Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neruz]

Neruz, I'm gonna have to ask why you have a half of a haunter for a sig.

The other half wouldn't fit because the forums are a gigantic raging erection and will only let me have 6 lines of signature.

[cowofdoom78963]

Thats probably for the best, you would probably be banned for having a gigantic raging erection in your sig anyway.

[G-Flex]

What's the difference?

Sex: physical attributes that mark you as male, female or other
Gender: mental state as male, female or other

I don't agree with this distinction.

Sex is a biological trait, whereas gender is related to social roles (including the mental traits going along with it) that are related to sex.

In other words,  "male" and "female" themselves are defined differently depending on whether you're talking about biological sex or gender. In terms of sex, "male" and "female" are the more-obvious physical/biological classifications which apply just fine to MOST people, whereas in terms of gender, we're talking about social constructs and roles that are simply assigned to people of a given sex (at least they tend to be).

Gender is fairly mutable; it's easy to envision a society of one or three genders (and this has, to some degree, happened before in certain places) even if sex itself does not change.

[Jreengus]

Ok let me get this straight, some stupid people made some mistakes and thought you were a guy. From this you have concluded that the English language is invalid and everyone should ignore the basic rules of it?

If people mistake my pet for a bat does that mean that we shouldn't call the wooden stick you hit things with a bat? Because this is effectively the argument you are making here, that you were hurt/annoyed by people making a mistake and using one meaning of a word so the other meaning is invalid.

No.  I'm saying that being called by the incorrect pronoun sucks, and if both pronouns are incorrect, then we'd better make a third one.  Language changes.  It has changed, so that "he" is no longer really gender-neutral (if it ever really was in the first place).  If I said "Zounds" instead of "Shit," would I be correct?  Not really.  How about saying "I cannot abear it" rather than "I cannot bear it," or calling a woman handsome ("Why, hello there, handsome woman!") or saying "women glow" instead of "women sweat?"  Hell, how about archaic spellings?  We changed that crap for a reason, and now we've got a damned good reason to change the language again.

I also like the part where we call everyone "he," which implies that men are the main gender lying around and worth worrying about.  Would it be all right if we arbitrarily switched to she as the gender-neutral pronoun--because after all, it's just one little letter?  I'm certain you'd be okay about being the "weird" gender, right?  Because being male is standard, so we can use male pronouns whenever we don't know with no problems.  I am referring, of course, to the notions expressed in The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir.

To your first paragraph I will respond that being referred to the wrong pronoun does suck but if there is a gender neutral pronoun I will use it, since he is that pronoun  I will refer to someone who considers themself gender neutral as he. If they take offence at that I will explain why if they still take offence at that then they are not worth my time and I will ignore them. As to your second paragraph I refer you back to my first statement it is not he because men are standard rather because over time the male specific terms have fallen out of use and been replaced by the gender neutral ones*. Ironically if you did "arbitrarily"  change she to be gender neutral it would not be arbitrary at all but rather you engaging in what you seem to be criticising, although I'm not quite sure what you are criticising an inherent urge I apparently feel as man to stamp MAN over everything and show those puny females who is the boss? I find feminist literature inherently distasteful as a lot of it seems to be designed to attempt to persecute me simply for having a penis and implicates that every action I partake in is designed simply to allow me to slap nearby women in the face with said penis.

*A rather interesting exception is girl which did the opposite and went from gender neutral child to referring to a female child.

[Kitpup]

What's the difference?

Sex: physical attributes that mark you as male, female or other
Gender: mental state as male, female or other

I don't agree with this distinction.

Sex is a biological trait, whereas gender is related to social roles (including the mental traits going along with it) that are related to sex.

In other words,  "male" and "female" themselves are defined differently depending on whether you're talking about biological sex or gender. In terms of sex, "male" and "female" are the more-obvious physical/biological classifications which apply just fine to MOST people, whereas in terms of gender, we're talking about social constructs and roles that are simply assigned to people of a given sex (at least they tend to be).

Gender is fairly mutable; it's easy to envision a society of one or three genders (and this has, to some degree, happened before in certain places) even if sex itself does not change.

I fully agree with this, I've massively streamlined my explanation from its origins because it usually winds up tl;dr

[bjlong]

I'd like to point out that he is usually gender neutral when it's not at the forefront of the sentence. For example:

"The user will then see this, which he might not expect at first." Here the he seems to be fairly gender neutral.
"He should be given some prompts, maybe in tool-tips or interpretive dance." This is heavily implying the gender.

Is this sexist? Probably not. Language isn't a set of rules which everyone follows because they got the same memos, but more of a stew of bubbling loanwords and best guesses. People make up words and constructions every day, of which a few stick around for years. You're speaking the product of some guys changing some vowels, someone dropping a prefix, someone else flipping word order, and so on, and so on. Trying to force a new word into our vocabulary is like implanting a microchip in your legs so you can think on your feet, especially when you get down to basic things like pronouns. So go ahead, come up with pronouns in your own groups, but don't expect the general public to catch on.

[Vector]

If they take offence at that I will explain why if they still take offence at that then they are not worth my time and I will ignore them.

"People who disagree with me and have their own preferences for their preferred forms of address aren't worth my time."

Ironically if you did "arbitrarily"  change she to be gender neutral it would not be arbitrary at all but rather you engaging in what you seem to be criticising, although I'm not quite sure what you are criticising an inherent urge I apparently feel as man to stamp MAN over everything and show those puny females who is the boss? I find feminist literature inherently distasteful as a lot of it seems to be designed to attempt to persecute me simply for having a penis and implicates that every action I partake in is designed simply to allow me to slap nearby women in the face with said penis.

No, I'm criticizing the tendency to associate "masculine" with "standard" in general society.  It's irritating.  It's not showing "those puny females" who is the boss.  It has nothing to do whatsoever with genitalia or one's desire to slap women across the face with such.  It's about women assuming a secondary place in society--even in name only.

The other thing I find interesting is your mass distaste for all feminist literature.  It seems rather unfortunate.

So go ahead, come up with pronouns in your own groups, but don't expect the general public to catch on.

Fair enough ._.  It just seemed like an interesting idea...  I'm going to go hide now.

[bjlong]

...  I'm going to go hide now.

Um.

I didn't mean any of that in an insulting way? I mean, it's a perfectly common idea: English is a clusterfuck, so we should try to fix it. It's like all those utopean societies: Hooray, free sex and drugs and rock and roll, if we just change these things! You've got a point with what you're saying, it's just hard to do stuff about it. No need to hide at all-- maybe just use "one" rather than "he/she" or the singular "they".

While I'm being slightly encouraging, do you know of any feminist literature that would capture a guy's attention (Besides the SCUM manifesto) ? The only thing I've really read was The Awakening, and it's heavy-handed symbolism kinda put me off to the book.

[Jude]

Gender is fairly mutable; it's easy to envision a society of one or three genders (and this has, to some degree, happened before in certain places) even if sex itself does not change.

What society has ever had one or three genders

Well I suppose you could consider eunuchs another gender and things like that, but at that point you're basically just putting ad hoc definitions onto things that weren't thought of in the way you think of them

And no place or time among homo sapiens has there ever been "one gender"

And in any case talking about gender as if it can be separated from sex ignores all of the last several centuries of psychology, biology, neuroscience and etc.

[Footkerchief]

What society has ever had one or three genders

Thailand, arguably.

And in any case talking about gender as if it can be separated from sex ignores all of the last several centuries of psychology, biology, neuroscience and etc.

Are you saying there's no distinction between gender and sex, or just that there are certain connections between them?

[Jude]

What society has ever had one or three genders

Thailand, arguably.

You gonna elaborate on that?

And in any case talking about gender as if it can be separated from sex ignores all of the last several centuries of psychology, biology, neuroscience and etc.

Are you saying there's no distinction between gender and sex, or just that there are certain connections between them?
[/quote]

That there are many extremely crucial and massively un-ignorable connections between them

[Footkerchief]

What society has ever had one or three genders

Thailand, arguably.

You gonna elaborate on that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathoey (possibly mildly NWS)

[Vector]

You've got a point with what you're saying, it's just hard to do stuff about it. No need to hide at all-- maybe just use "one" rather than "he/she" or the singular "they".

Ah, I have my own ways of getting around such things, mostly revolving around "Hey, doodabuddy, how would you like me to refer to you?"  I'm reasonably conversant in terminology.

While I'm being slightly encouraging, do you know of any feminist literature that would capture a guy's attention (Besides the SCUM manifesto) ? The only thing I've really read was The Awakening, and it's heavy-handed symbolism kinda put me off to the book.

See, this is why I was disappearing.  I'm actually not a raging feminist.  I just got into a particular side of an argument, and then realized I didn't particularly like being in that argument--the complexities are somewhat daunting, and I don't really want to get into yet another an idealism vs. realism brawl.  I overreached myself and got argumentative, rather than actually thinking >_>

I do, however, read a lot of books.  Unfortunately, pretty much all of the feminist literature of which I know is French--but never fear!  Some of it's been translated.

So, I recommend The Second Sex if you can find a reasonable unofficial translation somewhere, because all official translations have been intensely mangled.  Amelie Nothomb has a wonderful novel, very short, and very readable: Loving Sabotage (Le Sabotage Amoureux).  My third suggestion is... hm.  Simple Passion (Passion Simple) by Annie Ernaux is also of worth.  I'll note that these tend to explore gender roles more than they are strictly feminist, but they're interesting at the very least.

Oh, and the play Tiger at the Gates (La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas Lieu) by Jean Giraudoux is pretty interesting.  It's more a critique of WWI/WWII than strictly feminist, but it's very good.


EDIT: Just one more, I promise >_>  The School for Wives (L'Ecole des Femmes), by Moliere.  This is not only feminist, but hilarious and written by the "French Shakespeare."  Definitely worth a look.

[Jude]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathoey (possibly mildly NWS)

Oh is THAT why everyone talks about transexual hookers...

Anyway they seem like nothing American doesn't have, just that there are more of them for God knows what reason. In any case you can make the argument that transsexuals, hermaphrodites, even gays, etc. are another gender, but then there's so much range in psychology of people who are considered "male" gender that you could also start divying that up into multiple genders. At a certian point it just becomes hairsplitting and irrelevant to real life.

Also, I defy anyone to produce an example of a society where there was "only one gender."

[Kitpup]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathoey (possibly mildly NWS)

Oh is THAT why everyone talks about transexual hookers...

Anyway they seem like nothing American doesn't have, just that there are more of them for God knows what reason. In any case you can make the argument that transsexuals, hermaphrodites, even gays, etc. are another gender, but then there's so much range in psychology of people who are considered "male" gender that you could also start divying that up into multiple genders. At a certian point it just becomes hairsplitting and irrelevant to real life.

Also, I defy anyone to produce an example of a society where there was "only one gender."

So wait, you make a big point about 'no society has more than two genders' and then when handed some evidence go 'oh, well, I didn't mean THAT'?