms.”
ETA: Or, what @DocCathode said more quickly and succinctly.
I think the point is women are able to and men are not able to have multiple orgasms. Just because a given woman does not is not an indication of anything. “Possible” is not the same thing has “has to or always does.”
“Biological woman”, “has standard female psychology in ‘x’ way” and “is biologically a standard human female” are different things, which makes defining “who is a woman” fuzzy if you don’t specify what you mean. Same goes in the other gender-direction, of course.
Stick a woman’s brain in some sci-fi life support pod and they aren’t biologically female anymore; or even outside of the brain biological at all. But that won’t keep them from being psychologically female or identifying as female even if they lack the normal complement of organs and hormones. So are they a “woman”, or not?
But, then you’re back to talking about statistical likelihoods, rather than bright-line differences. For example, cis-men can’t bear children, but neither can many cis-women, so it’s not a bright line. Cis-women have XX chromosomes, except those that don’t.
