Gender and the structure of the universe

[nancylebov]

I don't believe male and female are extremely important categories. I don't see huge generalized differences between men and women. I don't think male and female mean the same thing across all species.

It seems as though a lot of people do see male and female a deep mythic structure, rather than a somewhat blurry aspect of biology.

I was reminded of this because of a difficulty in therapy last week. My therapist (who generally does a good job with me) was telling me that expansion and creativity is male, and choosing what to do and what not to do out of all those possibilities is female. This kind of thing drives me crazy because it seems like nonsense. The "that's nonsense!" reflex kicks at least as fast as a feeling I'm being told that creativity is somewhat out of character for me. My therapist said this isn't about individuals, but I just don't have the mental flexibility to believe that.

I don't believe I'd be saner, happier, or more capable if I could see gender as metaphysically important.

I'm hoping he has the mental flexibility to switch to just talking about complementary traits (like seeing possibilities and selecting among them) without bringing in gender.

So, what's your take on male, female, and the universe? Have you ever changed your mind about the metaphysics (if any) of male and female? Do you see any difference between people who believe that male and female go beyond immediate biology and those who don't?

And as a bonus, where do you think male and female fit into Taoism? I think they're epiphenomena of yin and yang, but I got into a head-banging argument with dcseain about it.

Addendum:: My therapist called back and asked if yin and yang would be ok. I said yes, or complementary qualities. After some other stuff, he said he might have had an off day. I agreed with him. I'm not posting the rest of the conversation, but things will probably be ok.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I've written a fair amount about this at various times.

Whenever someone says (whether authoritatively or not), "Men do this, women do that; women are this, men are that," etc., I'm about as likely to be in one category as the other. And while I may be sometimes unusual, I know I'm not unique.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Gender is really complicated for me, because I try to live my life as a man, at least the Western conception of that, as much as possible. But I also have a very feminine form that I know how to utilize very well, and there's really nothing to be done about that. I am not uncomfortable in my body, merely in what other people think of it. And as much as I try to be a good man, it angers me to no end that we are constantly reducing the idea of womanhood to the sifting, organizing and filing of the lives of others.

I have force of will and I take up space, no matter how narrow I might be, and it is not those things that make me so concerned about masculinity.

Rather it is that we live in a society that has largely not yet decided that women are human and can be honorable. There is no code for the existence of a woman like me, or like most of the people I choose to associate with. I find notions of "sisterhood" small and laughable.

So I guess I steal. Which I suppose speaks to women's honour all over again.

But seriously, I know I have a nice figure and look good in a dress, but I'm always startled when someone deals with me in a very gendered way. I am a woman? Really? I always feel like the tall guy with the big shoulders.

I've spent so much of my life being all clever and having status because I was with the bigest guy in the room (the man I spent 7 years with was 6'2" and looked like a young Orson Welles). That was a pretty fucked up relationship, but I learned a lot from it, including that as a woman I don't like how I behave and that wow, I wanted to be him waaaaaay more than I wanted to fuck him.

I am not longer interested in the generally accepted markers of women's glory. To be frank, they hurt too much. I marvel at who I was when I was 17 and all I wanted was five sons.

None of this helps you probably, but other than to say, yeah, it's aaaaall messed up.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Gender is different from sex.

Sex is a biophysical reality with behavioral consequences. In biology, the female of a species is the one that makes the larger physical contribution to a zygote/foetus -- as an ovum is much larger, i.e., requires a greater investment of energy and physical resources, than a sperm. This has immediate consequences: offspring are more "expensive" for a female and therefore more "valuable." How this plays out in actual species behavior varies a great deal from species to species.

Gender as we generally think of it is a biosocial construct. There is a real and meaningful "norm" for gender rôles, with a basis on what was pro-survival in the landscape/niche for which our nervous systems evolved, i.e., hunter/gatherer tribes in a tropical savannah. Those rôles are inapplicable to the postmodern urban landscape/niche, but they are still inherent in nervous systems which have not yet had time to evolve in response to the changed environment. This is not to say that hunter/gatherer gender rôles are determined for us, but that realistic attempts to redefine our rôles vis-a-vis our new environment must begin with an understanding of how our nervous systems are wired.

Proof that the evolutionary wiring of our nervous systems does not determine our behavior? Every time someone chooses to use any form of contraception, they act against the most basic drive of evolution.

Proof that it still influences our behavior? Every time someone is in too much of a hurry to have sex to put on their rubber/insert their diaphragm.

[avram]

I'm with you. I sometimes read things written by people who believe in masculinity and femininity as transcendent cosmic categories, and it keeps me from taking them seriously. In my head, I translate "male" and "female" to "penis-having" and "penis-lacking", and those claims all just sound even sillier. (Having a penis makes you creative! Lacking a penis helps you make choices! See?)

[redbird]

I suspect that if you translated them to "womb-lacking" and "womb-having" they might seem sillier still.

[avram]

I considered going with "penis-having" and "womb-having", but no, I think "penis" is just a funnier word. It's got just a touch of taboo to it -- it wasn't that long ago you couldn't say it on TV -- and talking about people needing a penis to do various things conjures up the image of people using penises to do those things, which is almost always funny.

This usage taps into our cultural fund of comedic imagery relating to penises as handles, pointers, and so on. We don't really have such a fund for womb imagery; that tends to be more serious and maternal.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

expansion and creativity is male, and choosing what to do and what not to do out of all those possibilities is female

... say, what?

Creativity doesn't have balls, and receptivity doesn't require a uterus

[demonspawnmom.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is funny; I'm taking women's studies as a minor and I had to take biology this semester as a general ed class. Top it off with the fact I was married to a MTF transsexual, and I seem to run into transgendered/transsexuals even out here.

This is what I think - perhaps you might find it useful.

"Sex," is biological: the apparatus you were born with, whether it's a boy's, girl's, or both. "Gender" is the social role (roles) you play, and how you perceive yourself.

I tend to follow the idea of queer theory, which tends to look at gender as a continuum - not too unlike a yin/yang, I guess.

Re: Creativity doesn't have balls, and receptivity doesn't require a uterus

[romsfuulynn.livejournal.com]

If the therapist doesn't get over it in a hurry, I'd be looking at evaluating a change in therapist. (Although I know that is a difficult thing to do.)

I think it says a lot about the therapist that he'd express that opinion -- and not good things.

Re: Creativity doesn't have balls, and receptivity doesn't require a uterus

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That wasn't the only thing that went wrong in that session. The thing is, this is after a year and a half of good work, so I'll be cutting him some slack, but not infinite slack.

I've left a message for him about the gender thing and some other stuff. I'll see what happens in the next session.

Re: Creativity doesn't have balls, and receptivity doesn't require a uterus

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

I tend to follow the idea of queer theory, which tends to look at gender as a continuum - not too unlike a yin/yang, I guess.

Thank you! You've just given a whole new perspective on gender. :-)

[darius.livejournal.com]

Man proposes, woman disposes, eh? I think this is an instance of our way of thinking of human ecological categories as real -- Eliezer Yudkowsky gave another nice example of bug-eyed monsters carrying off human women because their sexiness is absolute, in that way of thinking.

The Tao is Silent has a chapter "The Tao is a Mysterious Female" that didn't make much of an impression on me -- and "the Tao loves and nurtures all things, but does not lord it over them" could be seen as female, too -- but the worldview I took away from that book and the Tae Te Ching sees the world as way bigger than categories like male and female.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

My observations:

In just about every human culture I am aware of, there is differentiation based on gender.

In just about every culture, the nature of this differentiation varies dramatically, although there do seem to be a very small number of consistent differentiations.

Mutually contradictory cultures each regard their own arrangement as natural.

For example, in some cultures it is a shameful thing for women to have remunerative employment, because a man should be able to "support his wife" or "support his children" (with women remaining in a father's household until marriage). In other cultures, for example, modern "yeshiva" culture, it is considered better for women to be the primary breadwinner and handle all financial matters so that the man can devote himself to sacred study. In a large number of cultures, mothers are considered superior at raising children and have that as a primary responsibility. In other cultures, fathers are considered superior at rearing children (at least, male children)and mothers lose custody of children in the event of divorce.

Certain patterns of behavior appear tied to either biological functions (childbirth, menstruation) or economic/sociological factors. And in every single culture there are notable outliers and exceptions to every established mode of behavior.

We can demonstrate scientifically that biochemistry matters, and that there appear to be consistent differences on average between men and women in any given society. HOWEVER, we can also prove that people's body chemistry responds to external stimuli. So while it is true that testosterone boosts aggression, and that men on average have higher levels of testosterone when tested in 21st Century U.S., we can also demonstrate that when people are given "aggressiveness training" and learn to act aggressively, their testosterone levels rise. This makes determination of cause an effect difficult.

All scientific measurements that rigorously test for gender differences, even those that demonstrate statistic variation, fall along a range. They represent tendencies rather than determinants, with significant variation among individuals. Nor can these experiments precisely correlate to any known genetic marker or screen all relevant environmental influences. They represent a snapshot in time of the test population.

My conclusions (always evolving and tentative):

1) Human beings have a tendency to assign importance to gender and to differentiate by gender.

2) Nearly all this behavior is learned rather than biological, although behaviors may be emerge initially from biological distinctions.

3) Aggregate trends are not determinative for any individual. An actuarial table can tell you the life expectancy for white males of my age, weight and socio-economic class, but it cannot predict whether I personaly will get hit by a bus tomorrow.

One last differentiation

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

In every culture of which I have observed, there is a population of people of both sexes who are convinced that the other sex unfairly controls everything and that the vast majority of injustices and aggravations are attributable to this gender bias. there is usually also another population of both sexes who believe their gender is superior because of these differentiations. Because there is wide variation among populations in the nature of differentiation, what constitutes unfair treatment or oppression v. superiority and veneration is often contradictory.

[redbird]

What I think is that your therapist is, at best, a little too locked into his own metaphors. I doubt that he would say that as a man he is not creative, and needs a woman to come up with things for him to choose among. And if he's prepared to admit that every healthy human has both the attributes he's calling male and those he's calling female, he should be able to use your vocabulary, or drop the distinction entirely. (I don't know, or need to know, what you're working on with your therapist, but if it isn't gender issues the distinction may be entirely irrelevant. If it is gender issues, you definitely should sort this out with him.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I think locked into his own metaphors covers it. We were working on how I use my time, not gender issues.

He said that every human being has both sorts of attributes. Mmore exactly, he said "this isn't about individuals".

I agree that he ought to be able to adjust his language to something that doesn't drive me up the wall.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I'm with you, overall: sounds like nonsense to me.

My therapist said this isn't about individuals

Then what the hell is it about? Where do ideas about a gender come from if not from the individuals who embody it? It seems like saying "blueness is a property of light within a certain range of the magnetic spectrum... but some light in that range is really red."

On the other hand, I'm not convinced that male & female are entirely biological either. One day I was in a public restroom and saw a woman who made me think, "That person exactly looks like Friend A would if Friend A had been born female." Then I caught myself, remembering that Friend A is transgender, was born biologically female and remains biologically female for various reasons, but lives as male and certainly seems male to me. When two people whose bodies look the same still seem to be different genders on a soul-level, it suggests that there's something more going on than just the physical.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

John Stuart Mill to Thomas Carlyle:
There was one thing in what you said of Madame Roland which I did not quite like—it was, that she was almost rather a man than a woman: I believe that I quite agree in all that you really meant, but is there really any distinction between the highest masculine & the highest feminine character? I do not mean the mechanical acquirements; those, of course, will very commonly be different. But the women, of all I have known, who possessed the highest measure of what are considered feminine qualities, have combined with them more of the highest masculine qualities than I have ever seen in any but one or two men, & those one or two men were also in many respects almost women. I suspect it is the second-rate people of the two sexes that are unlike—the first-rate are alike in both—except—no, I do not think I can except anything—but then, in this respect, my position has been and is, what you say every human being’s is in many respects “a peculiar one.”

[heron61.livejournal.com]

So, what's your take on male, female, and the universe? Have you ever changed your mind about the metaphysics (if any) of male and female? Do you see any difference between people who believe that male and female go beyond immediate biology and those who don't?

I'm right there with you on feeling that:

I don't believe male and female are extremely important categories. I don't see huge generalized differences between men and women. I don't think male and female mean the same thing across all species.

This is the primary reason I no longer consider myself a Wiccan. I trained in a coven with two wonderful people who kept those attitudes to a minimum, and even then I found the little bits of those attitudes somewhat annoying and alien. However, in the larger Wiccan (and to a not much lesser extent in the larger pagan community) the "sacred duality" nonsense about gender is far too widespread. Of course, this makes sense given that similar attitudes can be found throughout this screwed up culture.

The entire idea of gendering traits, ways of thought, or ideas both baffles and annoys me. Of course, it helps that I've an MA in anthropology, so when someone posits some sort of gender universal, I can think of at least several counter-examples.

Do you see any difference between people who believe that male and female go beyond immediate biology and those who don't?

On a purely personal level, I'm unlikely to become close friends with anyone who feel that gender is some sort of universal truth. Also, I'm not certain if it's fair or not, but I automatically assume that anyone who strongly believes in the transcendent reality of gender is also significantly sexist.

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

One of the windmills at which I can't resist tilting is that of the ordination of women in Christian churches (OWttP - Ordination of Women to the Priesthood). I keep asking men, in general, opposed to OWttP just what the theological equivalent of the Y chromosome might be. They rarely have an answer. Or of the penis; which I suspect is the "real" decider. And I point out that unless they've been medically tested, they can't generally know that they are genetically male and not one of the many other biological genders. The Wikipedia article on intersex is fascinating reading.

At the same time, I find it damn slippery that most of those maintaining that God established male headship ... are male.

[kiya]

I spent a long, long time trying to make myself parse the universe in male-female dualism because the only religious stuff I had come across that made the remotest of sense to me was Wicca-derived.

Then I gave it up, said, "This makes no sense to me", and rattled around for a while.

Then I actually stopped thinking that way when starting to deal with the concepts of gods as being Themselves, rather than as being sex-polarised, and the universe stopped behaving weirdly.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Oh, the context was Taoism, not Chinese Philosophy; no, they are not interchangeable terms. In that case, my point is almost, but not entirely, moot. Now, to sleep, as i work in the AM. wee. I'll explore these threads more later, i know there will be much of interest.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Taking gender-as-cosmology to extremes leads you into Dave Sim territory. I find it an occasionally useful metaphor, but Sim's example is a strong warning to not mistake it for Reality.

[zenlizard]

There are two kinds of people int he world: those who divide things into two categories, and those who don't.