What is unnecessary gendered?
I was watching pro golf coverage on the news and it seems so odd that men and women compete separately - same goes with pro bowling. Just seems weird to me that a game of skill is gendered when you can't even raise an argument that someone might have an advantage because of what's between their legs.
the same products. in an interesting inversion of the already well-documented pink tax, my father in law walks around with a packet of disposable wet wipes called "dude wipes" in his pocket. they're the exact same as the baby wipes that my partner uses, but they're in a black package with 'manly' lettering on it and they cost twice as much. he had never shown interest in this product, which has been available his entire life, before it validated his gender. after it validated his gender, he valued it at twice what the non-validating version sells for.
YES my husband uses these and one smells minty, the other smells like something...unremarkable. Bless his heart anyway I guess.
The French language :)
And the German language! Mark Twain has a whole essay about it.
“Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print -- I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:
Gretchen: "Wilhelm, where is the turnip?"
Wilhelm: "She has gone to the kitchen."
Gretchen: "Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?"
Wilhelm. "It has gone to the opera.”
Acceptable counter-argument: "The English language isn't gendered enough."
What do you mean by that? 🤔
My take on it is that English doesn’t have enough variety in gendered words, whether that means binary, non-binary, or neutral options. In which case…yeah, come to mention it, you might be onto a perspective I didn’t think of.
People ought to be have range in how they express themselves, and I’d suppose there isn’t enough. I had been in favor of increasing the range and popularity of neutral and non-binary terms for a while now. I still am, but I don’t think that has to be mutually exclusive with increasing the range of gendered options, either. Perhaps part of resolving gendering issues in language isn’t just providing more neutral options, but more gendered options. If someone wishes to identify with masculine or feminine labeling, I think they ought to be able to.
Or maybe another lens to this is that there are “gender neutral” terms that, through context and history, have come to carry a sort of implicit gendering to them. I’m not sure if that’s a challenge in linguistics or a challenge in how some people may think.
All an interesting way to frame this kind of thing that I hadn’t considered before. If you have your own details to this you’d like to mention, I’m sure it’d be insightful to read. My language experience outside of English only extends to Spanish and some beginning bits of Dutch, and I’m in dire need of brushing up on both 🫠.
Counter counter argument: English is ideal with gender neutral, allowing for it easily be learned, allowing it to be the best for programming etc. English doesnt need the silly gendering of like every other language, and by being neutral it is inherently inclusive imo
Chess is a bit weird in this regard.
I've heard it was because chess used to be men's only. So by having women's-only tournaments, it's more inviting.
Alcohol is a pretty big one.
There's the whole "drinking stuff that tastes like trash is manly and 'puts some hair on your chest'" stereotype but bro, I'll take a Seagrams Calypso Colada over something like a beer any day of the week. I want to enjoy the things I'm putting in my body.
Children are unnecessarily gendered! People should give them the opportunity to explorer their own relationship with gender without being assigned one.
Just heard an interview with a person who is intersex (meaning they were born with DNA and physical characteristics that don't match). Intersex people are also caught in all the anti-trans legislation. The quote that stood out the most to me:
I think society understands at this point that sexuality is a spectrum. Some people are gay. Some are straight. A lot are in between. And society is also starting to understand that gender is a spectrum, that you're not just a man or a woman, but there's a lot in between there, too. What society hasn't quite learned yet is that sex is also a spectrum. You're not only male or female. Two percent of the world is born somewhere in between those two poles on that spectrum. src
Intersex people are also caught in all the anti-trans legislation.
That's something I wasn't aware of (and have the priviledge not to think about) - do you happen to know more about how they are impacted, or any good resources for reading up on it?
Just instinctually, it sounds like a conundrum for all anti-transgender legal 'logic'. Those people are biologically not exclusively male or female (to my understanding, corrections welcome), so which part of "you have to be your rEaL gender" applies to them? Or is being born intersex just intrinsically criminal?
Soaps! I guess some men like to smell like timber and rocks or whatever but I'll take a fruity scent all day every day.
Personally I love smelling of TITANIUM & CARBON AND THE GRADUAL EROSION OF MY ABILITY TO EXPRESS MY EMOTIONS AS I GROW FROM BOYHOOD TO MAN.
It makes me feel powerful.
"You like when women smell nice and sweet, or fruity, yeah?"
"Of course."
"So you like sweet and fruity smells?"
"No thats for women."
The entirety of the French language.
Bikes! I'm thinking about getting a new bike in the next several months, and a step-through bike seems to have some features in practicality that I value compared to a step-over bike. Not Just Bikes, ironically, has a pretty good video talking about Dutch step-through bikes that introduced me to the concept and advantages of a step-through. It might be on topic to mention that Not Just Bikes gives mention to one of the Dutch names for this kind of bike: "omafiets", or Grandma Bicycle.
I'd suppose it's getting better, but I still encounter a fair chunk of people who see a step-over bike as a men's bike and a step-through as a women's bike. And I'll think C'mon, that's a fair chunk of potential storage space you could have over the rear wheel if you put a rack on top. I've tried making it work before with my step-over bike, but in my experience, that space becomes much less meaningful when you have to swing a leg over and end up knocking your shin on something as you get on.
I'd love to see bikes just sold by their step type more often. Give all of them a wide color palette, keep the labeling at Step-Over or Step-Through, and let people ride what they wanna ride. I'm making progress with changing minds, but it's taking a fair chunk of time to reach Pops at least, bless his heart 😒.
Not Just Bikes gave an iconic point: step-over/men's bikes are the only kind you can hit your nuts on.
Edit: Proofreading: “one of the names,” not the name.
Humans IMO. Is there actually a widespread benefit to forcibly upholding the gender roles? I can tell you about 100 cons. Let people be what they want. It shouldn't be forced upon others. It's easier to just not bother.
Is there actually a widespread benefit to forcibly upholding the gender roles?
it's complicated but given that they're a near-universal phenomenon (despite what those roles are not being universal), i do think it logically follows that humans collectively derive some social value from their continuation―although i think opinions would vary heavily on what that social value is. in any case it doesn't seem likely we'd spontaneously invent and almost universally adopt a social construct with no intrinsic benefits.
Bathrooms. I see single person bathrooms with gendered signs all the time. It makes no sense. Not only that, I've experienced the single gender neutral bathroom at my local university, and it is easily one of the nicest public bathrooms I've ever used. There is a common area with sinks, and each toilet gets a well-ventilated little room, with doors that lock. Not only is the gendering unnecessary, it makes bathrooms actively worse than they could be.
I have absolutely no problems with non-gendered bathrooms and they are getting more and more common. The one exception in my opinion is the troth-style arrangement that are common at larger venues, because of superior throughput. Especially sport venues where everyone rushes to the bathroom at halftime. If all toilets were individual, the queues would get enormous or the number of toilets would have to be at least tripled.
And admit it guys, you'd miss having the opportunity to compliment someone's dick without it being weird.
Otherwise I see no point in gendering bathrooms.
There is more to genedered events than meets the eye. On the surface, it can seem like trying to separate based on ability or potential ability that may seem unnecessary. I don't follow golf so I can't compare the best men's and women's golfers myself. However Chess is also has men's and women's leagues, and doesn't need to separate on any physical differences between men and women. When it comes to events like Chess, US Chess started a Girl's league to help draw and maintain girls playing the game to great success.
Having a separate women's league can make sure that women see there is an oppotuntiy to play and lower that bar to joining, potentially reduce toxicity from a still otherwise male dominated event (this analysis has a gender breakdown for the India Chess Federation), and make sure that women win some of the prize money available incentivising players to play. However there are some like International Master Sam Shankland that believe that it would be better if there was just one league for everyone to compete in, incentivising everyone to improve to the highest level. There are some concerns about a skill gap between men and women, however there are statistical analysis showing that can be explained by having two vastly different sizes of groups being represented and ranked.
Clothes. It seems crazy to me that men (and often masc presenting enbies too for that matter) can't just wear a dress on a hot summer day without getting weird looks. Or just to feel pretty honestly. Why is something that's about both practicality and self-expression so fundamentally restricted by what genitals you were born with in the eyes of society?
Also, speaking of clothes: lingerie. I have rarely ever seen lingerie designed for men, and even the one that exists seems not nearly as carefully designed as lingerie for women. This makes me sad, it feels like society does not want them to feel pretty and sexy and it's also just unfair to everyone.
(I am focusing mostly on men / masc enbies here because I always had the experience that women wearing "men's clothes" is waaay more accepted nowadays, but feel free to correct me and chime in with your own examples if you disagree!)
Honesty when it comes to lingerie I think there's just a very small market. I had a drunk conversation with my former roommate and her gay BFF many many years ago and I got this piece of gold from her BFF (paraphrasing) - "it's not about the wrapping, it's about the package" (not penis)
I agree that anyone should be able to wear any style of clothing, but I must admit that clothing typically needs different measurements for men versus women (hips, chest, shoulders). T-shirts and sweat pants are pretty neutral, but a busty bosom won't fit in a men's button down shirt and a little black dress will have too-tight shoulders on many men. There's a fair amount of women's-cut clothing that looks like men's-style, but the reverse is sadly lacking.
I'm flat as a crepe when I bind but many men's button down shirts still don't fit me because the hips are too narrow. It's not like I have wide hips either, I'm under 100cm at the widest point of my butt, but if they fit me in the shoulders, they don't fit me in the hips. I can't wear women's button downs either because the chests are always too big and most of them insist on skipping the button between the neck and chest so the wearer has to show cleavage. Ugh. Little gendered things like that in sizing and construction are really bothersome when you fall outside of the binary.
Can confirm. Trying to boymode in the office has gotten more, uh, interesting as my chest gets bigger.
Spent so much cognitive effort making sure my kids didn't feel hamstrung by gender roles. Wound up with two kids who identify at least partly as non-binary, and have chosen their roles as much on their own as I think they can reasonably do.
Of course both of them, hilariously, wound up choosing incredibly typical gender-aligned stuff. The "amab" NB kid loves machines, Lego, spaceships, engineering, explosions, and anything STEM. The "afab" NB kid loves puppies, pink stuff, flowers, dresses, helping with household chores, cooking, and scorpions. Typical girl stuff.
Not ascribing any deeper meanings. I just think it's cute and funny.
SMBC has a great comic on boy vs girl toys. Super relevant to this conversation. I have had it hanging on the wall of my office as a reminder since my eldest daughter was born 16yrs ago.
Isn't there a general consesus in sports that testosterone makes a big difference?
I believe that is the common reasoning behind the separate leagues in any sports.
Even if it is completely skill-based, might as well keep it separate for good measure. At least no one will argue the outcome of a match with something as silly as "gender-bias."
Isn't there a general consesus in sports that testosterone makes a big difference?
I see where you're coming from (I heard from a friend who heard from a friend) but I guess that depends on who you're asking and what the sport is. Golf is hand-eye coordination, practice and skill. Balls or ovaries, it shouldn't make any difference when it comes to golf.
Fun fact: bowling, pool and darts are also gendered in many leagues. Pretty sure testosterone wouldn't be the deciding factor in the winner in those.
Regarding golf, the PGA is not a gendered league. Women and non-binary individuals are allowed to play in top level events and several women have done so.
https://www.golflink.com/facts_35396_has-a-woman-ever-played-on-the-pga-tour.html
I'm sure to some degree gender impacts opportunity to play golf, but women and girls from families with means do enjoy accessible training and competition these days. Among top non-male players, biology is the greatest limiting factor.
I hesitate to attack women's leagues like the LPGA or WTA. They comes with problems, but also let us watch many of the best athletes in the world compete in their sports. That the world's best female golfers cannot drive as far as male golfers does not diminish their ability to play the game. A good male collegiate golfer can beat an LPGA pro on a typical PGA course setup, the course length of which plays to the college player's strengths, but only through brute force. Women's leagues provide an opportunity for skilled individuals to show their skills.
Those leagues are also important for representation and promoting the game for everyone. If leagues like the LPGA didn't exist, I do not think golf would be as acceptable for women and do not think girls and women would enjoy the access to training, equipment, and competitions they now have. As a result fewer women would reach the heights they do, up to and including playing PGA events.
It's true that in sport gender is often used as a cudgel. However, after getting past blatant sexism, gender in sport is a very complex issue. Separation based on gender comes with some good that should not be dismissed out of hand. It's not on par with something like, "Wet wipes should not be gendered," which is not complex at all.
I mean, gender is a social construct so I'd really say that everything is unnecessarily gendered because gender itself and gender norms are not necessary.
But if that's not quite what you were looking for - then probably language. As a French man, it is my duty to trash on French so, French has gendered nouns so any object you know has a gender associated for some awful reason. Some job titles don't have female equivalent and don't even get me started on trying to speak or write in a gender neutral fashion in French, ugh! (I still do it to the best of my efforts and encourage others to try to use French in a gender neutral fashion but it is hard)
Slovak and Czech too (definitely even more languages). Both languages have all nouns, adjectives, numerals AND verbs gendered. You could theoretically refer to a non-binary person as a you (in plural form) - that is however used mainly for speaking/referring to someone more respectable. Then you have the they form, which is not recommended to be used in singular due to it being used during feudalism to refer to the aristocracy), and then it (which is terrible too, as it seems like you are speaking to an item, not a human being). If you want to invent a different pronoun, good luck with making it not sound weird, as we use 7 grammatical cases and declension; in general, the grammar is incredibly complex.
If it were possible to turn off the patriarchy and all its sequela, I’d say everything.
However, in a world with ubiquitous oppression of women, it is essential for non-men to have exclusive places of refuge.
It’s kind of a catch-22 though because gender segregation helps keep the notion of meaningful gender difference alive.
Recently in my city's university there was a computer seminar for free, only for women. No men allowed. So a friend of mine who is cyberdumb couldn't attend.
So not so ubiquitous.
And don't tell me that was fine, discrimination is wrong whoever does and receive it.
Having lived as a young woman, I don’t find it at all unreasonable to organize a class where women don’t have to worry about unsolicited advances or condescension from men. I had to leave a computer engineering program because of that kind of behavior.
There are soooooo many men who truly believe that women exist solely for the gratification of men and are otherwise inferior. Having a space where one can just learn and not have to worry about dealing with that bullshit is pretty damn valuable.