Gender is just a social construct...

[ForeverFaithful]

I hear this a lot, that men and women growing up in a vacuum would be the same,
here's the biggest reason I can not believe that,

Prisons,

We segregate our prisons by sex, could you imagine if men and women shared a prison?

Men have a physical dominance that they could assert on any women in their prison.

Now I'm not a traditionalist that I think women should stay in the kitchen, but I do think men and women are DIFFERENT, in many beautiful ways, we're equal but different.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Gender is a physical, and many times, mental, differentiation.

This is not to say that all men and women should not be given an equal chance to accomplish anything they put there mind to.

 

[Me Myself]

We are biologiclaly different and tend to have different tendencies as a whole, but individually things change a lot.

It is true and safe to assert that most women are more empathic than most men or that most men are physically superior in strength and other athletics qualities than women. BUT, individually, there still exist a lot of women that could break a lot of men in combat, racing, weightlifting, etc, and many men that cook better than many women, that are more caring and emphatic than a lot of women, that are more prone to look for the emotional part than the sexual part than most women, etc.

So yeah, there are tendencies, but the individualities shuffles all out.

Naturaly, society does have a big impact on how this tendencies are (or are not) percieved, allowed to flourish or repressed, mesh or further divide, etc.

 

[Desert Snake]

Now I'm not a traditionalist that I think women should stay in the kitchen, but I do think men and women are DIFFERENT, in many beautiful ways, we're equal but different.

I agree, it's more than just phisical differences that separate the genders, however, that being said, I would rather not over-state that fact either, as women should be able to hold the jobs they want, IMO.

 

[Quintessence]

Keep in mind that many of us who say this do not use the terms "sex" and "gender" synonymously. When I say "gender is a social construct" it is so by matter of definition.

Sex = biological. Real, physical, anatomical differences between the males and females of a given species that are pretty much beyond dispute.

Gender = social construct. Culturally agreed-upon behaviors, roles, and personalities that are considered appropriate for biological males and biological females. The "feminine" and the "masculine."

 

[tumbleweed41]

Agreed. There is a difference between physical gender and sociological gender ideals.

 

[gnomon]

I hear this a lot, that men and women growing up in a vacuum would be the same,
here's the biggest reason I can not believe that,

Prisons,

We segregate our prisons by sex, could you imagine if men and women shared a prison?

Men have a physical dominance that they could assert on any women in their prison.

Now I'm not a traditionalist that I think women should stay in the kitchen, but I do think men and women are DIFFERENT, in many beautiful ways, we're equal but different.

I find using gender and sex synonymously is useless and inhibits education about human sexual development and individual psychological development. It's perfect acceptable to recognize a difference between the sexes on certain variables. It's something else to associate socially constructed archetypes as inherent with sexual identity.