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Based on a line of discussion in another thread, I started thinking about this topic, but it was very OT so I thought it best to start a separate thread rather than continue it in the OT.

This line of discussion is based in Goliath's discussion of Social Constructs;

 Goliath wrote:
Associations with colour would probably have been better as an example of a social construct that isn't necessarily bad, which was the point I was trying to make; my personal opinion is that the gender social construct isn't actually beneficial, and in many cases is harmful, so I wouldn't have been able to use that argument whilst remaining honest.

Note this thread is not intended to be strictly about gender (nor is it even about whether gender norms as is are good or bad) but rather about the question; "Can a social construct be purposefully altered by members of said society?" My reply;

The thing that always problems me with this is, can you purposefully alter a social construct like that? I'm not questioning at all whether the current gender roles of society are good or bad, but rather pondering if it is possible to purposefully alter something so socially ingrained as gender?

This seems a very different kind of task to me from trying to change views about gay marriage or abortion. Gender and concepts there in permeate culture so heavily (from how we perceive colors, sounds, and even body language), I wonder if you can alter it once it becomes known you are trying to alter it. It's kind of like the Observer Effect. Once society is aware you are trying to change the perceptions of gender, by say buying your son an easy bake oven and your daughter a GI Joe*, doesn't society just start becoming self aware to the point that the concept of gender itself becomes the topic rather than how to change it? So much of culture is derived somewhat spontaneously without anyone really trying to do anything and people who try to 'force' culture tend to get treated as a nuisance; a simple example is someone who tries to force a meme or joke, that simply isn't catching on. Will a concerted attempt to change the course of the river really last or even have the intended effect?

As an example outside of Gender, if I think that left being left is stupid and should actually be right (the words right and left existing as nothing more than words we use to differentiate one side from another) and I start calling my left side my right and my right side my left, am I ever going to get any traction on that notion? If I think Dress' are totally manly, am I altering any perceptions of gender, or am I just a dude in drag (I totally have the legs for it though)? If I then explain to people around me I am trying to change societal norms is society at large more likely to care than before? Is it something that will vary from one construct to another? Alternatively will change happen regardless of individual will? That is, will society alter/evolve its own norms in a manner that is beyond the control of any individual member of society (I personally tend to lean towards this last one)?

*And this kind of runs into a problem that kind of runs an opposite running issue. Is it morally/ethically correct to enforce alternative norms on children? Especially accepting that change in gender norms won't happen overnight, is it appropriate for parents 'isolate' their children within society by purposefully throwing the fish out of the pond so to speak?

Am I just thinking about this too much

Everything that isn't an on-the-ground reality (IE an outcome) is a social construct.

The term itself is a ridiculous attempt to shame/negate/delegitimize the existence of social norms, taboos, and tradition as intrinsic parts of human society. It has no real-world meaning, and is used by academics (particularly sociologists) to confuse and derail pragmatic discussion. The bottom line is that post-modern social theory is dedicated to tearing down meaning until people don't even have a frame of reference to contextualize the world around them. This is seen as a direct strike against the "relations of power" in society. Mostly rooted in the leftist binary analysis of the world, as descended from Marx.


Ex: "Gender", you can deconstruct that word all you want but "biological sex" is an absolute reality. Period.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
The term itself is a ridiculous attempt to shame/negate/delegitimize the existence of social norms, taboos, and tradition as intrinsic parts of human society.

That's not really accurate. Ultimately Social Constructionism is about trying to separate 'Reality' from 'What we think about Reality.' It's not per see even about society and its norms so much as it is about what parts of reality only exist because we perceive them to exist (i.e. how much of reality is subjective to the human observer). For example, we have the thread talking about Quantum Entanglement, and a poster mentioned the issue of Causality. Does 'causality' really exists or does it only exists because people perceive it to exist? If it only existed because humans perceive it as a frame of reference, then it would solve one of the issues in unifying Physics and Quantum Physics (If I understand my physics that is, which I might not )

The bottom line is that post-modern social theory is dedicated to tearing down meaning until people don't even have a frame of reference to contextualize the world around them.

Then we are that much closer to achieving the Ubermensch

Mostly rooted in the leftist binary analysis of the world, as descended from Marx.

That's kind of oversimplifying Marx.

Ex: "Gender", you can deconstruct that word all you want but "biological sex" is an absolute reality.

Gender != Biological Sex. I mean we can talk about that relationship, because biological sex certainly informs our perceptions of gender and inherently complicates any attempt to change gender norms, but treating them as though they're the same thing is kind of just coping out of any kind of pragmatic discussion.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Everything that isn't an on-the-ground reality (IE an outcome) is a social construct.

The term itself is a ridiculous attempt to shame/negate/delegitimize the existence of social norms, taboos, and tradition as intrinsic parts of human society. It has no real-world meaning, and is used by academics (particularly sociologists) to confuse and derail pragmatic discussion. The bottom line is that post-modern social theory is dedicated to tearing down meaning until people don't even have a frame of reference to contextualize the world around them. This is seen as a direct strike against the "relations of power" in society. Mostly rooted in the leftist binary analysis of the world, as descended from Marx.


Ex: "Gender", you can deconstruct that word all you want but "biological sex" is an absolute reality. Period.

GRRRRRRrrr. The people that are in charge of what the words mean because they have sufficient qualifications to define things are wrong because book learnin' just confuses things. Damn those academics and their lack of family-values common sense, why they just wanna pretend like things that are obviously obvious aren't obvious! That's why they why they gotta spend all those decades "Researchin' " and "Analyzin' " and other such mumbo-jumbo, they're spenin' that time just thinking fancy so ain't nobody gonna notice they're a bunch commies.

People want to get rid of social constructs because they have no idea of the repercussions that it would cause upon the human mind. We have these barriers up for good reason. Sorta of like white and black. White is absence of color, black full of all colors. Art, life in general have many constructs that are ingrained in the mind at a very young age.

Like left and right, it was created for rational meaning, it is more philisophical than a social construct, as it is ingrained in the human brain by hundreds of years of *training. Though it may seem to be irrational at times, we call things certain names, because they make sense. Like the wheel. Naming conventions are placed on things because of what they look like. If you look at your hand at a regular, the left hand naturally makes a L shape, (Hence why it is called the left hand. If I remember correctly, been a while since I took a class about it).

But these are constructs that human kind has made are only for reason and rationality. (At the time). Many of these constructs are willfully ignore and beset (Archaic meaning). For thats what human kind does. We ignore things till they become a problem. But in terms of constructs: aka Gender. If we want to break the social construct of gender, you have to institute something in its place. As unfortunately the general populace will not willingly accept that break.

Academic, Family Values are constructs of society, built as stereotypes of what once was true. Similar to how every century or so the economic system is changed.

Similar to going to school, where you are seen as an intellectual. But many people I know left college and started their own company, and are the most wealthy people I know.

But Sociologists like to believe themselves as philosophers, the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Locke, Confucius, and Wilber. Philosophers have argued for years about social constructs and what they do to humanity as a whole. We as a society built them for special purposes. Some are knocked down and gotten rid of. But on things like gender. IT was built on sexist values and views. It is built because of these certain things. But while we talk about this, men are inheriting feminine traits, while women are inheriting masculine traits (in the 21st century, the roles have started to reverse). Where the social construct will soon change with societies push and pull.

It is constantly evolving and changing to the societies needs and wants. The social constructs of the 50s are very different from what they are right now. As time is an absolute force.

I am indifferent on the issue, as I have seen society change in only a couple of years. As the attitudes and constructs of gender have sort of blurred. Where women are rightfully accepted for what once was a boy's hair style, has been blurred into both genders having the same type of hair style. What is socially acceptable now could of been a few years ago abhorrent .

If you take a brief moment you can see many constructs are placed down.

Meanwhile I think I drank the koolaid and all those books I read have finally gotten to me!

I think it depends on what you want to change. Things like gender has been around since, well, forever, and is a core part of our mindset. Other subjects are not so integral to society and can change between generations and cultures. Perhaps things close to the surface change constantly while subjects that make up the bedrock of other subjects have been established for ages and change much more slowly.

For example, high heels were masculine and now they are feminine.

 Asherian Command wrote:
f you look at your hand at a regular, the left hand naturally makes a L shape, (Hence why it is called the left hand. If I remember correctly, been a while since I took a class about it).

I think that's more a memetic tool than the reason left is left

Social constructs certainly exist and even come about as convenience, rational points of reference between individuals but I'm more curious about how those factors change. Is it willful in a society (does society willfully change its constructs), or is it involuntary and outside of individual control?Using language as an example, look at the evolution from Old to Middle to Modern English. I doubt anyone sat down one day and said "lets start spelling lyft left with an e!" and then held a vote and got everyone's agreement to replace the y with an e. Even now, there's the fcat you can siltl raed tihs eevn toghuh I've jbulemd the lteetrs, a well recognized phenomenon. So is spelling even really that important except in so far as we consider good spelling a sign of proper education?* You're brain is capable of understanding the words and their meanings through context and familiarity. And this gets back to my thoughts about the Observer Effect, as I know Linguists today actively debate the ethics of their field in relation to how their own study of language can influence how people use language, i.e. the academic study of language could disrupt the natural evolution of language.

*A good example of this may also be African American Vernacular English (aka AAVE, or more commonly Ebonics), which many people deride as 'not real' even though it's use can be observed and it's differences from mainstream American English defined.

At the same time though we most certainly see various ideas change like general attitudes towards Gay Marriage and people are most certainly actively working against the traditional view.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
f you look at your hand at a regular, the left hand naturally makes a L shape, (Hence why it is called the left hand. If I remember correctly, been a while since I took a class about it).

I think that's more a memetic tool than the reason left is left

Social constructs certainly exist and even come about as convenience, rational points of reference between individuals but I'm more curious about how those factors change. Is it willful in a society (does society willfully change its constructs), or is it involuntary and outside of individual control?Using language as an example, look at the evolution from Old to Middle to Modern English. I doubt anyone sat down one day and said "lets start spelling lyft left with an e!" and then held a vote and got everyone's agreement to replace the y with an e. Even now, there's the fcat you can siltl raed tihs eevn toghuh I've jbulemd the lteetrs, a well recognized phenomenon. So is spelling even really that important except in so far as we consider good spelling a sign of proper education? You're brain is capable of understanding the words and their meanings through context and familiarity. And this gets back to my thoughts about the Observer Effect, as I know Linguists today actively debate the ethics of their field in relation to how their own study of language can influence how people use language, i.e. the academic study of language could disrupt the natural evolution of language.

At the same time though we most certainly see various ideas change like general attitudes towards Gay Marriage and people are most certainly actively working against the traditional view.

Time is a harsh mistress they do say.

I think it is a mixture of both willful and involuntary. Generation Y for example is the most accepting of all the generations so far, we don't know how or why they are.

Social Constructs such as the spelling thing is very important, as it is seen as a sign of intelligence, much similar to how whenever I write the word Responsibility on a chalk board or black board, people perk up a bit. (They are drawn to attention by that word). Because it usually has a negative connotation to it, because people believe they have done some wrong whenever that word is brought up.

Wisdom for example is seen to be gained by age. (Another social construct)

Linguists debate about quite a few things like how language is a construct that is temporary and will one day change radically.

And I do agree with you on the linguists part, as they is something actively preventing the language from evolving, which may be willfully done.

In terms of language progression I believe it is much similar to the evolution of the Latin Language. People slur it and it slowly starts to change because of the ease of it. Languages naturally evolve over time, but it is more due to human stupidity and laziness.

 Chongara wrote:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Everything that isn't an on-the-ground reality (IE an outcome) is a social construct.

The term itself is a ridiculous attempt to shame/negate/delegitimize the existence of social norms, taboos, and tradition as intrinsic parts of human society. It has no real-world meaning, and is used by academics (particularly sociologists) to confuse and derail pragmatic discussion. The bottom line is that post-modern social theory is dedicated to tearing down meaning until people don't even have a frame of reference to contextualize the world around them. This is seen as a direct strike against the "relations of power" in society. Mostly rooted in the leftist binary analysis of the world, as descended from Marx.


Ex: "Gender", you can deconstruct that word all you want but "biological sex" is an absolute reality. Period.

GRRRRRRrrr. The people that are in charge of what the words mean because they have sufficient qualifications to define things are wrong because book learnin' just confuses things. Damn those academics and their lack of family-values common sense, why they just wanna pretend like things that are obviously obvious aren't obvious! That's why they why they gotta spend all those decades "Researchin' " and "Analyzin' " and other such mumbo-jumbo, they're spenin' that time just thinking fancy so ain't nobody gonna notice they're a bunch commies.

Are you honestly going to try and deny that the vast majority of post-modern theory is derived from Marxist thought? Are you going to try and tell me that social science "theory" is simply BS spouted to justify more research grants to come up with additional theory? Are you going to tell me that social "science" doesn't have a fundamentally different defninition of what "theory" means, as compared to the actual sciences (STEM track)?

I base my statements 100% off of my own current experiences in the Ivory Tower. I also make them as someone with degree's in sociology and behavioral science. What expertise does your snarky comment spring from?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

*A good example of this may also be African American Vernacular English (aka AAVE, or more commonly Ebonics), which many people deride as 'not real' even though it's use can be observed and it's differences from mainstream American English defined.

My god, this is utterly ridiculous.

If you write a research paper it had better be in proper MLA or APA format English. No creative liberties with the written word, and you had better understand that vernacular and dialect ARE perceived as ignorance by the observer. There's a damn reason I killed my Southern accent when I came to California. See what I'm saying?

I'm note sure if the accent makes certain things sound stupid or if it's the actual words. Just wondering because it's hard to read accents on the Internet...

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
If you write a research paper it had better be in proper MLA or APA format English.

We Historians use the one true reference format; Chicago/Turabian All other reference formats are inferior and will be cleansed!*

Actually pretty sure History uses MLA and C/T. Kind of subject to the publishers whims on that one.

See what I'm saying?

Not really. Your posts in general tend to come off as enraged ramblings to me

 d-usa wrote:
I'm note sure if the accent makes certain things sound stupid or if it's the actual words. Just wondering because it's hard to read accents on the Internet...

In some fairly large circles, the accent gets conceived as used by stupid people as can be noted in this thread and others on Dakka. How many times have we seen posts or heard people in real life or in media affecting a Southern countrified accent to ridicule people holding an idea that was thought stupid by the ones putting on the accent? Case in point, from this thread:


"The people that are in charge of what the words mean because they have sufficient qualifications to define things are wrong because book learnin' just confuses things. Damn those academics and their lack of family-values common sense, why they just wanna pretend like things that are obviously obvious aren't obvious! That's why they why they gotta spend all those decades "Researchin' " and "Analyzin' " and other such mumbo-jumbo, they're spenin' that time just thinking fancy so ain't nobody gonna notice they're a bunch commies."

My wife, for example was made to feel self concious about her East Texas accent when she moved away and worked to get rid of it.
The thing comes back on her, though when we visit her family!

 LordofHats wrote:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
If you write a research paper it had better be in proper MLA or APA format English.

We Historians use the one true reference format; Chicago/Turabian All other reference formats are inferior and will be cleansed!*

Actually pretty sure History uses MLA and C/T. Kind of subject to the publishers whims on that one.

See what I'm saying?

Not really. Your posts in general tend to come off as enraged ramblings to me

Ha!

Fair enough. I'd say that maybe 50% of them are rants. Ok 60.

It's an evolutionary process. A lot of how they're shaped is unintentional, but we can work at it deliberately, too. All of that plays a part in how they evolve.

I think a place you can see the evolution is in how toxic masculinity has developed. We have the notion that certain things are masculine or feminine and that they're mutually exclusive, so a feminine thing can't be masculine and vice versa. As feminism (a deliberate effort to change the social constructs) has expanded what women can do, it's eroded what is masculine. At the same time, our society still screams at men that being masculine is the most important thing and if you're not masculine you're some kind of horrible inferior. But a lot of men don't really know how to make sense of it, and the set of behaviours that we mark as super masculine (like violence or sexual conquest) can be really negative.

So we have shaped what gender means, and that has caused another aspect of it to evolve as well, in a way that isn't very good. Now we can try to shape that to make people happier.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
It's an evolutionary process. A lot of how they're shaped is unintentional, but we can work at it deliberately, too. All of that plays a part in how they evolve.

I think a place you can see the evolution is in how toxic masculinity has developed. We have the notion that certain things are masculine or feminine and that they're mutually exclusive, so a feminine thing can't be masculine and vice versa. As feminism (a deliberate effort to change the social constructs) has expanded what women can do, it's eroded what is masculine. At the same time, our society still screams at men that being masculine is the most important thing and if you're not masculine you're some kind of horrible inferior. But a lot of men don't really know how to make sense of it, and the set of behaviours that we mark as super masculine (like violence or sexual conquest) can be really negative.

So we have shaped what gender means, and that has caused another aspect of it to evolve as well, in a way that isn't very good. Now we can try to shape that to make people happier.

But a big part of the reason why so many men can't make sense of it is precisely because, for so long, masculinity has been characterized as a bad, destructive thing. Pathological masculinity exists, but so does constructive masculinity, yet we rarely hear about that. The current gender discourse really hasn't made people happier at all, at least, not if you believe statistics on happiness.

And, I would even go so far as to say that the reason why we see this negative behavior is precisely because of the erosion of what is masculine. That is to say, men engage in destructive behaviors because they are confused. not the other way around. ie. sexual conquest fills a void that used to be filled by a sense of well being that is harder and harder to attain.

 Delicate Swarm wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
It's an evolutionary process. A lot of how they're shaped is unintentional, but we can work at it deliberately, too. All of that plays a part in how they evolve.

I think a place you can see the evolution is in how toxic masculinity has developed. We have the notion that certain things are masculine or feminine and that they're mutually exclusive, so a feminine thing can't be masculine and vice versa. As feminism (a deliberate effort to change the social constructs) has expanded what women can do, it's eroded what is masculine. At the same time, our society still screams at men that being masculine is the most important thing and if you're not masculine you're some kind of horrible inferior. But a lot of men don't really know how to make sense of it, and the set of behaviours that we mark as super masculine (like violence or sexual conquest) can be really negative.

So we have shaped what gender means, and that has caused another aspect of it to evolve as well, in a way that isn't very good. Now we can try to shape that to make people happier.

But a big part of the reason why so many men can't make sense of it is precisely because, for so long, masculinity has been characterized as a bad, destructive thing. Pathological masculinity exists, but so does constructive masculinity, yet we rarely hear about that. The current gender discourse really hasn't made people happier at all, at least, not if you believe statistics on happiness.

And, I would even go so far as to say that the reason why we see this negative behavior is precisely because of the erosion of what is masculine. That is to say, men engage in destructive behaviors because they are confused. not the other way around. ie. sexual conquest fills a void that used to be filled by a sense of well being that is harder and harder to attain.

Its more a stereotype constructed by social contionations, and this whole "Boys will be boys." Or "Men are Evil and the culprits of everything." 9 times out of 10 you are going to hear about a male murder over a females, but a females will be used for shock value on news networks. Its really interesting.

 Asherian Command wrote:
People want to get rid of social constructs because they have no idea of the repercussions that it would cause upon the human mind. We have these barriers up for good reason. Sorta of like white and black. White is absence of color, black full of all colors. Art, life in general have many constructs that are ingrained in the mind at a very young age.

This bugs me way more than it should, but it's actually the opposite in that. White is every color on the light spectrum combined, whereas black is the absence of light (aka no color). When it comes to drawing, when you combine all of the basic colors, you get black because the resulting combination absorbs 90% of the light that hits it rather than reflecting it; meaning that it gives off an absence of light (which is what composes color) rather than a combo of colors.

 dusara217 wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
People want to get rid of social constructs because they have no idea of the repercussions that it would cause upon the human mind. We have these barriers up for good reason. Sorta of like white and black. White is absence of color, black full of all colors. Art, life in general have many constructs that are ingrained in the mind at a very young age.

This bugs me way more than it should, but it's actually the opposite in that. White is every color on the light spectrum combined, whereas black is the absence of light (aka no color). When it comes to drawing, when you combine all of the basic colors, you get black because the resulting combination absorbs 90% of the light that hits it rather than reflecting it; meaning that it gives off an absence of light (which is what composes color) rather than a combo of colors.

At the school I am at. We aren't told the scientific reason, we are given the art reason. My bad D:

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Delicate Swarm wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
It's an evolutionary process. A lot of how they're shaped is unintentional, but we can work at it deliberately, too. All of that plays a part in how they evolve.

I think a place you can see the evolution is in how toxic masculinity has developed. We have the notion that certain things are masculine or feminine and that they're mutually exclusive, so a feminine thing can't be masculine and vice versa. As feminism (a deliberate effort to change the social constructs) has expanded what women can do, it's eroded what is masculine. At the same time, our society still screams at men that being masculine is the most important thing and if you're not masculine you're some kind of horrible inferior. But a lot of men don't really know how to make sense of it, and the set of behaviours that we mark as super masculine (like violence or sexual conquest) can be really negative.

So we have shaped what gender means, and that has caused another aspect of it to evolve as well, in a way that isn't very good. Now we can try to shape that to make people happier.

But a big part of the reason why so many men can't make sense of it is precisely because, for so long, masculinity has been characterized as a bad, destructive thing. Pathological masculinity exists, but so does constructive masculinity, yet we rarely hear about that. The current gender discourse really hasn't made people happier at all, at least, not if you believe statistics on happiness.

And, I would even go so far as to say that the reason why we see this negative behavior is precisely because of the erosion of what is masculine. That is to say, men engage in destructive behaviors because they are confused. not the other way around. ie. sexual conquest fills a void that used to be filled by a sense of well being that is harder and harder to attain.

Its more a stereotype constructed by social contionations, and this whole "Boys will be boys." Or "Men are Evil and the culprits of everything." 9 times out of 10 you are going to hear about a male murder over a females, but a females will be used for shock value on news networks. Its really interesting.

Males are pumped full of testosterone; they're naturally more violent than females, as females, biologically, were designed to be caretakers. There's a reason that females are generally softer, lovelier, kinder, and more caring than men; men have always been the killers and the protectors, while the females have always basically been the psychological caretakers of the species. For thousands of years, females raised and taught the children. If you think about, everything feminism is against was a direct consequence of how females taught their children for thousands of years. After all, what woman would be proud of her son being the coward? What woman would be proud of a chandler when that other son became a renowned warrior? What woman would rather have her son be a scribe when he could be a big, brawny, rich* Blacksmith?

* Many Blacksmiths, prior to the Medieval Era, and post-Medieval Era, ended up being much richer than their neighbors, as Blacksmiths were the only merchants that could be guaranteed business from virtually everybody in the village/town.

I think the term "social construct" itself is somewhat loaded. Certainly, it has become a pejorative. The word "construct" implies that it is a falsehood. It is artificial, and can be easily knocked down or destroyed. Maybe not the case for everyone but in my experience, the people most likely to use the term social construct in the first place, are the most likely to believe these things to be bad, and that they should be knocked down.

But this really isn't always the case. I mean, a handshake is a social construct, as is a kiss. I could easily pull a reversal by going all Hobbes and replacing social construct with social contract. A social contract being something that is mutually agreed upon so that a society can function. Really, you could even argue that's the only thing that separates us from animals. (I'd argue there is more than just that, but certainly our ability to form larger communities than other primates is a huge factor in our evolution.)

As for the OP, I think a guy wearing a dress, is a guy wearing a dress. Perhaps a more productive route, rather than trying to abolish all lines between genders/sexuality, would be to just acknowledge that the lines are real, and that we should simply treat people who chose the fall outside the lines the same as anyone else.

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
As for the OP, I think a guy wearing a dress, is a guy wearing a dress. Perhaps a more productive route, rather than trying to abolish all lines between genders/sexuality, would be to just acknowledge that the lines are real, and that we should simply treat people who chose the fall outside the lines the same as anyone else.

Why should we keep those lines, especially for something as arbitrary as "men don't wear dresses"? After all, fashion changes and it could be the case that in 100 years men wear dresses all the time and it's considered the height of masculinity. Or consider gender stereotypes in jobs: computer programming used to be a job "for women", until we decided that it should be a job "for men". So many of the lines involving gender are just like that, completely arbitrary things that might be true in 2015 but certainly aren't inherent qualities of men and women. So we should oppose attempts to enforce those lines or to treat them as anything more than just coincidental trends.

Why should we not keep those lines? What benefit is there to discarding them? Especially when a huge portion of people are perfectly content to be within them?

You need reason to change them, you need no reason to keep them unless they are actively causing harm. And in nearly all cases they do not cause harm. There is absolutely nothing wrong with traditional gender roles, and I'm not talking about something as superficial as dress codes.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
As for the OP, I think a guy wearing a dress, is a guy wearing a dress. Perhaps a more productive route, rather than trying to abolish all lines between genders/sexuality, would be to just acknowledge that the lines are real, and that we should simply treat people who chose the fall outside the lines the same as anyone else.

Why should we keep those lines, especially for something as arbitrary as "men don't wear dresses"? After all, fashion changes and it could be the case that in 100 years men wear dresses all the time and it's considered the height of masculinity. Or consider gender stereotypes in jobs: computer programming used to be a job "for women", until we decided that it should be a job "for men". So many of the lines involving gender are just like that, completely arbitrary things that might be true in 2015 but certainly aren't inherent qualities of men and women. So we should oppose attempts to enforce those lines or to treat them as anything more than just coincidental trends.

Because the process of changing those lines would probably require far more social engineering than what put them there in the first place. The only reason why there are more men in computer programming today, is because over time more men gravitated to the field. No one got together and just decided it had to be that way.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
As for the OP, I think a guy wearing a dress, is a guy wearing a dress. Perhaps a more productive route, rather than trying to abolish all lines between genders/sexuality, would be to just acknowledge that the lines are real, and that we should simply treat people who chose the fall outside the lines the same as anyone else.

Why should we keep those lines, especially for something as arbitrary as "men don't wear dresses"? After all, fashion changes and it could be the case that in 100 years men wear dresses all the time and it's considered the height of masculinity. Or consider gender stereotypes in jobs: computer programming used to be a job "for women", until we decided that it should be a job "for men". So many of the lines involving gender are just like that, completely arbitrary things that might be true in 2015 but certainly aren't inherent qualities of men and women. So we should oppose attempts to enforce those lines or to treat them as anything more than just coincidental trends.

Since when has computer programming been a job for a single gender?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Why should we not keep those lines?

Because they have very little, if any, reason to exist.

What benefit is there to discarding them?

The benefit is not forcing people into arbitrary boxes based on nothing more than what's in their pants.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with traditional gender roles, and I'm not talking about something as superficial as dress codes.

Sure there's something wrong with them: they assign roles to people based on a fact that has nothing to do with what they actually want, and people are very often uncomfortable in those roles. But even if that harm isn't universal it still raises the question of what is right with traditional gender roles. And I have yet to see any kind of convincing argument in favor of having them, besides "they exist already".

And yet, gender differences are more pronounced in more developed countries, where you would expect the opposite.

My point was, if it is true that gender roles developed organically, rather than being assigned, then trying to reverse that will be more harmful than simply allowing people to make their own choices. But that is rarely what I see. Rather we hear things like, the lack of women in STEM is a serious problem that needs to be solved. I think that is far more likely to result in shoehorning people into roles they don't want.

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
And yet, gender differences are more pronounced in more developed countries, where you would expect the opposite.

Why would you expect the opposite? I really have no idea what you're trying to argue here.

My point was, if it is true that gender roles developed organically, rather than being assigned, then trying to reverse that will be more harmful than simply allowing people to make their own choices. But that is rarely what I see. Rather we hear things like, the lack of women in STEM is a serious problem that needs to be solved. I think that is far more likely to result in shoehorning people into roles they don't want.

I think you're kind of missing the point there. People don't want to see more women in STEM because they have a quota to fill, it's because they believe (with good reason) that there are a lot of women who want to get into those fields but are discouraged from doing so because of gender stereotypes and sexism. They aren't free to make their own choices, and that's a problem.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Why should we not keep those lines? What benefit is there to discarding them? Especially when a huge portion of people are perfectly content to be within them?

What benefit is there to keeping them?

I find both those questions rather pointless. Looking for cost benefit analysis is something like gender roles is a fruitless pursuit and amounts to nothing more than anecdotal sentiments.

A more appropriate question I think is; Does your comfort/indifference in traditional gender roles justify indifference towards people who are uncomfortable/isolated in traditional gender roles? Is a shift in gender roles, presumably to a set that is less judgmental, going to inconvenience anyone who likes traditional gender roles? If for example my proposal is not to discard gender roles but rather to move the goal posts to positions where individuals have a lot more freedom in what expected of them or what assumptions are associated with their choices, is that really in any way going to effect people who choose to continue living more traditional roles? It would seem to me that such a change has no effect on people comfortable with traditional roles while having the bonus of allowing people who don't live traditional roles to enjoy the comfort that comes with their choices being taken for granted.

And that's still not getting into another issue; Given a minority population that is uncomfortable with traditional gender roles, is it morally correct for the comfortable majority to dismiss them? Why should the majority's comfort be given more weight than the minority's discomfort? That is a rather tyrannical line of thought.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
As for the OP, I think a guy wearing a dress, is a guy wearing a dress. Perhaps a more productive route, rather than trying to abolish all lines between genders/sexuality, would be to just acknowledge that the lines are real, and that we should simply treat people who chose the fall outside the lines the same as anyone else.

Why should we keep those lines, especially for something as arbitrary as "men don't wear dresses"? After all, fashion changes and it could be the case that in 100 years men wear dresses all the time and it's considered the height of masculinity. Or consider gender stereotypes in jobs: computer programming used to be a job "for women", until we decided that it should be a job "for men". So many of the lines involving gender are just like that, completely arbitrary things that might be true in 2015 but certainly aren't inherent qualities of men and women. So we should oppose attempts to enforce those lines or to treat them as anything more than just coincidental trends.

So, basically, what you're saying is that simple evolution of societies should be abolished? What else should be abolished? Maybe the ocean's tides? How about economic fluctuations?

 dusara217 wrote:
So, basically, what you're saying is that simple evolution of societies should be abolished? What else should be abolished? Maybe the ocean's tides? How about economic fluctuations?

Are you seriously attempting to argue that strict enforcement of gender stereotypes is something as inevitable and unchangeable as the tide? Or that we are helpless and passive in the face of this "evolution", rather than society being the result of the things we choose to do?