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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 20:48:26
Subject: The End of Gender
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Stalwart Veteran Guard Sergeant
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http://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137342682/the-end-of-gender?ps=cprs
The End Of Gender?
by Linton Weeks
text size A A A
June 23, 2011
Look closely and you may see signposts.
• Kathy Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising their 4-month-old child, Storm, without revealing the child's gender. According to the birth announcement from the Toronto couple: "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place?)"
• Andrej Pejic, an androgynous Australian model, worked both the male and female runways at the Paris fashion shows earlier this year.
• A recent J. Crew catalog drew national attention when it featured a young boy with his toenails painted pink.
Androgynous male model Andrej Pejic on the runway in Rio de Janeiro, June 4.
Felipe Dana/AP
Androgynous male model Andrej Pejic on the runway in Rio de Janeiro, June 4.
Could we be heading toward the end of gender?
And by "gender" we mean, according to Merriam-Webster, "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex." In other words, the cultural expectations that go along with saying that someone is a boy or a girl. In other other words, not someone's sex — the person's gender.
"Sex differences are real and some are probably present at birth, but then social factors magnify them," says Lise Eliot, an associate professor of neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School and author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps and What We Can Do About It. "So if we, as a society, feel that gender divisions do more harm than good, it would be valuable to break them down. "
As history shows, one enterprise in which Americans excel is the breaking down of divisions.
Gender Neutrality
Perhaps you have a friend or family member who is more comfortable with a new gender. Or maybe you have had dealings with someone of indeterminate gender in the checkout line. Maybe you have seen the old "It's Pat" routines from Saturday Night Live.
Because there is a growing societal awareness of gender consciousness and of a certain blurriness of genders, the question "Is it a boy or a girl?" may not just be for expectant parents anymore.
And so what? Does gender matter? In a country with the ideal of treating everyone fairly and equitably, do we really need to know if someone is a boy or a girl? These questions are driving decisions and actions around the country.
• In Muskegon, Mich., officials at Mona Shores High School declared this year's prom court would be gender-neutral — with no "kings" and "queens" — after denying a transgender student the homecoming-king crown last year.
• In Johnson City, Tenn., East Tennessee State University recently announced that it is exploring gender-neutral housing for students — following the lead of Stanford University, the University of Michigan, Rutgers University and other colleges. These are not just coed dorms, but dorms for anyone regardless of how they express their gender. The roommate you choose can be gay or straight or whatever.
Four-month-old Storm Stocker (right) gets a hug from older brother Jazz in Toronto. Storm's parents, Kathy Witterick, 38, and David Stocker, 39, are keeping Storm's gender a secret.
Steve Russell/AP
Four-month-old Storm Stocker (right) gets a hug from older brother Jazz in Toronto. Storm's parents, Kathy Witterick, 38, and David Stocker, 39, are keeping Storm's gender a secret.
• Around the beginning of this year, the State Department began using gender-neutral language on U.S. passports — replacing "father" and "mother" with "Parent One" and Parent Two" — to make it simpler for nontraditional parents, beyond the male/female combination, to get passports for their children.
Everywhere you turn, it seems, there is talk of gender-neutral this and gender-free that: baby bedding (Wild Safari by Carousel); fashion (Kanye West in a Celine women's shirt); Bibles (the New International Version).
Gender neutrality, writes one blogging parent, is the new black.
'High-Stakes Social Constructions'
A female-to-male transsexual and advocate for transgender rights, Dean Spade writes often about gender issues. Spade is an assistant professor at Seattle University School of Law and founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project in New York City, which offers free legal guidance to transgender, intersex and gender-nonconforming clients.
In a 2008 paper, "Documenting Gender," Spade examines the gender reclassification polices of public agencies and departments in the United States. In the past 40 years, Spade observes, society has come to recognize the existence of a group of people, currently known as "transgender," who identify with and live as a different gender than the one assigned to them when they were born.
In an interview, Spade makes a passionate pitch for the elimination of gender categorization in most government record-keeping. "I really don't think that data needs to be on our IDs or gathered by most agencies and institutions," Spade says. Tagging someone as female or male "enforces binary gender norms and it pretends that gender is a more stable category of identity than it actually is."
Spade says, "I can see why we might want institutions to be aware of gender at a general level in order to engage in remediation of the sexism and transphobia that shape our world."
For example, Spade says, gender-based affirmative action — that rectifies discrimination against women — might be called for in certain programs and institutions "so we might want institutions to do an analysis of who is getting to participate." But, Spade adds, in order to gain a general idea of the gender makeup of a particular population, it is not necessary to then turn around and post that information on a particular participant's personal record.
Why Gender Still Matters
Gender matters to Leonard Sax, a family physician, psychologist and founder and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. Sax has written several books on gender, including Why Gender Matters and Girls on the Edge.
When NPR asked Sax whether he sees signs of the end of gender in contemporary society, he responded with a lively defense of gender distinctions, an edited version of which appears here:
The tidbits you mention — the Toronto couple, or the J. Crew fashion catalog — are of interest only to a small segment of media people, and without resonance in the larger society.
As opposed to the tidbits you cited, I would observe:
• The new head of New York City Public Schools, Dennis Walcott, has called for more single-sex public schools in New York City.
• The newly elected mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, has called for more single-sex public schools in the city of Chicago.
• Tampa public schools are opening a girls' public school and a boys' public school this fall. Not charter schools, but regular public schools under the authority of the district.
Ignoring gender won't make it go away. On the contrary: Ignoring gender has the ironic consequence of exacerbating gender stereotypes.
The determined lack of awareness of gender difference which you describe ... puts both girls and boys at risk — but in different ways. Not merely academically, but physically — increasing girls' risks of knee injury and concussion — and spiritually — increasing girls' risks of drug and alcohol abuse; increasing boys' risk of disengagement and apathy.
If you don't think gender matters in the classroom, you haven't been in a third-grade classroom recently. I have visited more than 300 schools over the past 11 years.
You will find that white, black, Spanish-speaking doesn't matter on this parameter; affluent or low-income doesn't matter; urban or rural doesn't matter. Gender is far more important, more fundamental, than any of those other parameters. On many parameters relevant to education, such as attention span, a white boy from an affluent home in Bethesda or McLean has more in common with an African-American male from a low-income home in Southeast D.C. than he has in common with his own sister, a white girl.
Many third-grade boys today in the United States have told me "school is a stupid waste of time." I have never heard such a comment from a third-grade girl in this country. Do you think that doesn't matter?
— Linton Weeks
Developing policies to counter the impact of sexism and transphobia, Spade adds, does not require a belief that gender categories are "real — stable, unchangeable, natural. We can engage such strategies while understanding that gender categories are high-stakes social constructions deployed in ways that endanger and harm socially determined groups."
Boychicks
To chronicle her adventures in gender-neutral parenting, Arwyn Daemyir writes a blog called Raising My Boychick. She describes herself as "a walking contradiction: knitting feminist fulltime parent, Wiccan science-minded woowoo massage therapist, queer-identified male-partnered monogamist, body-loving healthy-eating fat chick, unmedicated mostly-stable bipolar."
She describes her boychick, born in March 2007, as a "male-assigned at birth — and so far apparently comfortable with that assignment, white, currently able-bodied, congenitally hypothyroid, cosleeper, former breastfed toddler, elimination communication graduate, sling baby and early walker, trial and terror, cliched light of our life, and impetus for the blog. Odds are good he will be the most privileged of persons: a middle class, able bodied, cisgender, straight, white male."
The adjective cisgender — as opposed to transgender — describes someone who is at peace with the gender he or she was assigned at birth.
Daemyir lives in Portland, Ore. She and her straight male partner are expecting another baby in September.
For Daemyir, gender-neutral parenting is not an attempt to eliminate gender, "because the 70s'-era gender neutral parenting movement proved that's not possible."
But, she adds, she has concerns about the ways we designate and segregate gender in public, "starting with the idea that there are two-and-only-two genders — a construction, and a myth, in our society that excludes many."
To that end, Daemyir supports, among other changes, non-gender-designated single-stall bathrooms and an option for unisex washrooms and locker rooms. "Right now, when an establishment only has one toilet stall, of course it is non-gendered. Why, when there is room for two, must they arbitrarily be designated for 'Men' and 'Women'? When a place has room enough for several large rooms of toilets and free-standing single-stalls, why must they all be gendered, when it would be as easy to make some single-gendered and some not, giving people the ability to make choices that are most comfortable or convenient for them?"
Daemyir does not think that eliminating all single-gender areas "is beneficial or safe either, necessarily, but ... we over-designate many of these things when it's simply not necessary, and actively harms a particularly marginalized population — people with non-binary genders."
Eliot, the neuroscience professor, is not so sure about total change. "Perhaps I'm too old-school — or fussy — to argue for the elimination of men's and women's bathrooms," Eliot says, " but certainly employment forms and loan applications should not require gender information. Also, if parents did not buy into the gender stereotyping of children's toys and clothes, kids would stay open-minded longer during childhood. The goal is to keep girls physically active, curious and assertive, and boys sensitive, verbal and studious."
Not sure how I fall on this. I'm all for people's right to choose to be whatever they want to be, but some of this seems to be a tad extreme... especially when it comes to intentionally raising boys as "females" and vice versa. Being a strong Libertarian, I don't think anyone has the right to tell you how to raise your kids (ya know, minus abuse) but yeah... weird stuff.
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A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon
W/D/L
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:02:03
Subject: The End of Gender
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Legendary Master of the Chapter
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I am very Feminate, though being left alone with your mom and your sis for almost every summer kinda makes you turn into that.
I don't really follow an end of gender?
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From whom are unforgiven we bring the mercy of war. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:02:38
Subject: The End of Gender
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau
USA
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So we're chasing the gender dragon now too? Lots of dragons popping up today.
So long as there is a difference between men and women/boys and girls, differences in culture and society will occur. Since it's impossible to end biological differences without becoming some new asexual species, it's not happening. I'm gonna have to agree with the consequences of ignoring gender. You can't make it go away by pretending it doesn't exist or that genetic defects that result in people of mismatched sexual features are somehow a gender of their own.
That said. Have fun with the social experiment ladies and gents. I'll wait over here for it to blow up in your face. *Gets popcorn*
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:11:38
Subject: The End of Gender
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Sslimey Sslyth
Busy somewhere, airin' out the skin jobs.
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Let's take something natural, normal, and almost instinctive...
...and make it complicated.
Idiots.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
....oh yea, and I'm going to use my son/daughter as an "experiment".
Fabulous, just what the world needed, another screwed up kid.
Rather than teach your child GENDER-BAD, NEUTRAL-GOOD. How bout teaching something useful that wont make your son look like a freak to 99.9% of the planet that you live on.
If you're a boy that wants to paint his toenails...fine.
If you're a girl that wants to do runway for male and female fashion...more power to you.
THATS YOUR CHOICE
Parents making sure that their kids are non-genderised? WTF!? What is wrong with you? Innocent children...getting a screwed beginning in life...b/c their parents have something to prove to the world.
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This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/06/29 21:21:39
I have never failed to seize on 4+ in my life!
The best 40k page in the Universe
COMMORRAGH |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:26:49
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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Stalwart Veteran Guard Sergeant
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I originally saw the article when an acquaintance of mine posted it on Facebook. She studies gender psychology, is a lesbian, and is the most androgynous person I have ever meet. For the first 8 months that I lived in this apartment building I never spoke to her because I didn't know if she was a boy or a girl. Being that I live in Germany, and speak German, I always very attentively hung on to try and hear what article her friends used to refer to her as (in German their "the" is divided into three categories based on gender) just so I would know "what" she was.
Being from the Deep South, and having grown up in a very traditional family, I sometimes felt a bit out of place with not knowing the gender. Simple stuff like: "Do I wait to hold the door open for her? Do I let her walk into the room first? ect. ect." For many such conventions might seem outdated, but for those who still play by the old rules these sorts of gender confusions can make life a bit confusing at times.
Anyway, I wasn't surprised to see this come out of her but I still found the article to be pretty interesting, even if it ignores things that just can't be changed. Sure, little boys CAN play with barbie dolls, but most go for the toy soldiers because.... well... that's what they like! I like to think males and females are different in fundamental and unalterable ways. Sure, there are always exceptions to the rules but this sort of social experimenting just sounds like another horror story waiting to be told 25-30 years down the road by the kids. If you check out the link, and take a look at the pictures, the Canadian couple has their son tressed up in braids, as well as a very feminine haircut. I guess I just feel sorry for the guy....
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A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon
W/D/L
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:27:47
Subject: The End of Gender
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Ancient Ultramarine Venerable Dreadnought
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Hey LordofHats, mind sharing some of that popcorn with me?
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Iron Warriors 442nd Grand Battalion: 10k points |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:32:10
Subject: The End of Gender
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau
USA
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coolyo294 wrote:Hey LordofHats, mind sharing some of that popcorn with me?
*holds out bag*
It's lightly buttered with some Mrs. Dash
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:34:11
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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Decrepit Dakkanaut
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Manstein wrote:
Being from the Deep South, and having grown up in a very traditional family, I sometimes felt a bit out of place with not knowing the gender. Simple stuff like: "Do I wait to hold the door open for her? Do I let her walk into the room first? ect. ect." For many such conventions might seem outdated, but for those who still play by the old rules these sorts of gender confusions can make life a bit confusing at times.
Easiest way to deal with this is the way I do(regardless of unknowable gender situations): Hold the door for everyone(male and female) and always be the last one in.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:38:12
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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Decrepit Dakkanaut
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Platuan4th wrote:Manstein wrote:
Being from the Deep South, and having grown up in a very traditional family, I sometimes felt a bit out of place with not knowing the gender. Simple stuff like: "Do I wait to hold the door open for her? Do I let her walk into the room first? ect. ect." For many such conventions might seem outdated, but for those who still play by the old rules these sorts of gender confusions can make life a bit confusing at times.
Easiest way to deal with this is the way I do(regardless of unknowable gender situations): Hold the door for everyone(male and female) and always be the last one in.
Indeed. To me, holding the door open and letting someone through first is a simple act of courtesy...
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Mandorallen turned back toward the insolently sneering baron. 'My Lord,' The great knight said distantly, 'I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offence against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fur which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornment for a human face. Is it possibly that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?' - Mimbrate Knight Protector Mandorallen.
Excerpt from "Seeress of Kell", Book Five of The Malloreon series by David Eddings.
My deviantART Profile - Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Madness
"You need not fear us, unless you are a dark heart, a vile one who preys on the innocent; I promise, you can’t hide forever in the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of hell." Iron - Within Temptation |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:38:35
Subject: The End of Gender
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Purposeful Hammerhead Pilot
Houston, Tx
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Deadshane1 wrote:Let's take something natural, normal, and almost instinctive...
...and make it complicated.
Idiots.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
....oh yea, and I'm going to use my son/daughter as an "experiment".
Fabulous, just what the world needed, another screwed up kid.
Rather than teach your child GENDER-BAD, NEUTRAL-GOOD. How bout teaching something useful that wont make your son look like a freak to 99.9% of the planet that you live on.
If you're a boy that wants to paint his toenails...fine.
If you're a girl that wants to do runway for male and female fashion...more power to you.
THATS YOUR CHOICE
Parents making sure that their kids are non-genderised? WTF!? What is wrong with you? Innocent children...getting a screwed beginning in life...b/c their parents have something to prove to the world.
You took all the words out of my gender-ized mouth.
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Maybe you hang out with immature women. Maybe you're attracted to immature women because you think they'll let you shpadoink them. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 21:50:05
Subject: The End of Gender
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Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba
The Great State of New Jersey
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As others have said, there will never be an end to gender. The only thing that seems to be ending is that link between gender and sex (sex is the biological aspect of being male and female, and will NEVER go away, gender is (for a lack of a better explanation) the state of being/frame of mind associated with the sex). Whats happening now is people are no longer feeling as though there gender should be determined by their sex, but rather by their own personal decision/preference... which is bs (I suppose I should throw an IMO in there).
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 22:06:01
Subject: The End of Gender
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!!Goffik Rocker!!
(THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK)
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More like the end of useful paragraph formatting.
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-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Do you remember that time that thing happened?
This is a bad thread and you should all feel bad |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 22:59:46
Subject: The End of Gender
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Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon
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This is madness.
Raising a boy... as a female?. No, dear madam. You're not raising him as a female. REAL females are free to choose, and most of them don't follow your cookie-cutter views on gender. Neither do men. Boys watch My Little Pony and girls play Warhammer these days. There's nothing strange about it. It doesn't make them cisgender or intersexual.
What you're doing is forcing a male to act as an overfeminized, stereotypical caricature of a woman. In the end, you are reinforcing the same old gender roles you're supposedly fighting against.
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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/29 23:38:48
Subject: The End of Gender
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Infiltrating Prowler
wocka flocka rocka shocka
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Agent_Tremolo wrote:This is madness.
Raising a boy... as a female?. No, dear madam. You're not raising him as a female. REAL females are free to choose, and most of them don't follow your cookie-cutter views on gender. Neither do men. Boys watch My Little Pony and girls play Warhammer these days. There's nothing strange about it. It doesn't make them cisgender or intersexual.
What you're doing is forcing a male to act as an overfeminized, stereotypical caricature of a woman. In the end, you are reinforcing the same old gender roles you're supposedly fighting against.
I'm offended by this whole thing, you should choose to be transgendered, not forced.
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captain fantastic wrote: Seems like this thread is all that's left of Remilia Scarlet (the poster).
wait, what? Σ(・□・;) |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:06:21
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle
Georgia,just outside Atlanta
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Hmm, seems I recall this sort of experiment ending very badly...
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"I'll tell you one thing that every good soldier knows! The only thing that counts in the end is power! Naked merciless force!" .-Ursus.
 I am Red/Black Take The Magic Dual Colour Test - Beta today! <small>Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.</small>I am both selfish and chaotic. I value self-gratification and control; I want to have things my way, preferably now. At best, I'm entertaining and surprising; at worst, I'm hedonistic and violent. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:10:40
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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[SWAP SHOP MOD]
Killer Klaivex
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The logic being followed in this thread is atrocious. When you boys and girls were raised, were you 'forced' to be boys and girls? The answer is, yes. Yes you were. The child is no more being forced, inculcated, brainwashed, or anything along those lines, than you were. Gender is nothing more than a social construct. It evolved out of necessity. That necessity is now gone, and so is the requirement for gender differences. Telling someone that by choosing to raise their child in a different way to how you were raised makes those parents bad people smacks of ignorance to me.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:18:28
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau
USA
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Ketara wrote:The logic being followed in this thread is atrocious. When you boys and girls were raised, were you 'forced' to be boys and girls? The answer is, yes. Yes you were. The child is no more being forced, inculcated, brainwashed, or anything along those lines, than you were. Gender is nothing more than a social construct. It evolved out of necessity. That necessity is now gone, and so is the requirement for gender differences. Telling someone that by choosing to raise their child in a different way to how you were raised makes those parents bad people smacks of ignorance to me.
Of course they were forced. A boy is born a boy and a girl is born a girl. Genetics picked for us. The only exceptions to the rule are a result of genetic defects in a minority of the population so small that it literally can be disregarded as inconsequential to the larger human species.
Gender/gender roles evolve yes, but they won't disappear so long as men and women can recognize themselves as being different from one another, and biologically they are different from one another (Hell this entire scenario is playing out because we know their different but that's no longer PC so we decide to pretend we're not). You can't make it go away without completely changing the human species.
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This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2011/06/30 00:22:34
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:25:16
Subject: The End of Gender
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The Dread Evil Lord Varlak
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This line from the article made a tremendous amount of sense;
"Sex differences are real and some are probably present at birth, but then social factors magnify them. So if we, as a society, feel that gender divisions do more harm than good, it would be valuable to break them down. "
That's a really healthy, and natural way of looking at the issue.
Manstein wrote:Not sure how I fall on this. I'm all for people's right to choose to be whatever they want to be, but some of this seems to be a tad extreme... especially when it comes to intentionally raising boys as "females" and vice versa. Being a strong Libertarian, I don't think anyone has the right to tell you how to raise your kids (ya know, minus abuse) but yeah... weird stuff.
Nothing in that article mentioned raising a boy as a girl.
Automatically Appended Next Post: LordofHats wrote:So long as there is a difference between men and women/boys and girls, differences in culture and society will occur. Since it's impossible to end biological differences without becoming some new asexual species, it's not happening. I'm gonna have to agree with the consequences of ignoring gender. You can't make it go away by pretending it doesn't exist or that genetic defects that result in people of mismatched sexual features are somehow a gender of their own.
The article never said we could end biological differences. It said the exact opposite, multiple times. Automatically Appended Next Post: Deadshane1 wrote:Let's take something natural, normal, and almost instinctive...
Of course, what's natural, normal and almost instinctive is only so because it's how society has been doing it for a generation. You'd be surprised how many "natural, normal and almost instinctive" concepts aren't.
What's wrong with saying that we can accept that boys will tend towards certain things, girls will tend towards certain things, but we shouldn't enforce society's expectations on them. We certainly don't need to call anyone involved a freak.
Parents making sure that their kids are non-genderised? WTF!? What is wrong with you? Innocent children...getting a screwed beginning in life...b/c their parents have something to prove to the world.
The point is leaving the child to be free to pick up whatever toy he wants. If the child wants to play with army soldiers, let them pick the soldiers, whether they're a boy or a girl. Automatically Appended Next Post: chaos0xomega wrote:Whats happening now is people are no longer feeling as though there gender should be determined by their sex, but rather by their own personal decision/preference... which is bs (I suppose I should throw an IMO in there).
Really? Doesn't matter what countless scientific studies have found, because you have an opinion? Automatically Appended Next Post: remilia_scarlet wrote:I'm offended by this whole thing, you should choose to be transgendered, not forced.
Nobody talked about forcing anyone into anything. Did anyone read the article? Any of you?
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This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2011/06/30 00:25:56
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:27:52
Subject: The End of Gender
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau
USA
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My point is that the biological differences can't be wished away and as a result the social differences can't disappear either (Read my first post). Changed yes, maybe fair, but the differences between the genders will always be there because the sexes are different.
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This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/06/30 00:34:23
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:32:45
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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Stormin' Stompa
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Hmm, I don't know why, but reading this thread, all I can think of is
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:34:18
Subject: The End of Gender
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Long-Range Land Speeder Pilot
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chaos0xomega wrote:As others have said, there will never be an end to gender.
Gender is a social construct. Society could arguably get rid of it whenever it wants, but i can see that its just too early to begin to tiptoe into those waters.
Saying that gender will never end is like saying that racism and sexism will never end; i'll give you can't change the hearts and minds of everyone, but its not our generations this is being targetted at its the future ones. I can look at my own family and i'm taking aback at even the slight racistly things my parents/ grandparents say; i call them out on it and they say old habits die hard, but they at least acknowledge its wrong unlike my grandparents.
Now you can say racism and sexism are still prevelant, but they are by no means anywhere as bad as they used to be. So sure your children won't be androgenous, but don't be too surprised if your grandchildren look at you as ignorant for buying them "gender biased gifts".
I like to think of myself as an open minded (at least in a to each their own sort of way), but this kinda makes me shudder. So yes I'm defending the idea, arguing against those who oppose it, but wouldn't practice it myself.
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You love it you slags!
Blood Ravens 1500 pts |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:44:10
Subject: The End of Gender
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Phanobi
oh,you know. in a basement...cooking ponies into cupcakes....
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its all so stupid. there is a fine line between how boys should act and how girls should act.some things are on both sides of the line,but lots of stuff is not. the minute its normal for men to wear dresses and women to wear tuxedos (maybe not the best example) im just ending this stupid existence of a society. viva revolution!
until then,im gonna go eat some of that pop corn.
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Deathshead420 wrote:As your leader, I encourage you, from time to time and always in a respectful manner, to question my logic. If you're unconvinced a particular plan of action I've decided is the wisest, tell me so! But allow me to convince you. And I promise you, right here and now, no subject will ever be taboo … except, of course, the subject that was just under discussion. The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is – I collect your f  g head. [Holds up Tanaka's head] Just like this f  r here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the f  g time! [Pause] I didn't think so. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 00:44:53
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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The Dread Evil Lord Varlak
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LordofHats wrote:
Of course they were forced. A boy is born a boy and a girl is born a girl. Genetics picked for us.
There are basic biological components to gender, but there are also strong social factors involved. The point is to examine those social factors and decide which are harmful overall and look to break those down. If you'd bothered to read the article, you'd have seen this clearly expressed within the first dozen lines.
Here's the thing. I'm a fairly regular kind of guy, I like most regular guy things, like sport and looking at girls. One way I differ from blokey guys is that I know nothing about cars. I can't tell you the number of times I've been told I ought to know about cars, in case I breakdown or something. More to the point, they never mention that to girls .
My fiance has been told many times that she 'should' be able to cook. People are often amazed that I do most of the cooking. It doesn't seem to matter that she's actually a much better cook than I am, it's just that I cook most weeknights because I get home from work first.
These are very minor examples of much greater social pressures that have nothing to do with biological differences. What about the common insistence in society that a guy should play sport? Or the amount of hostility a girl will recieve if she dares to go out in public without spending an hour on make-up beforehand, instead just combing her hair and going out the door like any guy would do?
The point is not to pretend biology doesn't exist, but to continue examining what's biology and what's just society placing roles on people because of gender.
The only exceptions to the rule are a result of genetic defects in a minority of the population so small that it literally can be disregarded as inconsequential to the larger human species.
If someone is capable of leading a healthy, happy life then you really, really shouldn't call them a genetic defect.
Gender/gender roles evolve yes, but they won't disappear so long as men and women can recognize themselves as being different from one another
The article points out that we can't wish gender away, but we can examine what is natural, and what is artificial and harmful. You should try reading it. Automatically Appended Next Post: LordofHats wrote:My point is that the biological differences can't be wished away and as a result the social differences can't disappear either (Read my first post). Changed yes, maybe fair, but the differences between the genders will always be there because the sexes are different.
Then you agree with the article you clearly didn't bother to read, and as such are arguing against no-one.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/06/30 00:46:16
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 01:03:14
Subject: The End of Gender
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Terminator with Assault Cannon
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Ok.. Can anyone explain just HOW you raise a child without gender references?
Take something as complicated as .... potty training. Do you teach a biologically male child to sit, or a biologically female child to stand, because the other way is too "gender specific"?
This is an early stage of developement issue that will come up.... Eventually the child is going to see a urinal. Will they be equipt to deal with this explicitly male device?
And sure, take the child shopping for clothing and allow them to pick out their own outfits..... Have you ever watched a child when given free reign to dress themselves?
Gender neutrality is a nice idea but there are too many biological issues that will become problems as a child gets older. Its fine to say you are raising your child in a gender neutral manner, but even you will be giving the child subtle clues as to what their "expected" role in society is to be. Some things are just unavoidable.
If you want your child to "decide for themselves" what role they will take, it is best to show them BOTH sides and allow them to make an informed choice.
Making them "gender neutral" will just create confusion at the early stages and major mental health issues later in life.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 01:06:00
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau
USA
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I can't agree with some aspects of the article and disagree with others? Maybe I just want to disagree with the title which poorly represents the contents of the article which is mostly 'blah.'
For example, I vehemently disagree with this:
Kathy Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising their 4-month-old child, Storm, without revealing the child's gender. According to the birth announcement from the Toronto couple: "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place?)"
This is the idea of gender neutrality taken to an absurd extreme. There's a similar thing going on in Sweeden that made the news a few days ago.
Most of the article is something that I doubt most people will argue against. Equality = good (so I hear). But seeing as the title is "The End of Gender" at the top of the thread, it would be odd not to comment on whether or not we actually think gender can end (I obviously don't). If you want to blame someone blame the author of the article for crappy titling
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This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2011/06/30 01:08:52
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 01:26:05
Subject: The End of Gender
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The Dread Evil Lord Varlak
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helgrenze wrote:Ok.. Can anyone explain just HOW you raise a child without gender references?
Take something as complicated as .... potty training. Do you teach a biologically male child to sit, or a biologically female child to stand, because the other way is too "gender specific"?
All children are potty trained sitting.
Gender neutrality is a nice idea but there are too many biological issues that will become problems as a child gets older. Its fine to say you are raising your child in a gender neutral manner, but even you will be giving the child subtle clues as to what their "expected" role in society is to be. Some things are just unavoidable.
The point is to be aware and minimise those expectations where possible.
Making them "gender neutral" will just create confusion at the early stages and major mental health issues later in life.
Really?
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“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 01:30:18
Subject: The End of Gender
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Renegade Inquisitor with a Bound Daemon
Tied and gagged in the back of your car
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David Reimer
/thread
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 01:34:02
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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The Dread Evil Lord Varlak
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LordofHats wrote:I can't agree with some aspects of the article and disagree with others? Maybe I just want to disagree with the title which poorly represents the contents of the article which is mostly 'blah.'
Sure you can, the problem is that you and most other posters in this thread were just disagreeing with what they thought the article title meant, not what it actually meant. As a result, most people in this thread were just arguing about stuff that simply wasn't in the article.
For example, I vehemently disagree with this:
Kathy Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising their 4-month-old child, Storm, without revealing the child's gender. According to the birth announcement from the Toronto couple: "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place?)"
This is the idea of gender neutrality taken to an absurd extreme. There's a similar thing going on in Sweeden that made the news a few days ago.
Why? It's four months old, and it isn't denying the child's gender, it's just not telling other people yet, so they don't start treating it certain ways. There's nothing stopping the child's natural preferences coming to the fore.
Equality = good (so I hear). But seeing as the title is "The End of Gender" at the top of the thread, it would be odd not to comment on whether or not we actually think gender can end (I obviously don't). If you want to blame someone blame the author of the article for crappy titling
It isn't a great title, because it's relying on a use of the word 'gender' to mean something very different than it's common use (gender in gender relation studies means the socially enforced part of gender, not as a synonym for sex as it is used in common language). The result has been a lot of people sounding off about an idea they really don't like, an idea that wasn't mentioned in the article.
And yeah, the idea that all differences between the sexes is a terrible idea, but that idea died in the 70s. Subsequent work has looked at trying to seperate what really is a natural difference from what is an expectation placed on a person by society.
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“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 01:38:36
Subject: Re:The End of Gender
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[SWAP SHOP MOD]
Killer Klaivex
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LordofHats wrote:
Of course they were forced. A boy is born a boy and a girl is born a girl. Genetics picked for us.
Incorrect. Genetics picked our sexes, Biological Males, and Biological Females. The concepts of men, women, boys, and girls are all societal constructs.
Gender/gender roles evolve yes, but they won't disappear so long as men and women can recognize themselves as being different from one another, and biologically they are different from one another
Why?
I don't necessarily follow, that just because one creature has a penis, another has a vagina, and because both can recognise this fact, that gender imprintation is inevitable and unstoppable. How you made that conclusion is beyond me.
(Hell this entire scenario is playing out because we know their different but that's no longer PC so we decide to pretend we're not). You can't make it go away without completely changing the human species.
On a societal level, this is correct, it would change the species. On a biiological level, it would not.
I think you're mixing up what is biologically enforced, and what is societally enforced. Sex and Gender are very different things.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/06/30 01:38:52
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2011/06/30 01:40:16
Subject: The End of Gender
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Renegade Inquisitor with a Bound Daemon
Tied and gagged in the back of your car
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Gender is not a social construct. Or at least not entirely. Many gender stereotypes present in humans are present in animals as well. Likewise, newborn babies with no reasonable gender 'indoctrination' also exhibit gender based behaviour. There are societal factors involved, but the biology reigns supreme. You could try to raise a boy as a girl (see David Reimer and intersexed individuals), but the child will ultimately end up identifying as the gender that their biology prescribes to them.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/06/30 01:42:09
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