GC: Is there any evidence that "femininity" and "masculinity" are not biological and should not be linked with sexual dimorphism? And are there any arguments against "beauty is feminine, not neutral"?

loveSloane · 2020-11-03T01:52:01+00:00

Gotta break it down in sections because this is a lot of different stuff lol

“I am talking about when people say "being tall, having more body and facial hair, etc are masculine!" or "being short, having smooth skin, having curves, having less body and facial hair, etc are feminine!!".”

I feel like this isn’t true. I don’t know that these things are equated with masculinity/femininity, I think they are typical secondary sex characteristics, the very ones that trans people seek to obtain for themselves (well, not height). These are sexed traits, and possessing the trait typical of the opposite sex doesn’t always mean people see you as masc/fem. Short men are made fun of and sometimes undervalued, but people don’t really say they are feminine. The beauty/fashion industry relies on tall women. It’s not as simple as saying these features equal masc/fem

“They basically mean "femininity" and "masculinity" are sexual dimorphism.”

Or, they understand which features typically are markers of sex. Maybe society places value on them, but they aren’t indicative of masculinity or femininity.

loveSloane · 2020-11-03T02:05:38+00:00

Pt 2:

“I said beauty is neutral, I call the sun beautiful, doesn't mean the sun is "feminine",”

I agree. As for the other commenter: Men are also visually appealing. We have different words to express that. And I’m not a linguist but “handsome” literally means “good looking” “beautiful” means “pleasing the senses aesthetically”. I’m sure there’s some gendered, sexist reason behind it, but it’s the same sentiment “this person is attractive”. So we call the sun beautiful because aesthetics, and maybe females are called beautiful because we have always been expected to “put ourselves together” and present ourselves in a certain way.

Women make more money in porn because porn is for men, imo.

We also call male animals handsome, tho I’ve seen them called beautiful as well, so maybe they are more interchangeable than this person wants to admit. You can tell a man with great hair his hair is beautiful, and if we as humans weren’t conditioned to apply “handsome” to males, it would make sense to call a female “handsome”

loveSloane · 2020-11-03T02:10:20+00:00

Pt 3.

“The article seems to say because beautiful people have more "daughters" than "sons", women become more beautiful and men become less beautiful (as the number of beautiful women outnumbers beautiful men), meaning beauty ends up being a feminine thing.”

This article is full of shit. Beauty is subjective so we can’t really say definitively that beautiful people have more daughters than sons. And how can they calculate the amount of beautiful men/women? “Beauty” is a feminine thing because it is marketed to females and feminine men. Beauty is pushed on and sold to them. It’s a societal thing, not innate.

“I forgot to mention these two Quora answers also said "beauty is aligned with feminine, the definition of "beauty" includes qualities that men lack, especially the older they get. Smooth skin. Delicate features. So men that are beautiful have feminine traits”

Idk what definition of beauty they are using, but I’d bet it’s incorrect.

worried19 · 2020-11-03T03:42:02+00:00

I personally find men much more beautiful than women. The female form is not appealing to me, even on an aesthetic level. I'm assuming this is partly due to heterosexuality? But I have no idea why the message that women are beautiful works on other straight women and not me.

Same with women, they are better to look at than looking at men.

Tell that to the Ancient Greeks. Was this person a natal male? I wonder if sex dysphoria plays a role in trans women claiming that women are naturally more visually appealing.

loveSloane · 2020-11-03T02:17:54+00:00

4.

“I argued "femininity" and "masculinity" are social constructs”

I agree.

“but this person said: No you are wrong. Femininity and masculinity exists, its not a social construct. It's a biosocial construct involving both variance in hormones and environmental inputs. A woman with high estrogen will be more feminine than a woman with low estrogen, and a man with high testosterone will be more masculine than a man with low testosterone.It's biology but also involves social feedback.”

This is where I get confused- what do they mean by “feminine”/“masculine”? I believe a man with more testosterone will be more aggressive, that doesn’t mean he can’t present as “feminine” while being aggressive. What about the pretty aggressive “It’s ma’am” dude? Idk if he’s on cross sex hormones or not, but he obviously thinks he’s feminine and... I mean he kicked over a display set and screamed at a stranger over a misunderstanding. So either way, full of estrogen or testosterone, dude is aggressive as fuck.

“Testosterone and estrogen is biological way of explaining traditional masculine and feminine traits.”

You must have been arguing with someone whose biology book was written in the 50’s.

“And how much of it goes up or down in response to environment is mediated by social feedback”

What goes up and down? This is why I said it’s confusing because I don’t get what they mean by masc/fem.

loveSloane · 2020-11-03T02:43:16+00:00

Last part

“Is there any evidence that "femininity" and "masculinity" are not biological and should not be linked with sexual dimorphism?”

Humans are pretty good evidence. Like, actual people that exist and prove that this isn’t the case everyday. “Feminine” men. “Masculine” women. And everyone in between.

“And are there any arguments against "beauty is feminine, not neutral"?”

I think this is just a stupid statement tbh. The sun is not feminine. The ocean is not feminine. So many things we call beautiful are not masc/fem. they are aesthetically pleasing. And to avoid having to say “aesthetically pleasing” over and over, we say beautiful. “Beauty” is neutral and subjective. The value we place on it is the issue.

“I mean, this "beauty is feminine and not masculine" seems to be one of the reasons behind why men feel like they are women and become trans women.”

Hard disagree. Believing their limited understanding of the opposite sex coupled with dysphoria about their body (and often a host of other mental health issues) is why. They literally say “I loved pink and dolls and dresses”. Not “I love being beautiful”. Most of them complain about not being beautiful.

“When people keep saying men are ugly and women can only be beautiful,”

Who actually says this?

“men would feel "why would I stay as a being that can never be beautiful", their desire for being beautiful would lead them to take hormones, have the smooth skin, etc that women on average are said to have, to be able to be called beautiful ...”

Disagree. Elaborated above.

“It makes me upset to see society say these things,”

What society says this?

“men that think they are trans women are not doing this for no reason, yes they might "fetishize women" but why is that? Because society as a whole (women included) does it,”

But they aren’t “fetishizing” beauty. Or femininity. They are fetishizing females or being a female.

“most women and men say only women are attractive, or more attractive than men, or that only women are beautiful, which then ends up in women being "fetishized" and men would want to be like women to also be called beautiful.”

Again- who? What?

“So what do they do to be seen as attractive and beautiful? They become trans women.”

Nope. They have a mental condition that they let convince them they are women (obligatory NATW). And then they pursue femininity as well as mimicking the female form. There’s hardly a guarantee that transitioning will make them beautiful or attractive. They seek both femininity and “femaleness”. Probably because they conflate the two.

“I just can't accept beauty being a trait that only women have.”

Then don’t.

BayHorse · 2020-11-03T11:05:41+00:00

Whether someone finds women more beautiful than men or vice versa, that's just their personal opinion. I could just as easily say I find men much more beautiful than women (which I do) and argue that this means beauty is a masculine trait.

penelopekitty · 2020-11-05T15:01:26+00:00

Beauty is subjective. People from different cultures and time periods found different things beautiful. In ancient Greece men were considered the epitome of human beauty. In much of the animal kingdom the male is often the more colorful or visually 'beautiful' sex. Beauty has absolutely nothing to do with femininity or masculinity. That is an absurd argument.

emptiedriver · 2020-11-03T08:14:29+00:00

There is a whole subset of philosophy called aesthetics that tries to explain what beauty is, so I don't think you'll find an easy, agreed upon answer. People argue over whether it has a rational basis or is only sensorial, and then whether such feelings would be universal or subjective, and that's in discussing something broadly agreed to have beauty, like a flower... So whether the human form is beautiful, and whether it is more beautiful in its male or female version, and whether that is due to what beauty fundamentally is or just a linguistic choice (is it the same if you consider male vs female for gorgeous, handsome, pleasing to the eye, stunning, sublime, aesthetically perfect, and so forth, and do other words have their own specific meanings or just social connotations...) - are all questions you can find books about if you're really interested.

circlingmyownvoid · 2020-11-03T11:37:16+00:00

Not gc, feel free to delete

Beauty as used in our society has a feminine context I think. When you call someone beautiful it is generally used for an aesthetic that we have coded feminine. That being said men who fit that aesthetic can still be beautiful and men who meet other standards of attractiveness can be handsome or foreground or attractive or what have you.

That being said there is no fundamental reason that beauty need be applied that way, it’s a matter of social construction. That definition and conception could change over time.

I mean, this "beauty is feminine and not masculine" seems to be one of the reasons behind why men feel like they are women and become trans women. When people keep saying men are ugly and women can only be beautiful, men would feel "why would I stay as a being that can never be beautiful", their desire for being beautiful would lead them to take hormones, have the smooth skin, etc that women on average are said to have, to be able to be called beautiful ...

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of trans women. I am far less attractive following transition and knew that would be the case. I am not alone. “Being beautiful” had nothing to do with transition. Not to mention there are several men I could describe as Beautiful so fundamentally I just don’t think there’s a basis here.

anxietyaccount8 · 2020-11-03T23:35:25+00:00

Men are not beautiful, socially they are considered handsome.

Men can be beautiful, especially an androgynous man. But even a really good-looking masculine man, why not use the word beautiful to describe him? The word can have a variety of meanings, it's just that we usually give it a feminine connotation.

I'm kind of confused by your question. Obviously, being curvy is a "feminine" trait, because it is associated with femaleness. Physical traits that are masculine/feminine really are related to sexual dimorphism (now, personality traits, that's a whole different conversation). But what does that have to do with what's beautiful? If you find the female body more beautiful than the male, that's just an opinion.

DistantGlimmer · 2020-11-03T00:53:01+00:00

When you see a man that is "beautiful" (small, soft facial features, shorter, thinner) it tends to mean he attractive in a way that is not masculine but rather feminine. This type of quality is rare, and causes our brain to be stimulated by the unusual appearance. Likewise, when we see a "handsome woman", or a woman with masculine features (tall height, sturdy build, strong jaw, long fingers, large feet, etc) we will be equally intrigued.

I agree with this person.

Social constructs "exist*. You would not be able to argue that the law didn't exist if you were charged with a crime or argue that money didn't exist as a tangible thing. Language quite clearly exists. It seems the person you are arguing with doesn't know what "social construct" means. Gender is the social expression of sex differences forming a male-dominant hierarchy so yes I can't imagine any GC argument that it is completely unrelated to sex dimorphism. That is more something TRAs believe. Feminists generally try to understand and deconstruct how gender roles relate to the material reality of sex differences and usually aim to weaken or destroy oppresseive gender roles based on patriarchy.

I mean, this "beauty is feminine and not masculine" seems to be one of the reasons behind why men feel like they are women and become trans women. When people keep saying men are ugly and women can only be beautiful, men would feel "why would I stay as a being that can never be beautiful", their desire for being beautiful would lead them to take hormones, have the smooth skin, etc that women on average are said to have, to be able to be called beautiful ...

This is what gender identity ideology seems to teach but it is not a universal thing. I am a feminine gender non-conforming man. I do not feel that being feminine makes me less male. Actually, that is an insult that misogynists use against GNC and gay men. I've heard it many times.

You are talking about AGP transwomen who fetishize feminine beauty and seek to "become women" which is only a small subset of GNC males and it's debatable if AGP are even really GNC).

slushpilot · 2020-11-03T01:00:45+00:00

They basically mean "femininity" and "masculinity" are sexual dimorphism

Which one could argue, they kind of are.

Behavioural trends like aggression vs. submission are obviously dimorphic since it stems from physical stature. Then there's fashion, which was created to only highlight the dimorphism, making women look more delicate by comparison. Modern beauty standards, where women are expected to be slender and not too heavy/muscular, unlike men. It's too facile to say this is all "just" a social construct unanchored from any biological/evolutionary roots: one could argue that femininity is also somewhat of a defense mechanism under sexual dimorphism.

It certainly doesn't have to mean all those things need to exist in modern society, but in some situations you can't easily get away from them. We can say gender is unhelpful when it does things like hold women back and we should thus dispense with differentiation completely—but we still need language to describe "femininity" and "masculinity" in those cases where it obviously exists.

"Beautiful", is a term that itself more aligned with the feminine. "Handsome" is the term that is aligned with men.

I wonder if this is just something specific to our English language, or if there are similar differences in other languages. Words can easily change, or new words can arise: people used to "feel so gay" but it means something different now...

I think words like "handsome" include some nuance where they imply other specific qualities beyond just beauty. If you picture a "Hercules" archetype that someone might hold up as an example of male beauty, yes, "beautiful" could certainly fit—but you wouldn't say "cute" there—since that's a different quality of beauty.

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