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ORIGINAL: Lashra

LadyEllen, I love your picture it is very nice[:)]

~Lashra

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ORIGINAL: Najakcharmer

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ORIGINAL: LadyEllen
So what is meant by "acting like a man", is behaviour ascribed in our culture to that which "ought" to be right for a man as opposed to a woman, according to the cultural model, based on those qualities determined by our culture to be male. This in itself is not wrong.

Hi Ellen, and thank you for taking the time.  I know it can be tough to get thoughts and feelings on such a personal subject as gender roles articulated.

I have tremendous respect for transgendered people and the harsh struggle they face in our culture.  I have absolutely zero respect for our culture because it puts all of us differently gendered people through that harsh struggle.  So, fuck the culture.  I don't give a rat's ass what it thinks we "ought" to be doing or how we "ought" to be acting.  It is crap like this that cranks up the suicide rate among our gay, bisexual and transgendered youth. 

Agreed. The sooner we throw off the BS that was hung on western culture centuries ago, the better. Thank goodness, it does seem to be dying, but a dying beast is always dangerous and we have to be very careful of the Christian fundamentalists who would like to see the likes of thee and me destroyed. Sadly though, its not just them but the remnants of that poison everywhere. I've been exceptionally lucky - no one even notices me, but I know of many TG people just in my locality who face abuse up to and including death threats, for not being one or the other. This makes TG people either repress and end up as a suicide, or seek such a close match with their target gender which is impossible to achieve (because there is no defined model of what a woman is and there cant be), that the ongoing disappointment of not being "perfect" is equally disastrous to their health. One day we will live in a world where it doesnt matter - but only because we've all got so old, it wont matter any more.

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However at the same time, there are definite differences between male and female in general, from which it can be said that there is indeed a male pattern of behaviour and a female pattern of behaviour. Where I have a problem, is where women engage in a male pattern of behaviour which is against their true individual nature, because they are under the impression that they must do this in order to compete with males.

In some ways it may be necessary to function in a business world whose customs and culture were originally established by men and are still largely dominated by men.  Just as an American businessman going to Japan is going to have to learn their way of doing business, a woman who works primarily with men in her field is going to have to learn to play with the boys and speak their language.  So yes, in some situations it may be necessary for a woman to learn to "speak male" and "act male" in order to communicate successfully with men. 

Yes - agreed. One has to adapt to a culture to function within it. Just like the end result of all the immigration threads seems to suggest. But at the same time, total assimilation runs the risk of losing one that which makes one who one is. If one is happy to assimilate to male culture because its not much of an effort, then thats fine with me. Its only when a woman pretends to assimilate because that culture is so alien to who she is, that I see a problem. Women are valid in their own right, so they dont need to do this if its against their nature.

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It is no problem to breach those gender differences which arise from culture. The problem arises when one goes against the gender differences which arise from sex.

I think that it depends very largely on the individual.  Some of us are male bodied but have some female traits and inclinations, some of us are female bodied and have some male traits and inclinations.  The majority of people's traits and inclinations are mostly in order with their birth gender, but gender is still very much a spectrum rather than a binary value.  So when someone is apparently going against the gender differences that arise from sex, are they doing it because they think they have to, or are they doing it because that's where they are on the gender spectrum?  And whose business is it, really, to decide what gender behavior is healthy or proper for an individual?  I don't think that arbitrary social standards based on birth gender are a very good or healthy thing, and I'm sure you can personally testify how unhealthy and unhappy they are.

Absolutely. Gender traits are definitely a spectrum - this was what was shown up in the Bems tests - most people finished close to the central line because they had chosen a mix of supposedly male and female traits as describing them. We need to lose this idea of cultural gender models for sure - not only is it unhealthy, its also untrue! That such a mix is associated with good mental health, is not something that should be lost either. What I mean by gender traits arising from birth sex, relate to "normal" individuals rather than the likes of me by the way - another function of an inadequate paradigm.

I guess in the end, all my point was, was that whatever the circumstance, its always better and healthier to be onesself rather than try to be someone else because others think that is how it ought to be. As usual I went through a lot of bytes to get it that concise!
E

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ORIGINAL: perverseangelic

I still want to know who is defining what traits are "feminine" and which are "masculine."

The culture which says that men should be one way and women another way, according to mutually exclusive ways. It comes from the Bible, and has pervaded western culture to varying degrees for centuries. Joan of Arc was not executed for anything more or less than adopting a male role, after all. To me its quite amusing that the people from whom these binary forms arise, (the Jewish people) were the first to put women in the front line in the army. If the source culture from which our binary form  is derived can make such changes, why is it such a problem for us? (and it is).

Also, who is defining what makes us male or female?  Heck, for simplicity's sake, lets ignore emotions and personal identification and focus solely on the mesurable differences in physical form.

Is it biology? Primary sexual characteristics? Well, modern medicine can change those. As soon as someone has surgery, do they automatically switch over to another gender's set of stereotypes or correct behavior?

No. Performing sex reassignment on a "normal" male, will not change who he is in himself, apart from driving him insane that is. Such surgery is (or should be) only performed on TS people when there is absolute need to do so, verified by psychologists and psychiatrists, for this very reason. The TS woman was always a female in herself, so when the surgery is done, she is whole - the body matches the mind. Mistakes in diagnosis are catastrophic in prognosis, thus the system of treatment is (or should be) slow and methodical, to the frustration of those who need it of course, but it is so important to be careful in this. The true TS woman will always have displayed behaviour patterns closer to female (once repression as a result of societal pressure is removed or overcome), and so all the surgery does is to fix the body. That some self presenting TS women manage to obtain treatment and surgery purely because they can pay - and then later regret it, is taken up by right wing religious types to "show" that all TS people are actually insane - whereas brain studies have shown female patterns in MtF TS people which indicate the stereotype "trapped in a male body" thing has biological and physical bases. Hopefully, transsexualism will soon be moved to being a medical, not a psychological problem in the near future, as a result of the latest research - just as homosexuality was about ten years ago. Yes, until the 90s, gay men were officially insane!

How 'bout chromosomes? If so, where do intersexed individuals stand? Heck, even avoiding intersexed individuals, where do individuals with chromosomal variations stand? My old roomate was XO. She identified female, but her chromosomes were not what we traditionally call female. There are certainly enough individuals with chromosomal variations for this to be a problem.

This again, is a cultural problem. The culture we live in says there is man and woman, and nothing else. Check your Bible - Adam, Eve - but no one inbetween, no one straying over the line etc etc. Your old roommate, should have been able to be herself - whereas she felt compelled to identify as female, I would assume perhaps wrongly, that it would have been socially disastrous just to be who she was. Even if one isnt a Christian and rejects all that stuff - it remains the culture in which we live.

I do -not- think that men/women/other genders are the same. I mean, one look at people who identify as different genders kinda figures that out. There are differences in neurochemstry as well. However, from what I've read, those neurochemical differences cross gender boundaries, and often relate to sexual orienation as much as to chromosomal gender. That is, homosexual men have drastic similiarities in brain chemistry to straight women.

I will accept what you say on this. From my recollection though, the studies of brain structure in the Netherlands seemed to show that male brains were almost the same, regardless of sexual orientation, as were female brains. The TS brains (MtF) closely resembled those of female brains.
 
However, it is clear that just as one cannot become TS, one cannot become gay or lesbian either, and so it must be hard wired into the brain somewhere.

Sure, there can be some generalizations made about men and women within a given culture. Within that culture there are behavior patterns that have been trationally associated with different genders. Those generalizatons often have some basis in historic precident.

See above - the Bible, for the cultural stuff. At the same time though, there are some activities which for the purposes of survival, were traditionally allocated to men or women. If your tribe is to stand the best chance of survival, then it must allocate the most suitable people for each task. Clearly for things like hunting with a spear, men are more suitable; bigger, stronger, faster and no need to take the children with them. This is where some aspects of gender divides come from. Women can hunt too of course, but in a tribal setting, they will usually be the ones looking after the children, because they are biologically the most suitable to do so. It wasnt chauvinism in the ancient world to divide tasks by sex/gender - it was a survival strategy. Whats interesting that I heard somewhere was the idea that in such ancient societies, TS women were also known; they were the "men" left behind from the hunt to be with the women, doing the women's tasks as women, but also being probably the strongest/biggest of the women, would also provide any protection of the tribe that was required whilst the men were away. Dont know if thats true and no way of knowing, but it would fit in with the entire survival strategy of a tribe not yet aware that TS people were somehow evil. It would also fit with more recent history in pagan Greece and Rome, where TS women provided the temple guard for the Goddesses. That this was stopped by Christianity speaks volumes. Christianity has a lot going for it, but a lot of it is just plain unhealthy and stupid IMO.

I honestly have very little patience with biological determinism because there are far too many flaws in the biology. The more we learn about human bodies, the clearer it becomes that gender is -not- as easy as looking for sticking-out bits versus sticking-in bits.

Absolutely. We can determine far more than two sexes from the biology. And we can determine far more than two genders too. Cultural acceptance of this is the battleground.

Until someone can come up with a clear definition of what determines gender that takes into account modern science and all the permutations that occur it is impossible, to me, to say that one gender should behave one way and another should behave differently.

Absolutely. The only ought there should be is that everyone ought to be who they are - not having to conform to some ideal model to which others think they should.

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ORIGINAL: sophia37

sometimes its more interesting to just listen to other peoples views. Ive gotten past the point where I think anyone wants for me to agree or disagree with their opinion. People just like to talk. Your opinion, my opinion, what does it matter. So I dont usually walk away from those "conversations" feeling one way or another. The world goes on the same.

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ORIGINAL: starshineowned
Can't say as see's many women jumping up and down to be required like Men to sign up for selective service or be in infantry units on front lines either. Why is that?

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ORIGINAL: AquaticSub
*waves hand* Actually I'm a woman who supports women being drafted as well as men.

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ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

MisP - if you're going to be frank, can I be earnest? LOL

I've always wondered why the army dont take women for the front line. Sure, in the past when a fair bit of strength was needed to handle weapons, maybe women wouldnt have had the strength - but then the women were certainly strong enough to be doing the men's jobs while the men were away fighting! It comes down to this cultural gender divide thing again - "men are aggressive, so ergo women are not". That not all men wanted to fight, and some women would have, was dismissed as cowardice on the parts of the men, and insanity on the parts of the women. Strange thing is though, many women have fought in many battles, unbeknownst to the men they fought with and against!

The only argument I'd even listen to for women not being in the front line would be the danger to them of being raped and sexually abused if captured. Sure, men can be raped and sexually abused if captured too, but this ignores the oft ignored fact that in total war, its accepted practice it seems to rape one's way through the enemy women just as much as it is to slaughter one's way through the men. Disgusting of course, but it went on and still does, as part of defeating an enemy; the basic idea being to break the women psychologically and thus break the enemy men too through the humiliation of knowing they couldnt protect their women.

I believe the British army now has plenty of women - not in the front lines, but not far from them. Thing is, with the fluid nature of war, they can just as easily be captured and raped there as on the front line, so that argument doesnt hold up any more. If I were a woman soldier, I'd far rather be at the front line, where at least I can see who's coming after me and shoot their legs off. (I'd be aiming somewhere else, but I'm not a very good shot!)

E

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ORIGINAL: Lashra

Beautifully stated MizChaos. I think many people don't realize how many societies are actually matriarch based. I think that fact is conveniently left out of alot of text books and you don't often see it in TV/movies because its almost like its a dirty secret that some people don't want to get out. [&:]

Absolutely - dont recall the anthropoligist's name now (my sister has the books!), who studied various tribal societies that functioned on a matriarchal model. Needless to say, the results of the studies (1930s, I think), were slaughtered by the establishment. It couldnt possibly be true, it was argued, as men were clearly meant to rule. LOL!
 
Incidentally, there is a town in Mexico (according to my magazine) which is run according to a matriarchal model and strangely is a perfectly well functioning place, where the men are happier than in other places!
 


~Lashra

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ORIGINAL: MizChaos

Heh. I find it amusing when people use words like "natural order" or "traditional roles" when discussing gender, especially because what is "traditional" for one group of people can be viewed as atrociuos by another group of people.

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Except it's not nearly that simple.

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ORIGINAL: cloudboy
Gosh-Darn-it !!

I expect you to make it so!