Posts by giovanni tiso
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Yes, fair enough. I can't really argue with that - perhaps I should find a way of bringing about a testosterone-fuelled enraged response.
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Also, his male-cat social behaviour has been fundamentally altered by the surgical removal of his testicles.
You're not suggesting that cats socially construct gender in the same way we do, are you? If you are, I hope you're bringing a powerful torch and good supplies into that cave.
We shall have feline discourse-analysis yet!
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Sacha is right, I think the difference more appropriately is that male and female is sex, masculine and feminine is gender. I just hate to use masculine and feminine as nouns, it feels like I'm back in the seventies.
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So my biologically male cat should actually be referred to as a "man"?.
Touché.
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It's one of the things I enjoy about Mad Men, watching how much some things have changed and how little others have.
Are you thinking of Mad Males?
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Being biologically male means, by definition, not being able to have babies.
Ah, semantics! Biologically male means man, not male. I brought the example of the pregnant male nary an hour ago.
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The role is based on biology, testosterone affects muscle mass and hence the gender role is defined by the biology..
That one is especially interesting since in athletics maleness is defined by how much testosterone is found in your body. And if you have too much of it, you transcend maleness itself and become disqualified. But I suppose you could say of many aspects of traditional gender roles that they are grounded in biology - however they are refracted to such a degree in the present that this has become quite meaningless in my view. I offered the example of the gay female couple who has a child through surrogacy upthread precisely because it did away with all the exemplars that Russell had included in one of his comments. And the understanding of gender as the socially constructed component helps in thinking about these issues, it's really all I'm trying to say.
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Heh. Plus sea is masculine in Italian, and feminine in French. That must make the bit of Mediterranean between the two countries very confused indeed.
Did anybody link to Gay Teen Worried He Might be Christian yet?
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Most `biological' males are also `social' males; therefore there must be some element of biological determination in there.
Not if you actually explore what being a social male means. Because if one of the thing it means is not being able to have babies, then what about females who can't have babies - are they males? Does the desire to bear children make you a female, regardless of whether you're able to or not? None of these aspects are actually defined outside of the social. But then of course like any sort of dualism it pays not to take it too far: for in the end you cannot completely separate sex from gender. Still, gender defined as a social component is a very useful thinking tool, as I think this very thread has highlighted.
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And whatever we might say about gender roles, it seems, to me, that the fact that men can't have babies is a significant and influential biological reality.
Gender is entirely socially constructed. If you say "largely", then I'm going to have to ask you, give me an example of an aspect of gender that is not socially constructed. And whatever you pick, you're going to run into some sort of trouble, because after all, as we all know, men (sex) can't have babies, but males (gender) can.