So they say it's based on "stereotypes" but they DON'T DEFINE what they think those stereotypes are. And I can't figure out how the hell they say I have 2 masculinity but 88 femininity. I'm a bisexual female who only just recently gave into pressure to wear women's clothing. Before that I always wore boys' clothing and kept my hair short - I looked like a 12-year-old boy. In relationships with women I tend to assume a more stereotypically "masculine" role. I have never worn makeup or heels or tight clothing (even my new "women's" clothing looks pretty much the same as my old boys' stuff) and my body language is distinctly masculine. I don't care what I look like as long as I'm comfortable. when I was a kid, I played outside, climbed trees, and played with bugs. I always wanted to play boys' games and refused to partake in things like field hockey and gymnastics because I thought they were too girly.
The only thing I can think of that they would use as a basis for calling me "feminine" is that I'm shy and quiet, and not dominant or pushy towards other people. In what universe is that the definition of "feminine"? How is that not an insult? Furthermore, what place does such a rating have on a test like this? Who is taking this test going "I wonder how well I adhere to the particular gender stereotypes held by the writers of this test, even though I don't know which stereotypes they're using?"
I might re-take this little test and set my gender as male at the beginning, then give all the same answers, to see if that influences their results.
As for the existence of stereotypes, I actually have a lot of ideas about that, though it's not related to this thread so I'll spoiler it:
Humans take in and process a huge amount of information on a near-constant basis. If you really think about how much, it’s pretty staggering. The fact that we are able to identify and interact with so many different things and animals and people without pausing to process the info is pretty amazing. My theory is that this is because we sort the information so well into categories. The biggest categories are based on very general outlines: plant, cat, chair, human. Within these categories, we define sub-categories based on various traits. So plant will be sub-divided into tree (tall, branches, leaves), bush (shorter, thinner branches, leaves), flower (thin stem, petals, colorful), and so on. We can glance at a plant and know which type it is based on the defined variables.
People are far more complicated than plants. We have to deal with them a lot more, and interactions are complicated. So we have to sort them as much as possible, to give us a head start on the proper way to interact with them. First, there’s adult (tall, coherent, probably educated to some degree, responsible for own life), child (short, semi-coherent, largely ignorant, not responsible for self), and baby (adorable drool- and poop-machine). Obviously there are sub-categories based on age here as well, but you get the point. Then there are categories based on other factors, such as wardrobe: suit and tie (professional, use formal language), ripped jeans and old t-shirt with a face full of piercings (either doesn’t care about appearance or wants people to think so, punk, troublemaker, don’t engage), straight-legged jeans and boobs inside a practical top with no fancy adornments driving a minivan (mom, probably married with kids), filthy clothing and unshaved dirty face with crazy eyes and bad smell (homeless, wants money, don’t make eye contact). These categories are based on personal experiences and societal expectations. It doesn’t mean they’re always accurate, or even that the person holding them expects them to be always accurate, it’s just a starting point to determine the likely course of future interactions.
Naturally because our society is further divided by gender, we have to create categories for them as well, with tags like female: nurturing, complicated, has boobs, physically smaller and often weaker than male, do not spit in front of, and male: dominant, can’t multitask, good with maps, no boobs, might be a rapist, totally fine to spit in front of. Every individual person has their own tags for each gender, just like every other category.
These are stereotypes. They exist because we need them to function in the world. Without them, we’d have to start from absolute scratch every time we meet a new person, and that’s just not practical. With stereotypes, instead of identifying every detail of every person we meet, we only have to identify the few ways in which they differ from the main stereotype in our brains, which is much faster and simpler. The important thing is that people remember that these stereotypes are just a starting point. When people make the mistake of assuming that they are universal truths, that’s when problems start happening and you get racism, sexism, etc.
Naturally, we sometimes meet someone who doesn’t fit any predefined stereotype. For example, an adult who suffers from dwarfism. This person is obviously not a child, but they also do not fit the standard profile for “adult.” They are too short, and in many cases other body parts will be out of proportion. The more different a given person is from the standard model we have in our brains, the bigger a shock it is. The natural reaction in this case is to stare. Staring is not, as is commonly believed, an indication of judgment or disgust or anything like that. It’s a simple, basic instinct, because our brain is trying to gather enough information on this person to either decide what category to put them into, or else create a new category. (If you interact with dwarfs, or little people, or whatever term is preferred, on a regular basis, you brain creates a new category and you no longer need to stare at them, because you already have that "type" of person defined.) On the other hand, staring can make a person feel bad, insulted, like a freak, etc., so we know we have to try not to stare. But actively trying not to stare is just as obvious as staring, because we’re fighting a natural instinct and it shows, thus leading to all manner of hurt feelings and misunderstandings, for which I have not yet found any solution. At the very least, thinking of it in this way has helped me personally – when someone stares at me, I can process it in this way and not take it as an insult.
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