To be sure, the class was mostly a historical look at gender rather than a modern study of it, so it was pretty dichotomous. It mentioned gender as a spectrum, yeah, I guess. The only thing I really took from it is that gender is really and truly a social construct, in that it comprises of what people expect of you, as well as what you expect of yourself. And other stuff, I’m sure, but whatevs, yo.
No, Gender is not a social construct.
I’ll prove it to you; I want you to go around looking obviously male (assuming you have a xxxx - if you don’t, gender flip these instructions) but wear a sign around your neck saying “I identify as a woman!” and see how society treats you.
Answer: as a man. Gender is not a social construct because everything people pretend is based on gender is in fact based on biological sex. If you are a man, you are treated as a man regardless of how you identify, and vice versa.
The simplest way to understand this is that sex is what you are physically, gender is what you are mentally. This is why a “transgender” person is a man who feels they should be a woman, or a woman who feels they should be a man. A man who feels they should be a potato is not transgender, they’re xxxx.
Also, personal opinion alert: That second option (de-gendered view of society) is pretty clearly the most reasonable. I’m a firm believer in meritocracy, and gender has no intrinsic relation with ability, so it makes sense to ignore it. I could care less if this person with dangly bits wants to be called “her”. I’ll call that person “her” when I manage to remember and just… deal.
A “de-gendered” view of society is not in any way reasonable because we are sexually dimorphic species. Men on aggregate are stronger than women, to the point where the world’s strongest woman is only comparable to an above-average man. Men have different ways of thinking and approaching problems; men function differently in social situations; men and women experience different health issues at different rates; men and women are biologically different; and only one sex can get pregnant.
There’s a really good reason we don’t consider men and women to be equal - we aren’t!
This is why the tumblrina view on gender is so stupid. “She” designates someone as being of the female sex. That’s kind of useful information at times, whether that’s for medical reasons or because you’re out trying to pull.
So yes, gender does not have any link to ability - but sex might, especially in physical work. If you need hard, manual labour done, odds are the best people for that job are men.
You’re absolutely right about meritocracy though; people just don’t get to cry foul when the meritocratic system keeps finding women are objectively inferior in certain roles. Alas, they do - apparently, vaginas make you super qualified for cushy, high paid office jobs, yet the damned Patriarchy just won’t listen!
