What do you think of the male gender role?

[Nudistpig]

This is what I said above: ‘IMHO what is ’maleness ’ or ‘masculinity’ is socially and culturally conditioned and how individuals respond to the conditioning.
‘Enforcing and repression’ of gender roles are social and cultural concepts and have nothing to do with the biological facts of gender.

Your response stops at 'responds to conditioning'. I disagree with that as it is too reductive and then that which follows as it is not true. Biology plays a role in culture. What I am willing to say is that the role is not yet well understood, has been essentialized reductively for millennia, is still reduced and misapprehended and is likely many roles overlapping in the genome relating to many selective pressures. Then some human beings are outside normative biology altogether. What's normative is also questionable. But none of this means maleness or masculinity are arbitrary. It simply means we're not fully expressed. We never can be. that's being human

 

[Chrysippus]

oh, and this: ‘Daddy is a fireman. Mommy is a nurse.’
Female firefighters:

Male nurse:

 

[Chrysippus]

we're not fully expressed

What the fuck does that mean?

 

[Nudistpig]

oh, and this: ‘Daddy is a fireman. Mommy is a nurse.’
Female firefighters:
View attachment 1103704

Male nurse:
View attachment 1103706

Wow. Counter examples of how not everything is coded to norms. So that means there are none?

 

[Chrysippus]

Wow. Counter examples of how not everything is coded to norms. So that means there are none?

Certainly not my argument, just your proposed sarcastic and illogical reduction/conclusion by your attempt to put words in my mouth.
Oh, and definitely not wow.

 

[malakos]

The only thing masculine or feminine about us is our biology--our physical plants.

All the rest is personality traits and cultural norms which are neither masculine or feminine but stereotyped to be. Few escape the gender indoctrination which drives so much bias in our species.

Perhaps... but the biological differences between men and women expand considerably beyond just apparent, superficial differences in body parts. When the breadth of sexual dimorphism in humans is considered, it is not out of the question that some of what we perceive as "socially constructed" may actually naturally (not committing myself to "inevitably") follow from biological differences.

 

[malakos]

Consider an example: knowing that in a variety of ways men, on average, demonstrate greater faculty with assertiveness and tendencies towards aggressive posturing than women do, on average, some propose that men have been mentally conditioned to this difference simply as a consequence of long-standing cultural expectations. I won't deny that cultural expectations play a large role, nor do I rule out the possibility that this may be merely an accidental development due the power men are afforded by their relatively imposing physiques. However, what little reading I've done of neuroscientific work on sexual dimorphism in the brain suggests that these mean differences in temperament may be the result of minor structural differences between the average male and female brains. Is this possibility not worth equal, fair consideration that is here being given to the social constructivist view?

 

[Chrysippus]

neuroscientific work on sexual dimorphism in the brain suggests that these mean differences in temperament may be the result of minor structural differences between the average male and female brains

How DARE you bring up physical and biological gender differences??? I must report you to the Thought Police. Gender, of course, must be seen as a human sociopoliticocultural quality ‘coded to norms’.
Take care, you, and remember what happened to Giordano Bruno!

 

[Nudistpig]

See but I don't disagree with Malakos at all. I don't subscribe to the "gender is anything at all" school because that's absurdity. Physics, Chemistry, Biology, all constrained by the way our universe is put together. But between rigid gender binarism and pan-unicornism, there is a world of possibility. Gender is a socially constructed thing. That is fairly easy to ascertain. Before 1900, blue was for girls, pink was for boys. After WWII, it was the opposite and still is. There is nothing about a colour that indicates something biological about a baby. It's an entirely contingent and arbitrary sign system. On the other hand, selective pressures on males and females as well as the dimorphism mentioned will have had an impact. I have never said otherwise. What is germane here is the degree to which any of us can be certain of the relationship between gender and sex, and I prefer to not pick either extreme. Seems reasonable.

 

[Nudistpig]

What the fuck does that mean?

No single individual of any species is the full and most perfect expression of that species and there are no "perfect specimens". All males are experiments selection is having with maleness on the biological level. But none of us ever achieve either the full potential of our DNA's instructions nor do we get socialized perfectly. We are not fully expressed beings in biological or cultural terms. So therefore, the answer to the question is going to be hard, distant, slippery...capice?

 

[ItsAll4Kim]

No single individual of any species is the full and most perfect expression of that species and there are no "perfect specimens". All males are experiments selection is having with maleness on the biological level. But none of us ever achieve either the full potential of our DNA's instructions nor do we get socialized perfectly. We are not fully expressed beings in biological or cultural terms. So therefore, the answer to the question is going to be hard, distant, slippery...capice?

We are all fully expressed. We are our DNA, it is inescapable by surgery, social whim, or *any* outside influence. But being fully expressed in no way implies perfection...the very nature of the natural world dictates that perfection both exists and is impossible...all life evolves to adapt to its environment, which changes constantly. So we are both perfect and imperfect....a perpetual Beta test for a project whose specification is never stabilized.

 

[ItsAll4Kim]

See but I don't disagree with Malakos at all. I don't subscribe to the "gender is anything at all" school because that's absurdity. Physics, Chemistry, Biology, all constrained by the way our universe is put together. But between rigid gender binarism and pan-unicornism, there is a world of possibility. Gender is a socially constructed thing. That is fairly easy to ascertain. Before 1900, blue was for girls, pink was for boys. After WWII, it was the opposite and still is. There is nothing about a colour that indicates something biological about a baby. It's an entirely contingent and arbitrary sign system. On the other hand, selective pressures on males and females as well as the dimorphism mentioned will have had an impact. I have never said otherwise. What is germane here is the degree to which any of us can be certain of the relationship between gender and sex, and I prefer to not pick either extreme. Seems reasonable.

Gender is a physically constructed thing. It exists for the sole purpose of perpetuating our form of life. The social jumbo-jumbo will always swim around that, and what is "right" or "wrong" has an ever-changing definition. Future generations will read about us and call us fools. Their future generations will call them fools.

 

[englad]

Gender is a physically constructed thing. It exists for the sole purpose of perpetuating our form of life. The social jumbo-jumbo will always swim around that, and what is "right" or "wrong" has an ever-changing definition. Future generations will read about us and call us fools. Their future generations will call them fools.

No it isn't, sex is the physically constructed thing. Gender is not the same as sex.

 

[ItsAll4Kim]

No it isn't, sex is the physically constructed thing. Gender is not the same as sex.

I know, but Gender is also a physical construct as well as social. Our psychological makeups differ between the sexes, to a good extent because our male and female brains have physical differences that affect how we think and behave. Gender is far from exclusively social, because our psychology is influenced by the physical makeup of our brains.

 

[Chrysippus]

No single individual of any species is the full and most perfect expression of that species and there are no "perfect specimens". All males are experiments selection is having with maleness on the biological level. But none of us ever achieve either the full potential of our DNA's instructions nor do we get socialized perfectly. We are not fully expressed beings in biological or cultural terms. So therefore, the answer to the question is going to be hard, distant, slippery...capice?

Quack quack quack quack quack quack quack. This is hilarious bullshit.

 

[ripsrips]

I'm a male, and no matter what I do physically, biologically I'll always be a male and I'm happy with that.
There are differences between men and women and some people have a hard time either admitting it or seeing that.

There are things only men can do and there are things that only women can do!
And if you have to ask what those are, you seriously needs to get more education or take serious look at your life and wonder what you've done at this point that you can't see it!

 

[halcyondays]

Yes of course BUT... biology and behaviour, selection and culture, sex and gender are not entirely separate. What is clear is that gender essentialism of any kind is reductive and frequently oppressive.That said men operate within the performances they know. We never truly know it as performance 100%. Only a few are so driven or lucky. there's nothing wrong with being a man who fits a mould and who is comfortably there. it's the enforcing and repression that are wrong. So given your answer, how do you define?

I don't define gender. I see a narrow societal indoctrination/definition of gender vs. individuals whose experience/definition of their own selves may be much broader or more fluid than the narrow gender norm. This leads to "enforcement and repression" by the societal whole vs. the individual. I agree that that repression and enforcement is wrong. It exists because so many people cannot or will not think outside the box of their social indoctrination.

For example, XY makes me male biologically. An empathic personality type makes me seem more effeminate to many but that's just a gender stereotype of a human personality characteristic which is neither male or female nor masculine or feminine. Doesn't matter. In the minds of many I am suspect because my personality violates the rules for what it is to be male.

Rejecting all gender stereotypes makes me human. I am a human in a male body.

 

[marriedasian]

my honest answer to this is that "i'm not able to answer this question fairly" as me being the male can only account for half of the equation. i assume that when you ask of the male gender role, it's in relation to the female gender role? in this perspective, i can't answer because i've not experienced the female gender role so without that piece of information, i can't make a sound or fair conclusion.

so i really don't know what to think about it. if i could experience both genders then i could come up with an evaluation.

 

[Chrysippus]

when you ask of the male gender role, it's in relation to the female gender role

Oh, brother: you took Health Class at a Catholic high school, right?

 

[marriedasian]

Oh, brother: you took Health Class at a Catholic high school, right?

LOLs... no, public school all the way and then some more health class under the bleachers.

this question is like asking "what do you think of the democratic role" or "what do you think of the republican role".