Prejudice Plus Power and Racism and Sexism

[Baba Yaga]

Blacks are quite good at soccer.

Quoted for posterity.

And don't worry Scammel, my point was directed toward Snorlax, who seems to be arguing that gender expression is primarily if not purely biological.

 

[snorlax512]

I've mentioned this multiple times, but if the studies on hormonal effects/infant behaviour isn't 'solid' enough, look up the case of David Reimer.

 

[Baba Yaga]

But if David Reimer had grown up in a different society, his gender expression as a male would be different. For example, there's a tribe in Saudi Arabia where the men wear pretty flower crowns, which is something most Western countries wouldn't recognize as being particularly masculine.

Quoting GA once again:

Still a weak connection. What about culture? What about individual differences in mental preferences? We have proof that we can examine men of different time periods and cultures have different ideas of masculinity. We see some countries have men who tend to be more violent, more "feminine", more blue-collar, more intellectual, etc. yet, I'm pretty sure we all contain the same genetics for the most part as men.

This is where the argument that gender is mostly biological starts to look very weak. If it is, we shouldn't be seeing this kind of wide variance.

 

[lemoncatpower]

I've mentioned this multiple times, but if the studies on hormonal effects/infant behaviour isn't 'solid' enough, look up the case of David Reimer.

Your example with David Reimer is not sound whatsoever.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2004/06/gender_gap.html
read that please and tell me that his suicide was SOLELY because he underwent surgery.

"Anyone familiar with David's life—as a baby, after a botched circumcision, he underwent an operation to change him from boy to girl—would have understood that the real mystery was how he managed to stay alive for 38 years, given the physical and mental torments he suffered in childhood and that haunted him the rest of his life. I'd argue that a less courageous person than David would have put an end to things long ago."

Do you understand that not only was his surgery was forced onto him, his parents wanted him to have normal HETEROSEXUAL sex, that means "brenda" would have had to be gay also when she was a male. If you don't understand the damaging effects of being forced to be something you're not. David Reimer was born a biological male interested in women. Not to mention, his mother tried to commmit suicide, dad was an alcoholic, and twin brother died two years before his suicide.

oh and this part is important to highlight:
"Genetics almost certainly contributed to David's suicide. His mother has been a clinical depressive all her life; his brother suffered from the same disease. How much of the Reimers' misery was due to inherited depression, and how much to the nightmare circumstances into which they had been thrown? David's mutilation and his parents' guilt were tightly entwined, multiplying the mental anguish to which the family members were already prone."

 

[bobjr]

Pink used to be a masculine color and blue a feminine one as well.

 

[snorlax512]

Your example with David Reimer is not sound whatsoever.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2004/06/gender_gap.html
read that please and tell me that his suicide was SOLELY because he underwent surgery.

"Anyone familiar with David's life—as a baby, after a botched circumcision, he underwent an operation to change him from boy to girl—would have understood that the real mystery was how he managed to stay alive for 38 years, given the physical and mental torments he suffered in childhood and that haunted him the rest of his life. I'd argue that a less courageous person than David would have put an end to things long ago."

Do you understand that not only was his surgery was forced onto him, his parents wanted him to have normal HETEROSEXUAL sex, that means "brenda" would have had to be gay also when she was a male. If you don't understand the damaging effects of being forced to be something you're not. David Reimer was born a biological male interested in women. Not to mention, his mother tried to commmit suicide, dad was an alcoholic, and twin brother died two years before his suicide.

oh and this part is important to highlight:
"Genetics almost certainly contributed to David's suicide. His mother has been a clinical depressive all her life; his brother suffered from the same disease. How much of the Reimers' misery was due to inherited depression, and how much to the nightmare circumstances into which they had been thrown? David's mutilation and his parents' guilt were tightly entwined, multiplying the mental anguish to which the family members were already prone."

The suicide isn't the crux of the story. The fact that he was raised a girl, given dresses and dolls, surgically constructed a vagina wasn't enough to shape his gender identity and expression as one, is enough to completely refute your ideas that girls play with barbie dolls and identify as females because society tells them to.

 

[GhostAnime]

In the grand scheme of things, these baby toy studies at most suggest biology has a little something to do with gender expression (A point I've never seriously contested) but comes nowhere close to suggesting that it's mostly or only that.

That is pretty much my ultimate point. How much do they really matter in the grand scheme of things?

If you point out that young male babies like cars and young female babies like dolls, how much of that really has to do with how they'll end up later in life? how many of those young male babies ended up being stereotypically masculine and vice-versa? what culture did they grow up in? how much of it was genetics related to something else entirely?

if we ever want to measure how much is it between nature/nurture, we'll only find out by removing societal forces; however, what we do know is that not all men in the world carry the same exact ideas of masculinity. there are hundreds of cultures and regions of men turning out to be the exact opposite of what their supposed genes and ancestors guide them to do. what is the most likely factor for these variances and differences? arguing race and nationality would be eugenics.

unleash yourself from these chains of genetics and gender. acknowledge the nuance that is of human beings. there are so many other things which go into who we end up being besides genetics; we already know this when we look at twin studies. genetics are not enough.

 

[snorlax512]

Pink used to be a masculine color and blue a feminine one as well.

There are aspects of gender norms which are socially constructed, and colours are one of them. Blue and pink are merely symbols for masculinity and femininity, and they can be flipped at any time.

When I'm talking about gender expression, I'm referring to the innate behaviour differences - hormones such as androgen may cause infants to be predisposed to certain things (e.g. trucks as opposed to dolls). When companies make masculine toys blue and feminine toys pink, girls who play with these pink dolls will begin to associate the colour pink to femininity. That does not mean pink and blue are intrinsically linked to gender differences.

@Baba yaga, the same stands for flowers. These are symbols that reflect masculinity and femininity, and nothing to do with the innate aspects of gender. For example, you will find the fact that men tend to commit most violent crimes holds true for virtually all cultures and societies.

That is pretty much my ultimate point. How much do they really matter in the grand scheme of things?

Well, look at David Reimer.

 

[GhostAnime]

Okay? And look at the thousands of people in LBGT who have suicided DUE to the expectations they felt they could not meet. Look at the ones who've been murdered. What is your point?

 

[snorlax512]

We both agree that it's a mixture of nature and nurture, right? Where we disagree is which one has the bigger influence.

Reimer was socially conditioned to be a girl in every way possible. He had his testes removed, surgically constructed a vagina, was given dolls and dresses to play with, and had female hormones injected into her. He was also the perfect control, because he had an identical twin brother who identified as a male. Guess what? It didn't triumph Reimer's genetic predisposition. When puberty kicked in, he began to act more and more masculine, and never identified as a girl.

How can you say nature has little to do with your gender?

 

[Sadib]

We both agree that it's a mixture of nature and nurture, right? Where we disagree is which one has the bigger influence.

Reimer was socially conditioned to be a girl in every way possible. He had his testes removed, surgically constructed a vagina, was given dolls and dresses to play with, and had female hormones injected into her. He was also the perfect control, because he had an identical twin brother who identified as a male. Guess what? It didn't triumph Reimer's genetic predisposition. When puberty kicked in, he began to act more and more masculine, and never identified as a girl.

How can you say nature has little to do with your gender?

Who's saying that nature has little to do with your gender? That's quite silly.

 

[GhostAnime]

We both agree that it's a mixture of nature and nurture, right? Where we disagree is which one has the bigger influence.

Reimer was socially conditioned to be a girl in every way possible. He had his testes removed, surgically constructed a vagina, was given dolls and dresses to play with, and had female hormones injected into her. He was also the perfect control, because he had an identical twin brother who identified as a male. Guess what? It didn't triumph Reimer's genetic predisposition. When puberty kicked in, he began to act more and more masculine, and never identified as a girl.

How can you say nature has little to do with your gender?

you are still ignoring the countless other examples of the very opposite thing. you're focusing entirely on one experience. here, you have actual transgender people telling you wtf they're going through and for whatever reason, you feel sympathy for the only case that may even point to your direction slightly.

 

[bobjr]

If you look you'll always find someone of a group willing to "sell out" and pull something like "Racism/sexism doesn't exist" as a message, so they can tout that person as an example, even if it's only one person who's probably in it for money or attention. Look at the Ben Carsons, the Milo's(Though if he's actually gay or not is up for debate) who just kind of exist as a "Oh this person gets it why won't the rest of them".

 

[Gamzee Makara]

To get back to the definition of racism...

Racism and/or bigotry: Do the components of these evolve as their own social constructs while racism and bigotry maintain that status, or, since race, religion/atheism, politics, ethnicity and gender being biological-social construct hybrids that depend on the individual in an enviroment, did racism and bigotry always coexist with such and thus are they ingrained enough to escape the construct format due to them being an automatic human response to social constructs?

 

[snorlax512]

you are still ignoring the countless other examples of the very opposite thing. you're focusing entirely on one experience. here, you have actual transgender people telling you wtf they're going through and for whatever reason, you feel sympathy for the only case that may even point to your direction slightly.

Please explain how the existence of transgender people disproves that gender is not mostly innate.

 

[Genaller]

Over 99.7% of humans identify with their biological sex (male or female) (Source: Dr.Jordan Peterson; Clinical Psychology Professor UofT). There can certainly be exceptions due to gene variation but the evidence is overwhelming for the claim that "1's biological sex is absurdly highly correlated with the gender 1 identifies with".

 

[bobjr]

No one here is arguing that being Trans is anything but a minority, but that it does happen and it's not an absolute thing. If it was then there wouldn't be Trans people would there?

 

[Pikachu52]

Over 99.7% of humans identify with their biological sex (male or female) (Source: Dr.Jordan Peterson; Clinical Psychology Professor UofT). There can certainly be exceptions due to gene variation but the evidence is overwhelming for the claim that "1's biological sex is absurdly highly correlated with the gender 1 identifies with".

If so, so what. Being a member of a minority does not invalidate a person's existence or mean they should be denied their human rights.

Your cited source is a well known Transphobe with an evident conservative bias and a tendency to make absurd statements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson
According to what I've seen of this professor, he refuses to use people's preferred pronouns on principal and he's tried to oppose the enumeration of Gender Identity in Canada's Anti-Discrimination Statutes by making blatantly false statements.

 

[GhostAnime]

Please explain how the existence of transgender people disproves that gender is not mostly innate.

when did you ever prove it was mostly innate? monkeys and wheels didn't do you much favor, and neither did the existence of variance of masculinity across the world.

 

[Bananarama]

(Source: Dr.Jordan Peterson; Clinical Psychology Professor UofT).

I haven't heard much about this guy before today, but according to Wikipedia he compared using somebody's preferred pronouns to Marxist genocide. That should pretty much invalidate his claims as hate speech and not scientific at all.