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Thread: Gender Is a Construct—Except When It’s Not

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    Gender Is a Construct—Except When It’s Not

    One of the many contradictions of radical (aka academic) feminism.

    Heather Mac Donald: Gender Is a Construct—Except When It’s Not

    A foundational tenet of academic feminism holds that alleged differences between males and females are socially constructed....

    For years, medical research neglected “sex and gender differences” in health, according to the magazine. ...It’s mysterious why this alleged neglect should matter, if sex differences are “socially constructed.” If males and females are the same psychologically and physically before the patriarchy starts assigning sex roles, then medical research need not distinguish between males and females, either.

    It turns out, however, that males and females differentially respond to stress, environmental risk factors, drugs, and disease, as an initiative called Women’s Health Research at Yale devotes itself to documenting. Among the relevant findings:
    • Two-thirds of all Alzheimer’s patients are female;
    • Seventy-five percent of people with autoimmune disorders are female;
    • Females are less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease;
    • Adult females have twice the rate of depression as adult males;
    • Females have outbreaks of genital herpes at higher rates than males;
    • Male and female brains respond differently to early childhood neglect, with males losing gray matter in areas governing impulse control and females losing gray matter in areas governing emotion;
    • Women are more likely to abuse alcohol after trauma;
    • Males and females smoke for different reasons and have correspondingly different success rates with the nicotine patch;
    • The X and Y sex chromosomes, whose pairing determines a person’s sex, influence how the other 23 chromosomes in each cell read the genetic instructions contained in DNA.

    ...And yet, feminist social-justice warriors are perfectly capable of proceeding on several contradictory fronts simultaneously. ...An assistant professor at the medical school suggests asking students how the prognosis of a disease changes “if the patient identifies as a woman or a man.” But if, as documented, females are not just a “subgroup of the human population,” but physiologically and psychologically different, how a patient “identifies” should not change the prognosis. What matters is the patient’s actual biological sex....

    Expect to see millions of taxpayer-derived research dollars directed toward the first reading—that someone’s self-declared gender identity should be taken into account in diagnosing disease—even as the evidence piles up that males and females are not a political construction, but a biological one. Given that we are now up to over 100 different gender identities, the diagnostic complications will be enormous. Nevertheless, the march of academic identity politics through the institutions continues.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Whaaaa? Radical feminists are NOT supporters of transgendering! You're thinking of the mainstream liberals. I would appreciate it if Chris would try to avoid intentionally misrepresenting us going forward.

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    Quote Originally Posted by IMPress Polly View Post
    Whaaaa? Radical feminists are NOT supporters of transgendering! You're thinking of the mainstream liberals. I would appreciate it if Chris would try to avoid intentionally misrepresenting us going forward.
    You sort of missed the point of the OP, Polly, which is gender is biological and not a social construct.

    In fact, neither the OP nor the linked article says a thing about transgendering. Seems you're the one misrepresenting.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    OK, so if we define transgender as "Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their assigned sex," and not merely transsexuals, then we can say (not I nor Heather Mac Donald but) the assistant prof is making an argument about the effects of geneder identification, so your beef is with her.

    My comment then is you still miss the point that if gender is not biological but a social construct then why would radfems be at all concerned with how people happen to identify themselves.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    You sort of missed the point of the OP, Polly, which is gender is biological and not a social construct.

    In fact, neither the OP nor the linked article says a thing about transgendering. Seems you're the one misrepresenting.
    "Sex" is a biological variable, not gender.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trish View Post
    "Sex" is a biological variable, not gender.
    That distinction can be drawn but need not be. "The American Heritage Dictionary (5th edition), in addition to defining gender the same way that it defines biological sex, also states that gender may be defined by identity as 'neither entirely female nor entirely male'..." @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_an...er_distinction

    Gender is then based on sex.
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    Anyone that believes hogwash like this are the science deniers in society.
    I am tired of everyone fighting with each other. This is all by design.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trish View Post
    "Sex" is a biological variable, not gender.
    This!

    Gender refers to not to one's biology, but to those cultural characteristics people call masculinity and femininity; the idea that men are naturally this way (commanding, dominant) and women are naturally that way (docile, submissive).

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    Quote Originally Posted by IMPress Polly View Post
    This!

    Gender refers to not to one's biology, but to those cultural characteristics people call masculinity and femininity; the idea that men are naturally this way (commanding, dominant) and women are naturally that way (docile, submissive).
    That! Is the radfem argument, yes, we know.

    But only when it suits them to argue that way.

    Go back to the OP, do not collect $200.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    That distinction can be drawn but need not be. "The American Heritage Dictionary (5th edition), in addition to defining gender the same way that it defines biological sex, also states that gender may be defined by identity as 'neither entirely female nor entirely male'..." @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_an...er_distinction

    Gender is then based on sex.
    I am looking at it from a research perspective and how products impact sex and gender. SABV is the new wave in research these days.

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