gender

Take the test to find out

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1006/1243510031_02c72d47af_o.jpg

lol

anyone wanna trade some sideburns for a concave chest

i did that and got 26% gay which seemed disappointing?

^^^is not camp or stereotypically homo in his outward behaviour at all, really

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/04/08/mens-studies-too-feminist-for-you-meet-male-studies/

According to Tiger, Male Studies emerged “from the notion that male and female organisms really are different” and the “enormous relation between . . . a person’s biology and their behavior.” To the Male Studies set, “Men’s Studies” has historically focused far too much on the social construction of masculinity, and not enough on the biological origins and purpose of “maleness.” The Foundation for Male Studies states that its focus is on studying “the male as male”:

lol

hmm pretty sure that field already is being plowed in the form of NAMBLA

Male studies...because evolutionary psycology wasn't producing enough bad science for the Daily Mail set?

lol @ this tho

i did that and got 26% gay which seemed disappointing?

― plax (ico), Monday, April 5, 2010 11:26 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^is not camp or stereotypically homo in his outward behaviour at all, really

― william mcgonadal's tay ridge disaster (acoleuthic), Monday, April 5, 2010 11:32 AM (2 months ago)

sigh

maybe u will bring out the diva in plaxico

sex-x-y.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09men-t.html?_r=2&ref=education

maybe u will bring out the diva in plaxico

― Mark Ronson: "Led Zeppelin were responsible for hip-hop" (acoleuthic), Sunday, June 6, 2010 12:10 AM (7 months ago)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110524/ts_yblog_thelookout/parents-keep-childs-gender-under-wraps

The couple's other two children, Jazz and Kio, haven't escaped their parents' unconventional approach to parenting.

Jazz
Kio
Storm

Sounds like a Hyundai dealership. :(

But Stocker and Witterick's choices haven't always made life easy for their kids. Though Jazz likes dressing as a girl, he doesn't seem to want to be mistaken for one. He recently asked his mother to let the leaders of a nature center know that he's a boy. And he chose not to attend a conventional school because of the questions about his gender. Asked whether that upsets him, Jazz nodded.

As for his mother, she's not giving up the crusade against the tyranny of assigned gender roles. "Everyone keeps asking us, 'When will this end?'" she said. "And we always turn the question back. Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?"

The people sound insufferable.

Also that baby looks male to me. Now I want to know if I'm right just out of curiosity.

how come nobody ever asks, is it deterwomened? think about it

― still driving steen, banning deez, gettin my dick xhuxked (Curt1s Stephens), Sunday, April 4, 2010 11:39 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lmao

Comments 1 - 10 of 7218

Tbf, the comments are all pretty butthurt

OMG people commenting on some internet article are awful and dumb? You don't say!

Jazz is going to really hate his parents come puberty

the parents say that they are trying to limit the influence of social "messages" on their kids, that the two boys are free to choose whatever clothing/hair they want, and that they both happen to choose pink clothing and long hair (surprise!). i have no reason to doubt that, but given the intensity of parental disdain for "conventional" gender roles, you have to wonder how many warm fuzzies the boys get for dressing girly. i mean, i appreciate the basic nobility of the parents' quest, but have questions about the execution.

people are exhausting.

If you have to home school you're kids, you've already gone too far in your intellectual conceits

I think you mean "unschool" Michael. Get it straight. ;p

i mean, i appreciate the basic nobility of the parents' quest, but have questions about the execution

Well, yeah. Exactly. There's no way this could actually be accomplished but that's sort of irrelevant here I guess. I'm sure that Storm and Rio or whatever it was get plenty of praise for embracing their girly sides. Every quote in that article makes them sound like the most tedious people on the planet.

if home schooled kids can't grasp basical grammatical structures, do you blame the parentheses?

kids are weirdly obsessed with gender and gender rules--im sure most of that derives from still learning how to "perform" their particular gender. I can't help but think the parents in this story are doing their kids a diservice, getting along and coping with the BS of society is an important skill in its own right, so raising kids as if they live in a gender utopia is maybe not such great parenting.

maybe I'm just cynical, but I tend to assume that mainstream online news articles that deal with "unconventional" elements of sex, gender, and sexual orientation (this, the pregnant man, the boy who wore a dress for his Halloween costume, transgendered kids, etc.) are bigot bait packaged to get as many irate comments (= hits = ad revenue) as possible without explicitly shaming the subjects in the text of the article. while I appreciate this kid's parents efforts to challenge gender norms, I doubt sharing their story with the world will make the world a more tolerant place when news networks are using them in much the same way as they used the balloon boy family. admittedly, Yahoo isn't Fox News and the article (and even many of the comments) probably isn't totally ill-intentioned.

lolziest part is somehow trusting their other two kids to keep the secret

kids are weirdly obsessed with gender and gender rules--im sure most of that derives from still learning how to "perform" their particular gender. I can't help but think the parents in this story are doing their kids a diservice, getting along and coping with the BS of society is an important skill in its own right, so raising kids as if they live in a gender utopia is maybe not such great parenting.

sometimes, though, it's good parenting to allow your kids to express themselves in abnormal ways (w/r/t gender, sexual orientation, race, or whatever) even to the point where they risk getting ostracized and picked upon by other kids (or even adults). no matter how old you are, the price of being confident and having a strong sense of self is confrontation, and it's more worthwhile to learn how to face or defuse confrontation than it is to avoid it altogether at the expense of your individuality. mind you, I'm not saying parents should put their kids in controversial places merely for the sake of generating controversy, which is often the way it works when the media gets involved in people's personal lives.

thing is: how did this become "news" in the first place? like, did they call the paper and say "you know we'd just like to put this out there" or what?

yeah i get you, and i think i agree. surely that can be done in a way that says "be whoever or whatever you want" but also "this is how society may react, and how closed minded people are, and perhaps here's how to try and get along with them."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/fashion/new-challenge-for-parents-childrens-gender-roles.html?_r=1&ref=fashion

This post continues from here, emil.y's Feminist Theiry & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread. I'm jumping threads because I felt like my interest in discussing the biological basis of what we perceive as "gender" was not really appropriate for that thread. Anyone who's interested in that topic(hey, surfing!) or who would simply like to discuss gender in a differently framed space (ENBB, VegemiteGrrl, aimless, anyone) is welcome to join me here.

More to come...

Oh, right. Frame it as "discuss gender without those pesky feminists distracting us with their facts" = really not classy way to do this.

*sigh*

WCC, come on, surely you can see that Con is taking his subject of interest here also not to derail the previous thread.

xposts

Um I totally intend to be all up in this thread with feminist facts FWIW and I don't think Contenderizer is against that?

I read this as the other thread has gravitated (that's probably the wrong word but y'know) towards talking about social constructs and privilige and I felt the same, like I would be having a separate conversation at the same table if I talked about biological sex and constructing a working model of the relationship between the body, the brain and the mind's sex / gender uh.. stuff... so moving this conversation seems OK to me?

Oh, right. Frame it as "discuss gender without those pesky feminists distracting us with their facts" = really not classy way to do this.

it's framed as a open discussion of gender, WCC, that's all. and i'm only attempting to move a certain portion of the discussion because i felt as though i was intruding into the other thread by constantly bringing up the stuff i wanted to talk about. i didn't want to be a irritant or a boor. beyond that, a few other people had mentioned feeling nervous abt bringing up their viewpoints in that thread, so i hoped that this might provide a more comfortable space for them.

but hey, we're off to the races...

That "differently framed space" crack was pretty dumb, you have to admit. I think the initial post was judgier than it had to be under the circumstances. But I'm interested to see what's discussed here, because this kind of reading material is stuff I'm prob never going to tackle on my own!

It's not the reviving of the thread, or the addressing of the topic, it's the "hey! List of ppl who clashed w WCC & Laurel on the other thread, we got a new clubhouse here!" that irks.

So... WCC lent me this book called "Delusions of Gender", I can't copy-paste every paragraph because boring, illegal and tl;dr, but I want to talk about it LOTS. It is very interesting and stuffed with proper citations. I'm only a chapter in but would highly recommend.

WCC, perhaps this is in deference to your 'owning' the other thread and ppl not feeling comfortable about contradicting or disagreeing w/you there or even commenting questioningly. I certainly don't; it's been made clear that ppl of my accidental stripe are suspect.

i think one of the more interesting books i've read on gender and biological determinism is "Demonic Males"-- it cries out for a feminist critique, however.

http://www.amazon.com/Demonic-Males-Origins-Human-Violence/dp/0395877431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329339100&sr=8-1

Also

http://www.google.com/search?q=chevalier+d%27eon&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8

I don't "own" the other thread. I didn't even start it.

And that "Demonic Males" although I read it, was picked apart pretty thoroughly by other primate scientists so I don't think much "feminist" critique is needed.

I don't want to derail anybody's discussions, but this seemed like the appropriate thread for this - a great post at Jezebel about gendered marketing of LEGO products, and what happens when you switch the audio on the commercials.

my own personal experience with gender/sci: both parents are highly educated with tons of graduate degrees, working in sci or health. my older sis ended up collecting master's degrees in the sciences. i was expected to excel in sci/math and i did, although i still had enormous anxiety about it. i tested better in sci/math than humanities when i did any sort of standardized testing. but my biggest class problems were always in sci and math. my honors chem teacher in HS used to say that i was really smart but i got in my own way.

i was never consciously aware of any discouragement or implication that i might not be great at sci/math--but it freaked me the fuck out. and i believe that it was partially due to gender bs that i absorbed, although i tried to reject it. (wearing men's clothes, etc)

I had a young cousin once that posted on facebook that she did well on a math test once and it scared her.

been thinking abt gender and expectations of academic performance...

it seems to me that we've seen, over the last few decades, the emergence of new stereotypes regarding gender and things like general intelligence and ability in math/science. in characters like hermione granger and lisa simpson, we see a girl who easily excels her male peers in these areas, but who is comparatively straightlaced and "uptight". the "nerdy girl" is smart and academically accomplished but socially unskilled and often unhappy/dissatisfied. she is a stickler for rules and order, and is often seen as "annoying" by those around her, adults and children alike. she's basically a modern version of "bossy" and/or "goody-goody" midcentury female comic strip characters like lucy (peanuts) and margaret (dennis the menace), but much more sympathetic and clearly "bright".

the emergence of the nerdy girl runs parallel to a much remarked-on shift in american sitcom family dynamics, where adult male husband/father characters over the same few decades have become increasingly childlike, foolish and irresponsible, exaggerating in their television wives the same "straightlaced" and "uptight" rule-enforcing and behavior monitoring characteristics we see in characters like hermione and lisa. the sitcom wife is not typically (ever?) pictured as truly brilliant, especially not when it comes to things like math and science, but she is often, clearly, a good deal more sensibly intelligent than her husband.

in certain respects, the stereotype of the "less smart woman" is perhaps beginning to be traded out for "smarter, but less fun".

i think we've also seen the emergence of an adult version of the nerdy girl character in stereotypical portrayals of the "corporate woman", a character who is typically portrayed as occupying a management position. she is extremely capable, but also rather ruthless and even cruel, a sort of evil twin to the "good" sitcom wife.

a lot of this stuff seems to reflect changing power dynamics in american society, and anxieties about the same.

This trope is at least as old as Jane Austen. It exists, but it's hardly a new development.

yeah, what i was going to say. thinking young maggie tulliver in mill on the floss

yeah, i'm not saying that any of this is newly invented (it's not, obviously), but these sorts of images do seem to have gained a fair amount of cultural prominence in the last few decades. in the states, anyway.

Well actually it was one of the principle objections to female education down through the ages! That educating women to use their minds will make them un-womanly and possibly sterile! This was a classic Georgian to Victorian complaint (I bet you could probably find it as far back as the Classical period.)

yeah, but hermione, for instance, isn't exactly "unwomanly", and lisa clearly vaccilates on that point (probably depending on who's writing the jokes). in these characters and the contemporary sitcom mom/wife, intelligence is, to some extent, positively associated with femininity.

again, not entirely new ("sensible" sitcom wives and "smart, prissy" young girls go back quite a ways), but i see a greater and more positive emphasis on such characters than in the recent past. more thinking aloud than making an argument...

and then there's everyone's favorite manic pixie dreamgirl!

http://www.narth.com/docs/york.html

I need to get back on track with my chapter précis, and then come back and demolish this fucker.

It is very interesting and stuffed with proper citations.

真的

I want to add additional gender options to a form that parents fill in about both themselves and their children. I'm not sure about the best wording.

A colleague who wants to write 'other' and have people write in what they want, but that is 1. not practical for data collation reasons - we need to automatize that - and 2. sounds dismissive to me. Is it? In any case I suspect she is not suggesting this from a place of inclusivity, but I can't be sure.

I suggested adding 'transgender' to the existing 'Male' and 'Female'. Would having just those three options be appropriate? Are there more that should be included? Re the children, another colleague suggested adding 'intersex' but I think parents of intersex children would tick the box corresponding to their child's presenting gender.

Please avoid "Other" at all costs. It's literally Othering as all hell.

The problem with suggesting "transgender" as a gender is that: 1) it erases the difference of M to F and F to M because "transgender" singular is not really the identity, "trans man" and "trans woman" are the identities. and 2) it disregards non-binary genders and 3) specifying out, if you are going to use "trans" you should really use "cis" as well, but that gets into the bad kettle of fish of forcing people to out themselves. There is considerable debate as to what you should call a third gender option. Personally, I like "non-binary" because there are differences between people who identify as "genderqueer" (both) or "agender" (neither) or something else entirely. Most people agree a third or maybe even fourth option is necessary, but there is disagreement on what it should be.

What is more important is how you phrase the question. The problem is, that the most inclusive language you can use "what gender do you identify as?" or "what gender do you present as?" are the questions which will most confuse cis people (also, ending questions with "as" = grammatically clumsy). I'm sure there are resources out there about good ways of phrasing this question, and a third option in an open and inclusive way that doesn't make cis ppl too upset? I will look for some.

Sorry, this is not a good answer, but basically, I'm mostly aware of what options to avoid, rather than what options are preferred.

Sorry for multiple posts, but this just occurred to me... the other consideration is, indeed, why are you asking the question? Because there are circumstances under which you are not looking for the person's gender, you are looking for their sex - very specific circumstances, usually involving medical treatment. In which case, M, F, Intersex would be preferred (and possibly some trans options). If you are just asking about gender, consider why you need to know gender at all.

the other consideration is, indeed, why are you asking the question?

^ not saying this has relevance to ljubljana's situation but lots of places collect info without thinking, I've tried to phase it out of records at previous employers

Thanks, BB, that's extremely helpful. I really like the possibility of having a 'non-binary' option.

Currently there is no question as such - just 'Gender' and a list. I'll give that some thought.

Ogmor, you're right, we always need to keep an eye on whether we really going to use the data. I'd rather not say too much on here about the actual studies, but we're interested in parents' gender because of an interest in how that might correlate with the ways they do specific activities with their children. We're interested in children's gender both for that reason, and because there are established (but small) developmental differences in language and other cognitive development.

OK, that is a perfectly valid and reasonable reason to be interested in gender. (It's the "what gender should we ~market~ to you as" questions that really irritate me.)

Maybe use "non-binary" with some examples ("e.g. agender, genderqueer, genderfluid, bigender") so that cis people don't get too confused? It's too bad you can't use a freetext for gender, but I understand that would make data collection an absolute nightmare.

Why do you keep assuming cis ppl're going to be confused

can you just put a blank space for people to write in whatever they want?

Our first "NOT AAALLLL CIS PEOPLE!!!!" comment. Yay!

Zing

Omg, my co- worker who did not even bother coming to the meeting about re-doing the questions is fighting me on this and directing me to census categories. I suspect religious grounds are behind that. Nnnnnggggg. 20 emails and counting.

Crut - that would be great but would cause us probs with auto-categorizing the data.

Everyone agreed yesterday to change the question, bar the co-worker who skipped the meeting. We just needed to sort out wording. Today no-one except me is responding to her emails saying we mustn't add any other options. Her reasons: (bear in mind we are asking parents as well as children about their gender):

Again, I think g3ender should be m@le/fem@le. If there is a consensus to have third option, which I d0n't think there is, then the third opti0n should just be blank. I don't think w3 are in a position to get into terminology that is p0tentially confus1ng (children aren't usually transg3nd3r and p@rents don't necessarily choose a different g3nder for young childr3n). It becomes too pol1tical as well.

I responded to that by saying I disagree but would go along with the results of a vote, so please let's have show of hands. No-one responded, and the person trying to get the new questionnaire together has now asked our supervisor to decide. I think I know which way it'll go, unfortunately. I could still be wrong.

How is gender manifest? Should gender be understood as entirely cultural? For example, I think of gait and voice as associated with gender. While both are associated with the body, I think of the former as an understanding and the latter as a given.

gender pronouns for consideration as a possible set: you (en), one (en), on (fr)
Are there other language equivalents that are as impersonal as possible?

In languages with neuter gender, can you use neuter pronouns after your name and what does it mean when you do this?

Sweden introduced a gender-neutral pronoun last decade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_(pronoun)

xp: i don't really know what you mean, neuter as a grammatical gender and gendered pronouns (as prominent in english) are not really related

this might be of interest (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_pronoun#Gender)

many languages do not distinguish female and male in the third person pronoun.
Some languages have or had a non-gender-specific third person pronoun:

Malay (including Indonesian and Malaysian standards), Malagasy of Madagascar, Philippine languages, Māori, Rapa Nui, Hawaiian, and other Austronesian languages
Chinese, Burmese, and other Sino-Tibetan languages
Vietnamese and other Mon–Khmer languages
Igbo, Yoruba, and other Volta-Niger languages
Swahili, and other Bantu languages
Haitian Creole
Turkish and other Turkic languages
Luo and other Nilo-Saharan languages
Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and other Uralic languages
Hindi-Urdu
Georgian
Japanese
Armenian
Korean
Mapudungun
Basque
Persian

Some of these languages started to distinguish gender in the third person pronoun due to influence from European languages. Mandarin, for example, introduced, in the early 20th century a different character for she (她), which is pronounced identically as he (他) and thus is still indistinguishable in speech (tā). Korean geunyeo (그녀) is found in writing to translate "she" from European languages. In the spoken language it still sounds awkward and rather unnatural, as it literally translates to "that female".

I know from personal experience that Chinese or Turkish speakers that have come to English (or, for instance, Dutch) later in life sometimes tend to exclusively use 'he' for the third person, regardless of the particular person's gender (or in some cases throw in a random 'she' sometimes, again regardless of the actual gender).

Thanks for the link and sorry for the possible confusion. I think what I mean, and sorry for working this out here, is this: if gender in language is used to convey the gender of a person, in a language with a neuter gender, what does it mean when you put neuter gender pronouns with slashes in between in parentheses behind a name?

Are there always male and female versions of nouns for gendered species in languages with gender and if there is not would it be wrong to use the masculine or feminine to refer to an instance that is not masculine or feminine respectively?

(where gender identity is an issue and needs to be conveyed in language, I think it would be best to mark (recognize, signal, announce) in the first and second person.)

(or first is where when has authority and second is where it is a priority to mark for communication and third is where what does not need to claim any knowledge)

(third is where one does not need to claim any knowledge but perhaps being able to refer presumes knowledge in which case all persons bear responsibility)