If Gender is a social construct, male and female don't actually exist, so makes can't systemically oppress females, therefore the patriarchy cannot exist.
If gender is a social construct or if it's biological...and what effects these things have on 'male privilege'...it's actually quite an intriguing line of inquiry.
Sex refers to your karyotype, primary and secondary sex characteristics, things like this.
The fact that people use gender and sex interchangeably should be a key into how we understand gender, but that does not mean the two are synonymous. In fact, or society assigns gender according to sex. So if society perceives someone as being female, it assigns womanhood and femininity upon the person, and the same for people perceived as male. (As it pertains to trans people, this is where passing comes into play. If a trans woman passes as a cis woman, then society will treat that woman as any other woman. If society recognizes her transness, then her relationship to society is more ambiguous. That's a different question, better explored elsewhere.)
We still have the question of what gender is. Most sociologists would conclude that gender refers to the social implications of being male or female.
The question of whether gender is a social construct or not comes down to whether the social roles/categories of manhood and womanhood exist purely as social impositions upon people who, in the abstract, would not be subject to such roles, or whether the roles are not imposed by a greater social force, but are simple extension of the biological differences.
The argument in favor of this latter position is forced to consider psychological differences between men and women as secondary sex characteristics, determined not by the environment in which the brain and person develop, but by the genetics/chromosomes of the person, that these psychological differences lead to the different social roles, rather than the other way around.
The development of the personality and of personhood is certainly complex, but modern psychology absolutely rejects the notion that karyotype determines personality to any meaningful extent.
There are a number of complex factors which determine personality, interests, etc., but "women just like to be mothers," while technically often true, does not explain whether this is a biological inevitability, or whether it is a socially constructed and socially determined phenomenon. This is a preferable response over trying to prove that many women don't like to be mothers, as some feminists will correctly point out, because it allows the anti-feminists to set the terms of the debate.
I don't know how much more I need to explain. Social roles (and indeed the categories themselves) of manhood and womanhood are not mere extensions of the psychological differences between males and females, but imposed upon them by social forces. Indeed, psychological differences between men and women certainly do appear, considering the fact that environment influences psychology, but to consider these differences as strictly karyotypical is nonsensical and unscientific.
Just lastly, I'd like to make a brief point about where these social roles come from. Indeed, I believe the social categories and social roles are inextricably linked. Masculinity and manhood are synonymous, and to reject given definitions of masculinity is to reject manhood, as to be a man is not to have a certain body type, but to fulfill a certain social role. A failure to do so is to not be a man, hence expressions like, "man up," or, "you throw like a girl," or, "you're a sissy.
Where do these roles come from? Like any good Marxist, they are extensions of labor, in this case, domestic/reproductive labor, and the male exploitation of female reproductive labor. Gender can be treated essentially like class, in this sense. To abolish gender is not to make people stop identifying with their gender or to make everyone have the same social role (femulinity, or something), but to abolish the exploitation of female reproductive labor and the structures which perpetuate it.
A very nuanced answer, Doc! I agree with most of what you said, except that I don't think Marxist philosophy lends itself to male/female hierarchical relationships...at least, not in this country. Sure, there's still inequality in the workplace, but as far as manhood and womanhood go, that's always been very local and personal.
I wish I had time to do your response justice, Doc...I'll write more when I can.
Alright, if I'm reading you correctly, you agree that both biology and environment play a part in the sexual roles that we assume, but whereas you give the social construct portion primacy, I think biology plays the dominant role (and yes, environment does influence biology...that is the reason for male patriarchy in the first place...it's a holdover from those times when physical strength largely determined social status in most Western cultures).
Certain stuff is ingrained...perhaps as a result of inherited memories/instincts, but nonetheless, many if not most people would, if left to their own devices, assume their traditional roles themselves, without needing outside encouragement or prompting. My parents were hippies, but I was always interested in war, playing soldier (G.I. Joe, Star Wars, etc.), with nary an interest in My Little Pony, or all that other girly stuff that my sister gravitated towards. None of this came from my parents, and I was too young for peer pressure...I simply liked guy stuff, and my sister liked girl stuff.
Are there people of both sexes who buck the trends...absolutely, but the exceptions prove the rule. Otherwise, companies that target specific genders would go bankrupt from all the uncertainty. The stuff that really sells the best is that which appeals to both genders, and it's more uncommon than you'd think. Pac-Man was huge because it brought women into gaming, for instance.
The Nintendo Wii had similar success because its appeal crossed not only gender but age lines. The presence of these outliers only reaffirms the fact that gender is more innate than a social construct, though again I don't disagree with you that society plays a reinforcing role, whether explicitly or implicitly.
I'm very curious about where you see yourself in this dynamic. Have you always felt like you identify more with girl stuff than guy stuff (or is that even true?), and do you see yourself as a girly girl, a manly girl, both, or neither? Is this all simply not very important to you, given your deep commitment to economic activism and your natural inclusivity regarding other people? It all seems like pretty heavy shit from where I'm sitting!
I'm just very curious...I mean no offense, and I have no agenda other than my fascination with your identity change, which is in some ways very profound and in other ways profoundly unimportant.
Yes law is made by lawmakers it does not change the fact that it is a social construct.
A social construct is by definition;
an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society.
Laws are created by people and accepted by people laws are social constructs.
Sociology is always evolving and gender is a term within sociology.
As for the mental illness part as you pointed out was a conversation about pedophilia and how it isn't against the law and it should be normalized. For whatever reason Christian conservatives equate pedophilia to molestation when one is a mental illness and the other is a unlawful Act. By my own actions of normalizing pedophilia I am merely trying to allow people to realize that pedophilia & molestation are not one in the same.
No, I'm saying it's a mental illness. Punish them molestation, dont punish them because of their illness.
Can you not see - that you are condemning their thought? Inappropriately touch children is disgusting, thinking about is disgusting. Denozising someone for 'thought crimes' is equally disgusting.
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