[Ms. M: reposting my Note as a comment since the "share to Notes" isn't working the way it should -- the comment isn't posted as such.]
Your comments about "harm" and Joyce's article in The Critic remind me of a favourite couple of quotes on her topic of being offended:
"Those who claim to be hurt by words must be led to expect nothing as compensation. Otherwise, once they learn they can get something by claiming to be hurt, they will go into the business of being offended.”
“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But quite a good essay by Lewis at The Atlantic that I'd read not long after it was first published there. Fairly balanced and quite thorough, but I thought that it too suffered from the common failing of not saying exactly was meant by "gender". If pretty much everyone has a different and quite antithetical definition for or understanding of the concept -- which largely seems the case -- then it is maybe not surprising that society is so unable to fashion workable policies to deal its problematic consequences.
Apropos of which, you might have some interest in a rather lengthy book by transwoman and evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden. I think he/she has some questionable biases of his/her own, but their Chapter 2 on "Sex versus Gender" has some useful insights and perspectives:
" 'Masculine' and 'feminine' [genders] refer to the distinguishing traits possessed by most males and females respectively. Crossgender appearance and behavior are also possible. For example, if most
females have vertical stripes on their bodies and males do not, then a male with vertical stripes is a “feminine male.” If most males have antlers and females do not, then a doe with antlers is a “masculine female.' ..." [pg. 28]
He/she is, of course, talking about species other than humans, but the terminology still seems to provide some illumination. But of particular note in the above quote is the idea of "masculine" and "feminine" being the two halves of a "gender binary", but that does not preclude the idea that each half is a spectrum in themselves. The same way that we might reasonably talk about the two halves of the colour spectrum -- the reddish half and the bluish half, each comprised of a myriad of other colours.
Oh yes, brilliant quotations from both Joyce and Fry. Being offended by everything is one of the key problems of the current social climate, the result of decades of "snowflake" education and adults not being able or willing to teach children boundaries and limits.
Re: Lewis' article in "The Atlantic": The wishy-washy semi-definitions around "gender" are not unintentional, in my opinion. They are due to the fact the concept itself has been intentionally conflated with sex. But since gender ideology wants to eradicate the biological foundation of sexual dimorphism, it supplants actual sex by gender stereotypes.
Re: Roughgarden quote: If I have understood it correctly, then isn't it like saying (very basic example): most males are taller than women, but of course there are also exceptionally tall women or very small men. That doesn't mean they're of the other sex.
> Being offended by everything is one of the key problems of the current social climate.
"Amen" to that. 🙂 Though, a minor point in passing, I was remiss in not indicating the author of the first quote was Jonathan Rauch. Not to say that Joyce doesn't have some notable quotes of her own -- something of a favourite or two is from a Quillette article of hers:
"The problem is that 'female' is not something you can identify as. It’s a word with an objective definition that holds right across all of biology, and hardly any of the things it refers to are capable of identifying as anything."
But I think she misinterprets the biological definitions, though very few of us are perfect ... 🙂
> The wishy-washy semi-definitions around "gender" are not unintentional, in my opinion.
Amen to that -- too. 🙂 ICYMI, a tweet by Matt -- What is a woman? -- Walsh quoting a Merriam-Webster definition of "female" as both a sex and as a gender/identity:
Why I periodically argue that we need to start qualifying every use of "female", "male", "woman", and "man" -- e.g., "female (sex)", "female (gender)". Many if not most transactivists are engaged in perpetrating a fraud, in some egregious "bait-and-switch", in trying to sail under false colours. Need to draw a line in the sand.
> If I have understood it correctly, then isn't it like saying ... most males are taller than women ...
You have; exactly right. 🙂
Whole concept of gender is largely a dog's breakfast, but not entirely -- there's some merit in defining it as a rough synonym for feminine & masculine personalities and personality types; for all of those traits that are "sexually dimorphic", that show differences, on average, between the sexes -- from heights, to "agreeableness":
"Whole concept of gender is largely a dog's breakfast, but not entirely -- there's some merit in defining it as a rough synonym for feminine & masculine personalities and personality types; for all of those traits that are "sexually dimorphic", that show differences, on average, between the sexes -- from heights, to "agreeableness"
This idea that biology has nothing to do with personality is one of the key problems of the current social climate, in my opinion. Especially radical feminists espouse this idea that we are completely free from our biological conditions because they are having a hard time accepting that "gender stereotypes" do stem from biological prerequisites, even though it makes complete evolutionary sense, for example, that women *generally* score higher on agreeableness (more vulnerable, have to birth babies and take care of them, etc.). To ignore sex-based differences in personality doesn't do anyone good.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
> This idea that biology has nothing to do with personality is one of the key problems of the current social climate, in my opinion.
Amen to that; pretty solidly justified opinion.
Not sure if I've mentioned this here before or not -- something of a major string on my fiddle ... 🙂 -- but both philosopher Kathleen Stock and lawyer Helen Dale have credibly argued in a similar vein. For instance, Stock rather pointedly suggested that "radical feminists" were, in part at least, "barking [mad]" to want to try "abolishing gender" -- they might just as well try commanding the tide not to come in:
And Dale, another Substacker of note, in her review of Louise Perry's The Sexual Revolution" at Law & Liberty, underlined the same problem:
Dale: "... Perry worked for some years in a rape crisis centre. Already uneasy with bits of left theory, the experience of practical compassion and a desire to stop rape rather than blethering on about stopping rape led her to do what no feminist theorist has done before: take biology seriously."
Though I think she's somewhat wide of the mark here:
Dale: "Perry accepts that Homo sapiens are much more cognitively dimorphic than many people realize. 70 per cent of men have a pattern of personality traits that no woman has; 70 per cent of women have a pattern of personality traits that no man has."
Seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of statistics -- lies, damned lies, and ... -- but the conclusion -- significant degrees of dimorphism extends to personality (AKA gender) -- seems pretty solidly justified.
👍🙂 Do please keep me/us posted on what you find. Seems to be something of a convoluted but important "puzzle" that I -- and society -- have been trying to solve for some time.
Bottom line or an essential element of that puzzle is that "gender" is seen as both a set of stereotypes and the actual behaviours that undergird or reflect or have precipitated those stereotypes. But many people -- mostly or largely feminists -- seem to think those stereotypes have been cut from whole cloth, are merely the nefarious plots hatched in the inner sanctums of "The Patriarchy!!11!!" simply to oppress women. However, as we seem to agree, many if not all of those stereotypes have some roots in fundamental, bedrock biologically-rooted differences between the sexes that aren't easily changed, or even that shouldn't be changed.
For instance, you might check out psychologist Lee Jussim's Substack and, in particular, his essay on stereotype accuracy -- "Stereotype Accuracy is One of the Largest and Most Replicable Effects in All of Social Psychology":
You might also have some interest in Kara Dansky's Substack -- she does yeoman's (yeowoman's?) work in challenging "gender ideology", but kind of get the impression that she subscribes to the "nefarious plot" "argument" -- which tends to vitiate many of her efforts:
[Ms. M: reposting my Note as a comment since the "share to Notes" isn't working the way it should -- the comment isn't posted as such.]
Your comments about "harm" and Joyce's article in The Critic remind me of a favourite couple of quotes on her topic of being offended:
"Those who claim to be hurt by words must be led to expect nothing as compensation. Otherwise, once they learn they can get something by claiming to be hurt, they will go into the business of being offended.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5539805-those-who-claim-to-be-hurt-by-words-must-be
And Stephen Fry's somewhat more "pithy":
“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706825-it-s-now-very-common-to-hear-people-say-i-m-rather
But quite a good essay by Lewis at The Atlantic that I'd read not long after it was first published there. Fairly balanced and quite thorough, but I thought that it too suffered from the common failing of not saying exactly was meant by "gender". If pretty much everyone has a different and quite antithetical definition for or understanding of the concept -- which largely seems the case -- then it is maybe not surprising that society is so unable to fashion workable policies to deal its problematic consequences.
Apropos of which, you might have some interest in a rather lengthy book by transwoman and evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden. I think he/she has some questionable biases of his/her own, but their Chapter 2 on "Sex versus Gender" has some useful insights and perspectives:
" 'Masculine' and 'feminine' [genders] refer to the distinguishing traits possessed by most males and females respectively. Crossgender appearance and behavior are also possible. For example, if most
females have vertical stripes on their bodies and males do not, then a male with vertical stripes is a “feminine male.” If most males have antlers and females do not, then a doe with antlers is a “masculine female.' ..." [pg. 28]
https://teoriaevolutiva.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/joan_roughgarden_evolutions_rainbow_diversitybookos-org1.pdf
He/she is, of course, talking about species other than humans, but the terminology still seems to provide some illumination. But of particular note in the above quote is the idea of "masculine" and "feminine" being the two halves of a "gender binary", but that does not preclude the idea that each half is a spectrum in themselves. The same way that we might reasonably talk about the two halves of the colour spectrum -- the reddish half and the bluish half, each comprised of a myriad of other colours.
Oh yes, brilliant quotations from both Joyce and Fry. Being offended by everything is one of the key problems of the current social climate, the result of decades of "snowflake" education and adults not being able or willing to teach children boundaries and limits.
Re: Lewis' article in "The Atlantic": The wishy-washy semi-definitions around "gender" are not unintentional, in my opinion. They are due to the fact the concept itself has been intentionally conflated with sex. But since gender ideology wants to eradicate the biological foundation of sexual dimorphism, it supplants actual sex by gender stereotypes.
Re: Roughgarden quote: If I have understood it correctly, then isn't it like saying (very basic example): most males are taller than women, but of course there are also exceptionally tall women or very small men. That doesn't mean they're of the other sex.
Thanks for reading!
> Being offended by everything is one of the key problems of the current social climate.
"Amen" to that. 🙂 Though, a minor point in passing, I was remiss in not indicating the author of the first quote was Jonathan Rauch. Not to say that Joyce doesn't have some notable quotes of her own -- something of a favourite or two is from a Quillette article of hers:
"The problem is that 'female' is not something you can identify as. It’s a word with an objective definition that holds right across all of biology, and hardly any of the things it refers to are capable of identifying as anything."
https://web.archive.org/web/20200714210100/https://quillette.com/2020/06/20/she-who-must-not-be-named/
But I think she misinterprets the biological definitions, though very few of us are perfect ... 🙂
> The wishy-washy semi-definitions around "gender" are not unintentional, in my opinion.
Amen to that -- too. 🙂 ICYMI, a tweet by Matt -- What is a woman? -- Walsh quoting a Merriam-Webster definition of "female" as both a sex and as a gender/identity:
https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1549382790952656899
Why I periodically argue that we need to start qualifying every use of "female", "male", "woman", and "man" -- e.g., "female (sex)", "female (gender)". Many if not most transactivists are engaged in perpetrating a fraud, in some egregious "bait-and-switch", in trying to sail under false colours. Need to draw a line in the sand.
> If I have understood it correctly, then isn't it like saying ... most males are taller than women ...
You have; exactly right. 🙂
Whole concept of gender is largely a dog's breakfast, but not entirely -- there's some merit in defining it as a rough synonym for feminine & masculine personalities and personality types; for all of those traits that are "sexually dimorphic", that show differences, on average, between the sexes -- from heights, to "agreeableness":
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joint_probability_distribution_by_sex_and_agreeablenes.jpg
ICYMI, a British Medical Journal article that underlines that dichotomy even if they're a bit vague on the specifics:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n735
> Thanks for reading!
My pleasure; thanks for your efforts. 🙂 A Margret Mead quote seems relevant:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/margaret_mead_100502
"Whole concept of gender is largely a dog's breakfast, but not entirely -- there's some merit in defining it as a rough synonym for feminine & masculine personalities and personality types; for all of those traits that are "sexually dimorphic", that show differences, on average, between the sexes -- from heights, to "agreeableness"
This idea that biology has nothing to do with personality is one of the key problems of the current social climate, in my opinion. Especially radical feminists espouse this idea that we are completely free from our biological conditions because they are having a hard time accepting that "gender stereotypes" do stem from biological prerequisites, even though it makes complete evolutionary sense, for example, that women *generally* score higher on agreeableness (more vulnerable, have to birth babies and take care of them, etc.). To ignore sex-based differences in personality doesn't do anyone good.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
What a great quote! :-)
> This idea that biology has nothing to do with personality is one of the key problems of the current social climate, in my opinion.
Amen to that; pretty solidly justified opinion.
Not sure if I've mentioned this here before or not -- something of a major string on my fiddle ... 🙂 -- but both philosopher Kathleen Stock and lawyer Helen Dale have credibly argued in a similar vein. For instance, Stock rather pointedly suggested that "radical feminists" were, in part at least, "barking [mad]" to want to try "abolishing gender" -- they might just as well try commanding the tide not to come in:
https://kathleenstock.substack.com/p/lets-abolish-the-dream-of-gender
And Dale, another Substacker of note, in her review of Louise Perry's The Sexual Revolution" at Law & Liberty, underlined the same problem:
Dale: "... Perry worked for some years in a rape crisis centre. Already uneasy with bits of left theory, the experience of practical compassion and a desire to stop rape rather than blethering on about stopping rape led her to do what no feminist theorist has done before: take biology seriously."
Though I think she's somewhat wide of the mark here:
Dale: "Perry accepts that Homo sapiens are much more cognitively dimorphic than many people realize. 70 per cent of men have a pattern of personality traits that no woman has; 70 per cent of women have a pattern of personality traits that no man has."
Seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of statistics -- lies, damned lies, and ... -- but the conclusion -- significant degrees of dimorphism extends to personality (AKA gender) -- seems pretty solidly justified.
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/feminising-feminism/
https://helendale.substack.com/p/around-the-traps-ii
You might also have some interest in some of my comments on Helen's Substack on those points ... 🙂
https://helendale.substack.com/p/dont-take-criticism-from-people-you/comment/8782007
Very interesting, thank you. I'll look into it!
👍🙂 Do please keep me/us posted on what you find. Seems to be something of a convoluted but important "puzzle" that I -- and society -- have been trying to solve for some time.
Bottom line or an essential element of that puzzle is that "gender" is seen as both a set of stereotypes and the actual behaviours that undergird or reflect or have precipitated those stereotypes. But many people -- mostly or largely feminists -- seem to think those stereotypes have been cut from whole cloth, are merely the nefarious plots hatched in the inner sanctums of "The Patriarchy!!11!!" simply to oppress women. However, as we seem to agree, many if not all of those stereotypes have some roots in fundamental, bedrock biologically-rooted differences between the sexes that aren't easily changed, or even that shouldn't be changed.
For instance, you might check out psychologist Lee Jussim's Substack and, in particular, his essay on stereotype accuracy -- "Stereotype Accuracy is One of the Largest and Most Replicable Effects in All of Social Psychology":
https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-blog/stereotype-accuracy-one-largest-and-most-replicable-effects-all
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/social-science-isnt
You might also have some interest in Kara Dansky's Substack -- she does yeoman's (yeowoman's?) work in challenging "gender ideology", but kind of get the impression that she subscribes to the "nefarious plot" "argument" -- which tends to vitiate many of her efforts:
https://karadansky.substack.com/p/its-sex-stereotypes
Bit of a dog's breakfast and a Gordian Knot that are in serious need of some clarification and cutting through to the yoke (yolk?) of. So to speak. 🙂