You are right. You answered a lot of questions. I suppose I should respond in kind! :D
So, I have a few follow ups.
First, am I to understand that just as I see sex and gender as the same, you do as well, except you see both of them as flexible/changeable?
I suppose my perspective on this is as follows:
My issue with your definition of "man" is that it essentially collapses the "social manifestation" of "man" by prescribing a strictly biological mechanism onto a clearly socially-defined, ambiguous, and malleable term.
A man, to me, is simply a person whose gender identity aligns with their conception of masculinity.
A man is a person who declares "I am a man", basically?
A woman, to me, is simply a person whose gender identity aligns with their conception of femininity.
This, to me, is not circular because:
Masculinity is a set of traits associated with the male sex.
Femininity is a set of traits associated with the female sex.
You say it's not circular, but consider this. Let's just look at the woman:
"A woman . . . is simply a person whose gender identity aligns with their conception of femininity."
"Femininity is a set of traits associated with the female sex."
The second statement implies that femininity has a firm definition, hence cutting off the circularity. But the first statement relies on subjectivity: whatever the person in question considers to be feminine.
"a set of traits associated with the female sex" - and what are those? What is the "female sex"? How do we define that? You don't have to answer each if you don't feel like it, my point is that we slide back down to needing an actual definition of what a woman is.
Can my conception of femininity be that it is about having a penis and being tall and muscular and growing a lot of body hair? If yes, then there really doesn't seem - to me - to be a point to having the words "man" and "woman." If no, it begs the question "why"? And now we're back to biological development: what leads a certain group of people to have a penis and more muscle definition and a lot of body hair and greater average height . . . ?
The reason these set of definitions make more sense to me is that they have sufficient explanatory power to describe how gender manifests in society and how it is typically expressed without being too reliant on biology such that it constrains expression too much
This is where I find your response very interesting. How is a biological definition of sex and gender constraining expression? Performing (male) artists have become worldwide sensations appearing more feminine/androgynous, and if any women were talented I'm sure you could find one who is a badass. (joke).
My guess is you mean there is social pressure: eg making fun of a man for acting too feminine. I do think that can be a big problem. To me, though, that is a problem with people/society allowing the unkindness, not the definition of what a man is.
We can break down the language and let an individual decide what man and woman means and call themselves what they want, but those people will still be mean to them. The mean people aren't going to say "oh damn the dictionary says anyone is a man as long as it's their conception that they are one."
Obviously this is a male-heavy forum, so we are viewing things through the lens of men. But, allow me to bring up a woman stereotype that we had back in the 90s: a tomboy. A tomboy was a woman who was into 'guy' things, didn't behave ladylike, played sports, stuff like that. What makes the tomboy so great is that you get her back to bed and take off those athletic clothes and she is a
woman, through and through. Her masculine side is just part of her character.
While I understand that your view is all about people having choice, think about the literal definition you gave me:
if the Tomboy considers sports and stuff to be "traits associated with the male sex," and hence "masculine," doesn't it come close to telling her she's a boy? I get that it has to be her "gender identity", but what if she really doesn't have traits that match what she considers to be feminine? Your definition doesn't force her to be a "man," but it also doesn't really allow her to be a "woman" without a change in behavior or cognition.
because otherwise, it would not account for differences in understanding of gender across both space and time since different cultures in different places understand it differently and even the same culture in different times have different understanding of it. In essence, it has sufficient explanatory power to describe usage, norms, and variation.
For example:
"blue represents man" makes sense to me when a man is a "person who aligns with a set of traits they associate with the male sex" more than a "person who possesses functional SRY gene in the Y chromosome" because the latter definition does not explain why such associations exist at all.
Well see I think the reverse.
Let's consider a meeting of people from a bunch of different cultures.
Under your definition: one culture considers blue to represent men, another largely think green does, another has a pretty big split and pink and brown are the frontrunners, and yet another thinks that blue, green, pink, and brown are very very feminine.
How do these groups have a shared understanding? How would someone from one group be able to know what a "man" is from another culture without a lot of questions and explanations? And then they both are just using the same word for totally different things.
Now, let's say those people meet in a world that uses my definition. A man has the functional SRY gene in the Y chromosome. Practically, that means XY chromosome, not considering the very rare exceptions. That means they all can, in general, have a good idea: the ones with adams apples and 5 o'clock shadow are probably men and the smaller ones with wider-set hips are probably women. Then they can have a discussion: 'hey did you know in our country a lot of men grow beards?', 'that's crazy because in ours the men like makeup and are always clean shaven.' The discussion becomes the behavior: the expression.
