Until a man sees his own argumentativeness as a distinctively male trait, he’ll see >women as abnormally passive (departures from the norm) rather than thinking “I am >a male and therefore argumentative” (in the same way that women now identify >various parts of themselves as feminine).
you allude to the dangers that follow from this; i think one issue with making too much of distinctively gendered traits is that it sets up expectations that can be socially and professionally costly to violate. i’m female. i’m argumentative. i’m competitive. i would not describe myself as nurturing, although i think it’s a very admirable quality. but as far as i can tell, i don’t embody feminine qualities. if those are something i should take pride in, should their absence be shameful? and of course, the social expectations that accompany the biological state of being female are part of what keep women out of high-paying and high-powered jobs, etc. i think this is why many feminists are so reluctant to accept separate male and female norms. (the problem cuts both ways, of course. i’ve known a few non-masculine heterosexual men who’ve endured social problems because they didn’t fit the male mold.)
saying it’s OK for men and women to see themselves as inherently different on traits other than gross anatomy is a bit easier when you’re a man or woman who has the qualities you’re “supposed” to have.
I can’t stand watching sports. I don’t have a problem with that either.
I think if we lived in a world balanced between genders, where men thought of themselves as men and women thought of themselves as women to around the same degree, then women would have no more difficult a time departing from gender average than men do.
Within-group differences are larger than between-group differences in most of these domains, so I’d rather make it easier for both groups to deviate from their group tendencies than to try to identify more group tendencies that it will be hard to deviate from.
I’m a woman, and also gay. I identify very strongly as a woman in the sense that it’s important to me that I’m a woman. Not because I fit anyone’s femme stereotype, or because I think masculinity and femininity necessarily require any particular associated personality trait to exist. My RuPaul-watching gay male friends are men and feel as strongly that they’re men as any football-watching straight man. My girlfriend is as stereotypical a butch as you can imagine, belongs to a fantasy football league, loves hunting and fishing, and works in a men’s prison. People often call her “sir” without looking closely at her, and she corrects them that it’s “ma’am.” She is no less a woman than I or Jennifer Aniston.
I have fought to the edge of my sanity to convince my deeply homophobic family that I am in fact gay, that I am attracted to femaleness in general and women in particular, that the right man for me will never come along because he does not exist. Because I have fought for this awareness, I have examined it to a degree I probably wouldn’t have if I had been straight. I know many men who are kind, nurturing, generous, and graceful people. I find many men physically beautiful and enjoy looking at them. None of this has the slightest thing to do with my sexual orientation. I’m attracted to women because they’re women, and that’s all there is to it. Whatever the cause of that, it’s not something that could change without making me a different person.
Ultimately, sex and gender are meaningful to me. I have no interest in stereotyping people. My intent is not to designate specific characteristics as masculine or feminine. I’m not all that interested in analyzing central tendencies of populations by gender. If other people are interested, more power to them. But sex and gender, whatever they are, are meaningful to me when I identify myself in the space of people.
Similarly, Most of my friends and I tend to have roughly equal sets of male and female characteristics.
The only real difference I see between some of my male friend’s argumentativeness and my own passivity is that they have times where they will admit that they are just itching for a fight, whereas I will not argue unless there is an issue, it affects something I care about, and I know how to fix it. Otherwise it’s just people shouting at each other, which is rather unproductive and I have better things to do with my time.
you allude to the dangers that follow from this; i think one issue with making too much of distinctively gendered traits is that it sets up expectations that can be socially and professionally costly to violate. i’m female. i’m argumentative. i’m competitive. i would not describe myself as nurturing, although i think it’s a very admirable quality. but as far as i can tell, i don’t embody feminine qualities. if those are something i should take pride in, should their absence be shameful? and of course, the social expectations that accompany the biological state of being female are part of what keep women out of high-paying and high-powered jobs, etc. i think this is why many feminists are so reluctant to accept separate male and female norms. (the problem cuts both ways, of course. i’ve known a few non-masculine heterosexual men who’ve endured social problems because they didn’t fit the male mold.)
saying it’s OK for men and women to see themselves as inherently different on traits other than gross anatomy is a bit easier when you’re a man or woman who has the qualities you’re “supposed” to have.
I can’t stand watching sports. I don’t have a problem with that either.
I think if we lived in a world balanced between genders, where men thought of themselves as men and women thought of themselves as women to around the same degree, then women would have no more difficult a time departing from gender average than men do.
Within-group differences are larger than between-group differences in most of these domains, so I’d rather make it easier for both groups to deviate from their group tendencies than to try to identify more group tendencies that it will be hard to deviate from.
It might work something like this.
I’m a woman, and also gay. I identify very strongly as a woman in the sense that it’s important to me that I’m a woman. Not because I fit anyone’s femme stereotype, or because I think masculinity and femininity necessarily require any particular associated personality trait to exist. My RuPaul-watching gay male friends are men and feel as strongly that they’re men as any football-watching straight man. My girlfriend is as stereotypical a butch as you can imagine, belongs to a fantasy football league, loves hunting and fishing, and works in a men’s prison. People often call her “sir” without looking closely at her, and she corrects them that it’s “ma’am.” She is no less a woman than I or Jennifer Aniston.
I have fought to the edge of my sanity to convince my deeply homophobic family that I am in fact gay, that I am attracted to femaleness in general and women in particular, that the right man for me will never come along because he does not exist. Because I have fought for this awareness, I have examined it to a degree I probably wouldn’t have if I had been straight. I know many men who are kind, nurturing, generous, and graceful people. I find many men physically beautiful and enjoy looking at them. None of this has the slightest thing to do with my sexual orientation. I’m attracted to women because they’re women, and that’s all there is to it. Whatever the cause of that, it’s not something that could change without making me a different person.
Ultimately, sex and gender are meaningful to me. I have no interest in stereotyping people. My intent is not to designate specific characteristics as masculine or feminine. I’m not all that interested in analyzing central tendencies of populations by gender. If other people are interested, more power to them. But sex and gender, whatever they are, are meaningful to me when I identify myself in the space of people.
Similarly, Most of my friends and I tend to have roughly equal sets of male and female characteristics.
The only real difference I see between some of my male friend’s argumentativeness and my own passivity is that they have times where they will admit that they are just itching for a fight, whereas I will not argue unless there is an issue, it affects something I care about, and I know how to fix it. Otherwise it’s just people shouting at each other, which is rather unproductive and I have better things to do with my time.