Depression Why did he leave me

[somethingtobelievein]

But then, once again, I do not see how your definition of man, which if I recall correctly was any person who possesses a functional SRY gene in their Y chromosome, actually works in practice. I feel like your definition of man is not actually descriptive at all of how society typically uses the word. Not in the Western sphere, not in the Arab world (as an Arab, I can say that much), not in the African sphere, and not in the Asian sphere.

I genuinely need to know why construct your definition of "man" in such a way. What is being achieved? What is being upheld? What service does it provide to us members of society?

Edit: changed "hemisphere" to "sphere"

I feel like your definition of man is not actually descriptive at all of how society typically uses the word.

normally society doesn't have to think about it so much for minute-to-minute judgments, but this is why the length of time that these new gender theories have been around is relevant. For basically all of human history - even though they didn't understand what an SRY gene is or a Y v. X chromosome - my definition captured what was considered man v. woman in 99.99999% of cases. Before we had this discussion come up, one would use the heuristic of "born with penis or vagina?" And hermaphrodites would be viewed as a one legged-person in the bipedal example, an exception rather than a valid third category.

I genuinely need to know why construct your definition of "man" in such a way. What is being achieved? What is being upheld? What service does it provide to us members of society?

I guess I don't follow. It's a definition of a fundamental concept, like what is oxygen v. "air"; what is a dog v. a cat; what is a moon v. a planet. You define it as what it is, just like defining a "human", generally.

I've been answering a lot of questions. Maybe it would be easier if you tell me how you separate man from woman? I understand that you view sex and gender as separate, so perhaps defining both.

How do Arabs define a "man" if not with biology?

It is easier to find the point between our beliefs if they are both defined.

 

[wait whattt? :o]

normally society doesn't have to think about it so much for minute-to-minute judgments, but this is why the length of time that these new gender theories have been around is relevant. For basically all of human history - even though they didn't understand what an SRY gene is or a Y v. X chromosome - my definition captured what was considered man v. woman in 99.99999% of cases. Before we had this discussion come up, one would use the heuristic of "born with penis or vagina?" And hermaphrodites would be viewed as a one legged-person in the bipedal example, an exception rather than a valid third category.


I guess I don't follow. It's a definition of a fundamental concept, like what is oxygen v. "air"; what is a dog v. a cat; what is a moon v. a planet. You define it as what it is, just like defining a "human", generally.

I've been answering a lot of questions. Maybe it would be easier if you tell me how you separate man from woman? I understand that you view sex and gender as separate, so perhaps defining both.

How do Arabs define a "man" if not with biology?

It is easier to find the point between our beliefs if they are both defined.

You are right. You answered a lot of questions. I suppose I should respond in kind! :D

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 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.

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 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.

 

[somethingtobelievein]

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.

 

[Kevin_Logan]

Maybe dont post cp on online forums

 

[ZZEBRA813]

Maybe dont post cp on online forums

 

[ItalianMobsterShootsALobster]

 

[Schwarzwald]

Maybe dont post cp on online forums

Woah I was skinning and now this?

 

[wait whattt? :o]

Oh boy, those are a lot of questions. Only fair though, I asked you a ton too. Good questions too.

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?

No. I think sex and gender are two different things.

I like to picture sex as a set of elements that are a) physical and b) biological.
Gender, on the other hand, is a set of elements that references sex.

In a sense, you could actually think of gender as a function. It takes in elements of sex as an input, and outputs social meanings, roles, and expectations that begets social pressure. What the content of the function is itself is subject to change throughout time and space.

So, to me, sex is not flexible, but it is malleable to some extent. We do it all the time. Men who take steroids to manipulate their hormone profile to have more muscle gain or volume. Women who undergo cosmetic surgery such as breast implants and butt lifts. I want to make something clear though, I am not saying that sex at the fundamental, categorical level is malleable, but rather that sex-related traits (or traits associated with sex and therefore loosely part of sex) are malleable.

However, gender is definitely flexible because it is reliant on the interpretation of society and the individual which is changeable. Heck, even individuals within the same culture at the same time could have slight (and, at times, stark) variations in their conception of gender. This is not new or peculiar. I am sure there are documented cases of variations throughout history, but I don't have the confident to back this up to be honest.

A man is a person who declares "I am a man", basically?

Under the framework I explained above, that would be the case, yes.

I'd like to make things clear: under my framework, a person cannot make a biological claim but they can make a gender identity claim as the framework outlined above allows for interpretation at the individual level.

It is like with names. A person declares themselves "John". I accept it. I don't ask for their government name, or if their parents declared them as such, or if this is a name they just came up with on the spot. I accept they are John because they decided they are John. That's all it took.

A real example of this was a guy I met in university whose name, in my language and culture, is feminine but in his language and culture, it's masculine. I wish I could remember what that name but he was a nobody honestly (joke). Anyway, I did not respond with, "You are clearly a man. I will not call you with that name because I only reserve it for women." I accepted it because, well, there is an interpretive layer to names as much as there is an interpretive layer to gender and I accept that there are variations across time and space.

Now, of course, the analogy is not perfect. Names do not have an objective, physical substrate they rely on. At least as far I know. They are completely independent and solely built upon collective agreement. Gender, however, is built on the interpretation of a biological, physical substrate. Therefore, while it allows for self-declarations, it also allows for collective disagreements (that is, that society interprets differently).

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 . . . ?

Yes, that is correct. The first statement is subjective. That is the point. My framework allows for interpretation (subjectivity) of gender at both the collective and the individual level.

However, it does not allow for interpretation of sex at all, and therefore, your conception of femininity being about having a "penis and being tall and muscular and growing a lot of body hair" would not be allowed under my framework.

I think the big discrepancy between you and I is that you consider sex and gender the same while I consider them separate but not totally divorced from each other since gender does rely on sex, at least referrentially.
Using "the penis" to reinterpret or redefine femininity does not work because you are using the wrong reference class (the male sex). I strictly defined femininity as: "set of traits associated with the female sex." As such, redefining or reinterpreting femininity with male sex as the reference point is disallowed in my framework.

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.

Honestly, I think we both agree on both biological sex and the social & cultural variations in the social manifestation of biological sex (and sex-related traits).
Where we disagree, I think, is what we want from the term "gender". You seem to want precision, robustness, and stability. As such, sex and gender are the same to you. It seems you want a categorical and/or ontological (I think that's the right word?) definition.
I want description which obligates flexibility and subjectivity in order to allow for the variation that is seen in different societies and individuals. I want a behavioral and/or social definition.

You want what it is, I want how it presents.

Different groups have shared understanding because, at the end of the day, we are sexually dimorphic. We will use the male and female sex as the starting point. That is why we have the shared understanding we do while having variations such as "Well, my men are hairy" and "Ewww! Hairy men?" Those two exist just fine under my framework.

Now, there are two critiques that are fair depending on your perspective. A) it allows for subjectivity, and b) it requires that the person is correctly referencing sex.
That's fair. I allow for subjectivity because I want to account for variation.
As for the fact it requires the person to correctly reference sex, my framework doesn't actually have a solution for this because it does not try to. I allow for human error, because societies are subject to human errors all the time. To describe society is to describe its errors too.

edit: errors in word choice and/or grammar

 

[somethingtobelievein]

Oh boy, those are a lot of questions. Only fair though, I asked you a ton too. Good questions too.


No. I think sex and gender are two different things.

I like to picture sex as a set of elements that are a) physical and b) biological.
Gender, on the other hand, is a set of elements that references sex.

In a sense, you could actually think of gender as a function. It takes in elements of sex as an input, and outputs social meanings, roles, and expectations that begets social pressure. What the content of the function is itself is subject to change throughout time and space.

So, to me, sex is not flexible, but it is malleable to some extent. We do it all the time. Men who take steroids to manipulate their hormone profile to have more muscle gain or volume. Women who undergo cosmetic surgery such as breast implants and butt lifts. I want to make something clear though, I am not saying that sex at the fundamental, categorical level is malleable, but rather that sex-related traits (or traits associated with sex and therefore loosely part of sex) are malleable.

However, gender is definitely flexible because it is reliant on the interpretation of society and the individual which is changeable. Heck, even individuals within the same culture at the same time could have slight (and, at times, stark) variations in their conception of gender. This is not new or peculiar. I am sure there are documented cases of variations throughout history, but I don't have the confident to back this up to be honest.


Under the framework I explained above, that would be the case, yes.

I'd like to make things clear: under my framework, a person cannot make a biological claim but they can make a gender identity claim as the framework outlined above allows for interpretation at the individual level.

It is like with names. A person declares themselves "John". I accept it. I don't ask for their government name, or if their parents declared them as such, or if this is a name they just came up with on the spot. I accept they are John because they decided they are John. That's all it took.

A real example of this was a guy I met in university whose name, in my language and culture, is feminine but in his language and culture, it's masculine. I wish I could remember what that name but he was a nobody honestly (joke). Anyway, I did not respond with, "You are clearly a man. I will not call you with that name because I only reserve it for women." I accepted it because, well, there is an interpretive layer to names as much as there is an interpretive layer to gender and I accept that there are variations across time and space.

Now, of course, the analogy is not perfect. Names do not have an objective, physical substrate they rely on. At least as far I know. They are completely independent and solely built upon collective agreement. Gender, however, is built on the interpretation of a biological, physical substrate. Therefore, while it allows for self-declarations, it also allows for collective disagreements (that is, that society interprets differently).


Yes, that is correct. The first statement is subjective. That is the point. My framework allows for interpretation (subjectivity) of gender at both the collective and the individual level.

However, it does not allow for interpretation of sex at all, and therefore, your conception of femininity being about having a "penis and being tall and muscular and growing a lot of body hair" would not be allowed under my framework.

I think the big discrepancy between you and I is that you consider sex and gender the same while I consider them separate but not totally divorced from each other since gender does rely on sex, at least referrentially.
Using "the penis" to reinterpret or redefine femininity does not work because you are using the wrong reference class (the male sex). I strictly defined femininity as: "set of traits associated with the female sex." As such, redefining or reinterpreting femininity with male sex as the reference point is disallowed in my framework.


Honestly, I think we both agree on both biological sex and the social & cultural variations in the social manifestation of biological sex (and sex-related traits).
Where we disagree, I think, is what we want from the term "gender". You seem to want precision, robustness, and stability. As such, sex and gender are the same to you. It seems you want a categorical and/or ontological (I think that's the right word?) definition.
I want description which obligates flexibility and subjectivity in order to allow for the variation that is seen in different societies and individuals. I want a behavioral and/or social definition.

You want what it is, I want how it presents.

Different groups have shared understanding because, at the end of the day, we are sexually dimorphic. We will use the male and female sex as the starting point. That is why we have the shared understanding we do while having variations such as "Well, my men are hairy" and "Ewww! Hairy men?" Those two exist just fine under my framework.

Now, there are two critiques that are fair depending on your perspective. A) it allows for subjectivity, and b) it requires that the person is correctly referencing sex.
That's fair. I allow for subjectivity because I want to account for variation.
As for the fact it requires the person to correctly reference sex, my framework doesn't actually have a solution for this because it does not try to. I allow for human error, because societies are subject to human errors all the time. To describe society is to describe its errors too.

edit: errors in word choice and/or grammar

I had a few individual responses to certain sections of this, but they didn't seem very productive.

I think one additional question would be more productive. And then a proposal/hypothetical I hope you will consider and tell me your thoughts about.

You want "sex" to be "a set of elements that are a) physical and b) biological."

You want "Gender, on the other hand, [to be] a set of elements that references sex."

The biggest question, I think, is why - if you want a concept that merely references 'sex' without being totally divorced from it rather than replacing 'sex' - would this concept use the exact same words as "sex"?

For a very long time, sex meant biological, and gender was the same thing, but a synonym introduced for social purposes, and both meant: 'these are men, these are women, here are different ways to distinguish them, etc.,' 'boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.'

Let's say -hypothetically- we agree that in modern times we need some new framework that goes beyond "what it is" and captures "how it presents." We agree that while we've got words for "biological sex," we need to capture "the social & cultural variations in the social manifestation of biological sex (and sex-related traits)." Even if we agreed on that: why on earth would we choose the words "man" and "woman" to use in this second concept? The words "man" and "woman" that already have biological meanings?

Why not a framework that takes both of our definitions and molds them? Hypothetical:

A male human, known as a "man," is a human with a functioning SRY gene on a Y chromosome. This leads to a male development path yada yada testes sperm etc.
A female human, known as a "woman," does not have a functioning SRY gene on a Y chromosome. Yada yada ovaries.
Masculinity is a set of traits associated with the male sex. [Meaning traits associated with typical presentations of a functioning SRY gene on Y chromosome person.]
Femininity is a set of traits associated with the female sex. [same as above]
A "[New Term Y]" is a person whose [new term "Z", rather than "gender"] identity aligns with their conception of masculinity.
A "[New Term X]" is a person whose Z identity aligns with their conception of femininity.

Hopefully you will see easily where I took from each of our prior statements and where I changed things up.

You could call X, Y, and Z anything you want, and we could agree on this clean framework that accomplishes all goals that we both have . . . so long as you don't call them "woman," "man," and "gender," which already have different definitions.

There would be no issues with the areas people complain about where we want men and women to be separated: Sports? Use man v. woman distinction only. Dating apps? List man v. woman (required) and (optionally) Z identity. Introducing yourself online? Feel free to just use Z identity if that makes you more comfortable.

You asked me earlier what the social benefit of my definitions are, but I can't help but wonder what the social benefit is of saying "man" means one thing when talking about sex and another thing when talking about gender instead of leaving "man" as is and introducing new terms to reference (while not being divorced from) "man" to explain this newly introduced concept.

Obviously, you personally do not have the power to introduce new terms into the lexicon, and I'm not expecting you to. But when you have this discussion with someone who thinks like me, we think "certainly there are group leaders who could introduce new terms that would easily clear up all misunderstandings, yet they choose instead to fight this social war over redefining 'man' and 'woman.'" Our question then becomes about motivation.

 

[wait whattt? :o]

You want "sex" to be "a set of elements that are a) physical and b) biological."

You want "Gender, on the other hand, [to be] a set of elements that references sex."

No. I think I did not articulate myself clearly. That's on me.

I don't want sex to be "a set of elements that are a) physical and b) biological", nor do I want
gender to be "a set of elements that references sex".

What I want is simply a descriptive framework. A framework that describes society's use and manifestation of sex and gender.
As such, I think that a descriptive framework would purport that
1. sex is a set of elements that are a) physical and b) biological
2. gender is a set of elements that references sex

Again, the idea here is that I want to describe society. To describe society, you observe it, and when I observed it, I noticed that people, verbally, used external genitalia as - for the lack of a better word - the main and initial differentiator between "men" and "women" because it is a reliable and common (but not always true) difference, but then I noticed that, to people, there are MORE things that differentiates "men" from "women". Pretending like the only differentiator between "men" and "women" that people in society have in mind is "one has a functioning SRY gene in their Y chromosome" is not only folly, but it is literally denial of reality.

The biggest question, I think, is why - if you want a concept that merely references 'sex' without being totally divorced from it rather than replacing 'sex' - would this concept use the exact same words as "sex"?

You answered the question yourself, because it is not "totally divorced from it rather than replacing 'sex'". A concept needs not replace another concept for it to use the same words. The reason why gender uses the same words is simple: gender and sex often overlap, a lot. This is already strongly suggested if you noticed that the framework I suggested defined gender as "a set of elements that references sex". The very fact it references sex means that, in one way or another, any "gendered" term has roots in sex. There is no need to replace or use different words altogether.

For a very long time, sex meant biological, and gender was the same thing, but a synonym introduced for social purposes, and both meant: 'these are men, these are women, here are different ways to distinguish them, etc.,' 'boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.'

But again, boys having a "penis" and girls having a "vagina", as I said, is not the only differentiator we use. It is insufficient as a differentiator. Hence why, as you can see, we have many other differentiators. You don't differentiate a "man" from another "man" because one of them has a penis or because that "man" has a "functioning SRY gene in the Y chromosome". That's nonsense. You differentiate "man" based on a plethora of signals from the build of the body, their gait, their clothing, their physical characteristics, and so on.

This is why we can say things like
"He taught me how to be a man" or "Man up" without it being incoherent and nonsensical.
Obviously I am not saying "He taught me how to be a person who possesses a functioning SRY gene in the Y chromosome".
I am simply saying "He taught me how to be a person who aligns with the traits associated with the male sex".

When you view it under such lenses, a descriptive lens, then all these phrases, cultural sayings, wisdoms, and symbolisms start to make sense. Then you realize "gender roles" isn't a modern concept, but something that predates human civilization itself. It started when men were typically the hunters because they were able-bodied, and women were typically the gatherers because of implications from reproduction and pregnancy.