Originally posted by: return_to_hades
@Angel
Nothing that is a social science will ever be simple or even less complex until human behavior itself can be simplified. Humans are complex and we have to embrace the fact that human social concepts will be complex.
To begin - you speak of gender neutrality. What is gender? Is gender binary or a spectrum? Is gender hard science or is it a social construct? Do gender roles exist because of gender or does gender exist because of gender roles? How does transgender identities fit into gender neutrality If gender is neutral - does it matter what gender you identify as?
Agreed, and the society is always in a transition, all social concepts are in a transition, a transition where we keep re-viewing, re-defining, re-vamping and re-orienting them according to the changing the realities of time.
Every concept is always in an evolution - while retaining the original essence of it, and that is why I think shifting focus or rather evolving from feminism to gender equality/neutrality because it looks less confusing, IMO. Why so much hoopla around a label may I ask? Both aim for and have a foundation on human rights(feminism and gender equality/neutrality)
(I have "/" neutrality with equality because both are almost same, are identical to an extent, but more complementary to one another - the way I see it, equality recognizes all genders, neutrality just goes a step ahead and says, 'whatever' - you are human, you are respected.)
What is gender?
At present, I'd say there are three recognised genders - male, female, transgender. Anyway, a dictionary definition -
[gender
d'nd/
noun
1.
the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones).
"traditional concepts of gender"
2.
GRAMMAR
(in languages such as Latin, French, and German) each of the classes (typically masculine, feminine, common, neuter) of nouns and pronouns distinguished by the different inflections which they have and which they require in words syntactically associated with them. Grammatical gender is only very loosely associated with natural distinctions of sex.
Is gender binary or a spectrum?
A spectrum(biologically and socially), but my absolute answer for this would be, does it matter? How does it matter? I may sound overtly idealistic, but it's just a vision, it does not matter what the gender or sex of the person is. Other than making certain civic amenities available for the convenience of humans in their daily life, as social beings we are.
Is gender hard science or a social construct?
A social construct. We have a sex, we are biologically - male/female/other. But gender is a social construct.
Do gender roles exist because of gender or gender exists because of gender roles?
Both.
Isn't the issue of gender role becoming blurry? Does everyone ascribe to gender roles? What gender role does a transgender have? Gender in itself is a social construct.
Gender role is something we, at present are aiming to free ourselves from, even if there are people who still want to play gender roles in their own lives - atleast we want to stop the oppression of what a 'woman/man ought to as a woman/man'. We aim for humanity.
How does transgender identities fit into gender neutrality If gender is neutral - does it matter what gender you identify as?
In the context of gender neutrality, transgender would have no burden of fighting for their gender because we would be focusing solely on human rights, your sex - your private matter. Every human has their own identity that is not dependent on their sex. Every human is protected, is an individual, and most importantly, is respected.
No, it does not matter what gender you identify as. You are human, you are respected as a human, irrespective of your sex, this - is not absolute however, you will have separate lavatories owing to your sex, there will be some distinction like in clothes, recruitment for army, prisons, choice to make decision in terms of health/medical aid, and so on. These little restraints are for convenient functioning of society.
The goal is to respect every human for who they are, not for what they are biologically, to make sure no person irrespective of their sex is discriminated. I speak this on broad terms.
Sex is not neutral, it is more of a private matter, it matters only where it ought to matter - like I have mentioned before for the convenient functioning of society.
RTH, I apologize if I have not been clear anywhere. The basic point is, I am for gender equality/neutrality, and no, the two concepts aren't separate in my head... no social concept is an air-tight compartment, they work for one another if not an off-shoot of a basic concept of human rights. And, I also say this, that gender neutrality would have it's own challenges in future.. who knows what future may be like? Nothing is simple or static.
Edited by Angel-likeDevil - 7 years ago
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