There's huge amounts of double-speak on such subjects. There's an awful lot of denial that there are any real differences at all, combined with insistence on the exact opposite, often from the same people, depending on the topic.
I think the double speak comes from a desire for a definitive taxonomy where none exists.
If we just look at sex rather than gender, I can count five sexual options that mammalian biology likes to throw darts at;
1 - male genitalia
2 - female genitalia
3 - male and female genitalia
4 - no genitalia
5 - make shit up wholesale
Now, only the first two generally go on to produce offspring and the last one usually doesn't make it to birth, but nature doesn't really care for isolated categories or people's desire for simple classification systems.
When it gets to gender things are even more complicated, as some people have a very strong impulse towards a category that they essentially have very little control over, while other people feel as though they can chose from a menu. And both can be correct.
Your remarks on the sex thing don't actually fit with what I've read from (people I understand to be) actual scientists specializing in this stuff, which basically boils down to "You know that binary male-female classification? We basically made that up and nature didn't ask our opinion, kind of like how the platypus fails to conveniently fit our made up categories for animals because our made up categories and mental models are just that and nature doesn't really have a big investment in what we think before it does its thing."
My thoughts on gender and social construct stuff likely wouldn't fit with whatever is politically correct and I've been gratuitously burned enough, thank you, so I don't care to go there at all this time around.
You listed 5 categories, 4 of which are defined in relation to the well known binary classification. Intersex and asexual are well understood variations of that classification system.
In a nutshell, I'm saying your 5th scientific category of "make shit up" would be more accurate for a broader subset than your framing would tend to suggest.
It's a little like the concept of Newtonian gravity, which was made obsolete by Einstein's Theory of Relativity, yet we still use mathematical formula based on that for calculations here on earth because it's sufficient to that scenario and less work. Theory of Relativity calculations matter for interplanetary travel. Using Newtonian formulae would get you very off course in a basically deadly fashion.
For many situations, male and female are broadly sufficient mental models. Where they aren't, they can be actively harmful. But the fact that higher levels of accuracy are frequently not needed doesn't mean they are actually true anymore than using Newtonian math here on earth makes Newtonian physics not obsolete in a post Einstein world.
> For many situations, male and female are broadly sufficient mental models. Where they aren't, they can be actively harmful. But the fact that higher levels of accuracy are frequently not needed doesn't mean they are actually true anymore than using Newtonian math here on earth makes Newtonian physics not obsolete in a post Einstein world.
I would like to add that you just can't live in a complex world without
the broader models. Trying to use the accurate models for every case would
be just overwhelming.
Sure, everyone likes to bitch about other people using the broader model
for their own pet peeves, but this doesn't mean that they aren't - and
have to be - ignorant in other cases.
>In a nutshell, I'm saying your 5th scientific category of "make shit up" would be more accurate for a broader subset than your framing would tend to suggest.
I get you, I think I may have put my point across fairly badly in that case.
Do you mean you don't know anyone personally who tries to push this idea? If so, neither do I. If, on the other hand, you mean you have not heard of anyone pushing this idea you have not visited a university, heard a political discussion, read a newspaper, turned on a (modern equivalent of a) radio or (modern equivalent of a) television. It might also be that you live in a country which has thus far been freed of this nonsense in which case I can only congratulate you and urge you to make sure it never gets a foothold. Let men be men, women be women and let them decide for themselves how they want to be, act, think and do without any ideologues trying to steer them this or that way. Let boys be boys and girls be girls without telling them they make the wrong choices if they want to engage in 'gender-stereotypical' play.
I have heard plenty of call for equal treatment and calling for appreciation of personal perception, range of experiences, etc.
If someone was arguing that genders are identical, rather than making an argument about societal treatment of people by others, which is what the actual argument seems largely to be about, they'd be effectively arguing that gender doesn't exist.
> If someone was arguing that genders are identical
There has been considerable and consistent outcry whenever anyone even hints at the idea that gender disparities could be due to irreconcilable gender differences, rather than disparities resulting from social pressures. Many people have been fired even for suggesting it.
I don’t strictly disagree with anything you said, it all seems sensible, and yet it also seems quite narrow and I long for you to also allow small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri to be small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...
The blank slate theory is one of the standard assumptions in sociology. From there, it follows that all differences are societal.
So, to reply to your renark: many people in the social sciences think genders are equal at birth, and many other people think that this alleged equality should be somehow preserved by society.
Luckily, data from life sciences seems to contradict this construction.
At least in terms of jobs (not opportunities, but being fit for a given task and performing it, or even being interested in it) there is a lot of pressure that they be identical, and in certain countries even questioning this is a taboo.
Did you not get the memo? Gender is purely a social construct. It has no biological underpinning. One can identify as any gender they feel. And then they are that gender. Thus any "differences" you may think you perceive between genders are not real. They are purely cosmetic.
There's a lot of evidence that the gender felt by a trans person is biological, fyi.
If they could just change it, I assure you so many people that suffer dysphoria would snap their fingers and cure themselves.
.
And it's gender roles that are a social construct, not gender identity. It's unfortunate that both those terms are referred to as "gender", but please try not to spread the confusion.
I don't disagree with you at all. There are a huge amount of people who do disagree with you, though. You just commented that you didn't know anyone pushing such a narrative. And that surprised me because it's everywhere. So I thought I'd just flesh out that dominant point of view so that you could identify it in the society around you.
What I think this study shows (and its not the first) is that it debunks the notion that discrimination is the only reason for any differences in gender representation. If a particular field does not have a 50/50 gender split, then that must be wholly explainable by discrimination. This study shows that this is not the case. There is a component of the unequal split that is based on personal preference. And that personal preference has a biological component. This idea is taboo.
I generally take the view that any time you are dealing with a biological system, whether it be a single cell or the global economy, should you find yourself in a quandary where you are wondering if something is caused by this thing or that thing (nature/nurture being the classic), the answer is nearly always both, plus a whole bunch of some other stuff you hadn't even begun to consider. Biology is horrendously complex and messy, and anything built on biology is even messier.
Well, that notion is certainly used to argue about gender pay gap, where figures like 77 cents to the dollar are touted of.
For representation, if you increase the scope of the notion from "discrimination is the only reason" to "discrimination and unconscious social biases are the only reason", it certainly applies.
