Discussion2 + 2 = 5

submitted by julesburm1891 from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]7874 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I understand that in nearly every society on Earth (and it's been this way since the beginning of written history), masculinity is prioritized over femininity, and since all men are assumed to be masculine and all women are assumed to be feminine, men are prioritized over women, but that's not the meaning of the word "gender", that's just gender dynamics socially and politically. Gender just refers to someone's state of being masculine or feminine, the way sex refers to someone's state of being either male or female.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Gender is the system itself not an individual state of being. This is why no one can be a gender and why no one can define their own individual gender.

[–]7874 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

No it's not. "Gender" is a container with two categories: masculine or feminine. It's like sex. "Sex" is a container with two categories: male or female". I'm masculine. That's my gender. A noun can also have a gender in some languages. For example, in Spanish, the noun "la puerta" (door) has a gender, indicated by the article "la" and the "a" at the end (which doesn't always indicate femininity, but generally does). The gender of "la puerta" is feminine. People and things do have genders.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This is 100% a colloquialism that people applied to what they think gender meant because they didn't really understand the academic meaning of gender coming out of 2nd wave feminism. I understand that trying to explain this is more and more a lost cause since way too many people have internalized this type of definition.

[–]7874 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The word "gender" had a meaning before second-wave feminism, and it's the definition I stated. Second-wave feminists didn't invent the word. It already existed. They tried to redefine it poorly and it didn't stick.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No that's not what I'm saying at all.

Obviously gender had a previous definition but also obviously English tends to apply the same spelling and pronunciation to multiple words.

They borrowed from the definition pertaining to grammar to create a new similar type of word. Grammatical gender refers to classification of words. Certain rules apply to the words only because of the arbitrary category. This carries over to the social version of the new word. It's a classification of people asked on sex.

Because it's a sex based classification, there are actually intrinsic factors that end up influencing the rules... Unlike the radfem idea that there is no biological connection.

The idea that gender = sex or = masculinity (whatever) is different because it wasn't the creation of a new word with the same spelling, it was a lack of understanding and misuse of the particular word. Unfortunately i think some of that misuse was intentional by TRAs in order to confuse public opinion and use of language. If enough of society misuses the word, we do end up shifting the definition. That's the case right now. Almost no one understands the actual definition and there are 5 different ideas floating around of what people think it means. This makes it extremely difficult to have a conversation because 5 people in the room use the word and misinterpret everyone else's statements.