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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 15, 2018 13:47:05 GMT -5
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Post by raybar on Mar 15, 2018 15:03:34 GMT -5
This isn't exactly news, Bob. (You didn't say it was.) The Scientific American article is ten years old, and the LA Times (my local newspaper, which is trying hard to destroy whatever respect I may have once had for it) article is two and a half years old.
So why are you bringing it up?
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 15, 2018 18:19:48 GMT -5
This isn't exactly news, Bob. (You didn't say it was.) The Scientific American article is ten years old, and the LA Times (my local newspaper, which is trying hard to destroy whatever respect I may have once had for it) article is two and a half years old. So why are you bringing it up? McAnswer wrote this on March 3 in the "Three Pillars of Totalitarianism" thread: "The social construction of race and gender are facts. The term "race" in the way it is being used in modern Western society has no basis in biology or genetics, and neither does "gender". They are methods of social identification and social categorization - social facts, not biological facts." Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2018 0:17:06 GMT -5
Mcans was correct.
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Post by faskew on Mar 16, 2018 7:47:24 GMT -5
Biology is fuzzy. Humans like things to be all tidy, easy to separate, but biology is messy and has very few sharp areas of demarcation. We use "gender" to specify whether a person has male or female body parts. But gender has nothing to do with sexual attraction. People can be attracted to either gender (or both). Some of that is definitely biological and some social.
For example, in classical Greece, upper-class men were expected to marry and produce children to carry on the family name. But because women were just "talking animals" and couldn't understand politics or philosophy, true love could only be found among other men. All the famous Greek philosophers and writers, as far as we know, had male lovers. In the Greek armies, older soldiers took new recruits as lovers. They were responsible for training the young. During battle, the young ones were put in the front ranks (more energy) and the older veterans held in reserve. If the young ones got into trouble, the veterans would rush in to save them. Military thinking of the time was that the veterans would fight harder to save their loved ones. Another advantage was that whereas most armies of those days had a large train of camp followers, women who traveled with the army, Greek armies could move faster and required less food on a campaign.
This was social homosexual behavior, not biological. It also occurred in prisons and on ships in the days of sail when ships might not stop at a port for many weeks. A common Victorian saying was that young men joined the Royal Navy for "Bum, Bacca, and Beer", "bacca" being tobacco and "bum" being Brit for "ass". (Technically, homosexual acts could be punished by imprisonment or death, but were very common on ships and in boy's schools.)
There are also "male" and "female" brains. Nothing to do with sexual attraction, but how the brain perceives, interprets, stores and retrieves information. Depends on how much testosterone a fetus is exposed to during pregnancy. So it's possible to have a gender female with a male brain who is sexually attracted to males. Or any of several other combinations.
Anyway, yes, something like 10% of all humans are born homosexual. ("I Was Born This Way" - Lady Gaga). But there are many fuzzy lines. 8->
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 16, 2018 8:22:24 GMT -5
Not really. This is what McAnswer wrote: " The social construction of race and gender are facts. The term "race" in the way it is being used in modern Western society has no basis in biology or genetics, and neither does "gender". They are methods of social identification and social categorization - social facts, not biological facts. And this is what Wikipedia says: "Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories.[1][2] However, Money's meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. Today the distinction is strictly followed in some contexts, especially the social sciences[4][5] and documents written by the World Health Organization (WHO).[3] In other contexts, including some areas of social sciences, gender includes sex or replaces it.[1][2] For instance, in non-human animal research, gender is commonly used to refer to the biological sex of the animals.[2] This change in the meaning of gender can be traced to the 1980s." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GenderAnd this is what it says about the "social construct of gender": " The social construction of gender is a theory in feminism, and sociology about the origin of gender difference between men and women.[1] According to this view, society and culture create gender roles, and these roles are prescribed as ideal or appropriate behavior for a person of that specific sex. Some supporters of this theory argue that the differences in behavior between men and women are entirely social conventions, whereas others believe that behavior is influenced by universal biological factors to varying degrees, with social conventions having a major effect on gendered behavior."...The roots of the social constructionist movement in psychology are related to the criticism of the objectivism assumed by positivist/empiricist concepts of knowledge (Gergen, 1985). Among the most popular variations of the social constructionist theories is the gender role theory, considered by Alsop, Fitzsimons and Lennon (2002) as an early form of social constructionism. The focus on power and hierarchy reveals inspiration stemming from a Marxist framework, utilized for instance by materialist feminism, and Foucault's writings on discourse. Social constructionism, briefly, is the concept that there are many things that people "know" or take to be "reality" that are at least partially, if not completely, socially situated.[2] For example, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker writes that "some categories really are social constructions: they exist only because people tacitly agree to act as if they exist. Examples include money, tenure, citizenship, decorations for bravery, and the presidency of the United States."[3]" In other words, there were no scientific experiments performed to come to this "conclusion." It is simply based on the theories from Marxism and Foucault. They are not "facts".Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2018 14:45:44 GMT -5
Did Mcans write his post after the 1980's or not? Okay, have it your way. Maybe sometimes consider someone else may be correct or at least both may be correct.
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 16, 2018 18:12:55 GMT -5
Did Mcans write his post after the 1980's or not? He might as well have written his post in the 1980's. But I did consider that. McAnswer claims that gender is based totally on social facts (facts created by people, such as "money" or the rules of baseball). The evidence I presented showed that at least some part of gender is based on hard, scientific fact. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2018 19:16:38 GMT -5
Bob, do you believe that homosexuality is a gender?
Because if you do then your understanding of gender is wrong.
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 16, 2018 19:55:46 GMT -5
Bob, do you believe that homosexuality is a gender? Because if you do then your understanding of gender is wrong. Very well. Then enlighten me. What is gender? Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2018 14:32:55 GMT -5
From the Sage Dictionary of Sociology:
GENDER In common usage this is the dis- tinction between females and males on the basis of anatomy. Sociological usage is impor- tantly different in that sociologists often use ‘sex’ for the biological differences between women and men and ‘gender’ for the pack- ages of social characteristics that are cultur- ally associated with the sex difference.
The same distinction can be maintained by using the terms female and male when focusing on the biological components of difference, and feminine and masculine when writing about the socially-created differences.
Precisely what of masculinity or feminin- ity is caused by biology is a contentious issue, both in the social sciences and in the world at large. It is of a piece with the general soci- ological perspective (which stresses social construction) to see gender differences as owing relatively little to biology and a great deal to culture.
Most sociologists would argue, that while maternity is a biological fact, a ‘maternal attitude’ is a socially-specific cultural construct: different cultures specify different sorts of roles and attitudes as being appropriate for mothers.
For example, women in societies with high rates of infant mortality are generally less emotionally attached to their young children than are mothers in modern industrial societies where almost all children reach maturity.
However, as with a lot of sociological thought on the importance of biology for determining human nature and behaviour (e.g. in our understanding of inheritance and mental illness), there is always a danger that advances in biology may reduce the scope for sociological explanation.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2018 14:33:12 GMT -5
GENDER DIFFERENTIATION This is the social process by which biological differences are given social and cultural significance and used as the basis for social classification. That cultures can make more or less of biological differences shows that we cannot take gender differentiation as being merely the working out in social life of sex differences. However, we should be cautious of the extreme social constructionist view that gender differences have no biological basis. While societies differ in precisely what characteristics are imputed to the sexes and in the extent to which social roles are ‘gendered’, there is a good deal of consistency across time and space. Put it this way: we can think of very few societies which reverse roles and characteristics so that males are expected to be ‘feminine’ and females ‘masculine
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2018 14:34:35 GMT -5
GENDER ROLE This is the external partner of gender identity: the social expectations that a society attaches to gender and their expression – for example in speech, demeanour, gesture posture and dress. In many societies gender roles are radically divided and form the principal categorisation within social life.
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 30, 2018 23:16:54 GMT -5
Thank you for this "definition." Let's examine it more closely. So they admit that there is a biological factor. But this is a brute fact and cannot be changed by manipulating definitions. What is the evidence that gender differences owe "relatively little to biology and a great deal to culture?" LOL! That's not a social fact! It is a biological necessity mechanism that enables the mothers to survive the pain of loss. If this were a mere social fact, then there would be societies with high infant mortality where there mothers would actually more emotionally attached to their children. In other words, gender may not be socially determined after all! Bob
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 30, 2018 23:20:12 GMT -5
GENDER DIFFERENTIATION This is the social process by which biological differences are given social and cultural significance and used as the basis for social classification. That cultures can make more or less of biological differences shows that we cannot take gender differentiation as being merely the working out in social life of sex differences. However, we should be cautious of the extreme social constructionist view that gender differences have no biological basis. While societies differ in precisely what characteristics are imputed to the sexes and in the extent to which social roles are ‘gendered’, there is a good deal of consistency across time and space. Put it this way: we can think of very few societies which reverse roles and characteristics so that males are expected to be ‘feminine’ and females ‘masculineSo are we agreed that there are biological factors in "gender" and that the claim gender is a social fact is false? Bob
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 30, 2018 23:26:24 GMT -5
GENDER ROLE This is the external partner of gender identity: the social expectations that a society attaches to gender and their expression – for example in speech, demeanour, gesture posture and dress. In many societies gender roles are radically divided and form the principal categorisation within social life. Is the claim here that "gender roles" have no connection at all with "gender identity?" Bob
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2018 20:31:00 GMT -5
No? It's ambiguously written, but I think it's ambiguous on purpose.
As I see it, there are instances where identity and role match, and there are instances where there is a mismatch of identity and gender role.
For example genderfluid or transgender people who haven't been out yet would have a gender identity that is at odds with the gender role they are expected to perform.
For others, their identity may align with what gender role is expected of them (like e.g. women who gravitate towards classic feminine roles or jobs).
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Post by rmarks1 on Apr 2, 2018 22:26:01 GMT -5
No? It's ambiguously written, but I think it's ambiguous on purpose. As I see it, there are instances where identity and role match, and there are instances where there is a mismatch of identity and gender role. For example genderfluid or transgender people who haven't been out yet would have a gender identity that is at odds with the gender role they are expected to perform. For others, their identity may align with what gender role is expected of them (like e.g. women who gravitate towards classic feminine roles or jobs). "Ambiguously written?" LOL! And this is supposed to be from the Science of Sociology? When you talk about "identity" here, you are talking about biological fact. Many, many other species exhibit homosexuality. Only humans however, can have social facts. There is no social fact about homosexuality for monkeys, penguins, or dolphins, all of which have been observed to have homosexual individuals. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2018 11:40:23 GMT -5
Do you believe that transgender people exist?
That's an example of a person whose gender identity does not match their biological sex.
In other words, gender identity is not a "biological fact".
And it's necessarily subjective to each individual.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2018 11:41:33 GMT -5
Why does the existence of homosexuality in other species prove that sexual orientation is genetic?
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Post by rmarks1 on Apr 4, 2018 13:50:10 GMT -5
Do you believe that transgender people exist? That's an example of a person whose gender identity does not match their biological sex. In other words, gender identity is not a "biological fact". And it's necessarily subjective to each individual. Non Sequitur. From the fact that some people have a "gender identity" that does not match their biological sex, it does not follow that gender identity is not a biological fact or that it is subjective. After all, you could say the same thing about homosexuality. The problem with that is many other species exhibit homosexuality. No other species has "social facts." The homosexuality of other species is a brute, physical fact. Bob
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Post by rmarks1 on Apr 4, 2018 13:51:47 GMT -5
Why does the existence of homosexuality in other species prove that sexual orientation is genetic? I never said that. What I did say is that homosexuality in other species cannot be a social fact. The reason is simple. No other species has social facts. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2018 18:03:15 GMT -5
Why does the existence of homosexuality in other species prove that sexual orientation is genetic? I never said that. What I did say is that homosexuality in other species cannot be a social fact. The reason is simple. No other species has social facts. Bob So, it was a Red Herring.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2018 18:06:32 GMT -5
Do you believe that transgender people exist? That's an example of a person whose gender identity does not match their biological sex. In other words, gender identity is not a "biological fact". And it's necessarily subjective to each individual. Non Sequitur. From the fact that some people have a "gender identity" that does not match their biological sex, it does not follow that gender identity is not a biological fact or that it is subjective. After all, you could say the same thing about homosexuality. The problem with that is many other species exhibit homosexuality. No other species has "social facts." The homosexuality of other species is a brute, physical fact. Bob If gender identity is at odds with biologically determined sex, then biological sex cannot have determined gender identity. Either biology determines gender identity, or it doesn't. And if gender identity was entirely biological, then it wouldn't be able to deviate from biology. As for gender identity being subjective, that isn't a conclusion from my premises; it is literally what gender identity is: Gender identity is what gender you see yourself as. It is part of your subjective sense of self. You cannot have self perception that excludes the subject or exists independently of the subject. That would be a contradiction.
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Post by rmarks1 on Apr 4, 2018 18:47:09 GMT -5
I never said that. What I did say is that homosexuality in other species cannot be a social fact. The reason is simple. No other species has social facts. Bob So, it was a Red Herring. No. What you just wrote here is a Red Herring. You are attempting to divert attention for the fact that homosexuality has a biological base and is not 100% socially determined. Bob
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Post by rmarks1 on Apr 4, 2018 18:59:02 GMT -5
Non Sequitur. From the fact that some people have a "gender identity" that does not match their biological sex, it does not follow that gender identity is not a biological fact or that it is subjective. After all, you could say the same thing about homosexuality. The problem with that is many other species exhibit homosexuality. No other species has "social facts." The homosexuality of other species is a brute, physical fact. Bob If gender identity is at odds with biologically determined sex, then biological sex cannot have determined gender identity. You are assuming that gender identity is at odds with biologically determined sex. You have yet to demonstrate that gender identity is all mental and has no biological foundation. There are, however, numerous scientific studies that indicate there are biological factors. Yes. Argument by Definition. You are not investigating gender identity to reach a scientific conclusion. All you are doing is defining gender identity to make it what you want to be. Fortunately, there are enough scientific studies that indicate the opposite conclusion. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation#Biological_differences_in_gay_men_and_lesbian_womenBob
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Post by faskew on Apr 5, 2018 9:02:42 GMT -5
As I often say, biology is fuzzy. Humans like things in nice, tidy boxes, with strong lines between them. But biology doesn't work that way. Take sexual orientation. There are people who are only aroused by the opposite sex, some only aroused by the same sex, some aroused by both sexes and some who are not aroused by anyone. Studies also show that there are "male" and "female" brains, nothing whatsoever to do with either sexual orientation or gender - but the way our brains take in, process, store, and retrieve information. (Depends on how much testosterone the fetus is exposed to during gestation.) It's perfectly possible to have a female body with a male brain that is aroused by males. Or any of a number of other combinations. For that matter, it's very common to have brains that are not "pure" male or female - brains that exhibit a varying mix of both characteristics.
It's just the way biology works. Anti-evolution folk claim that a kangaroo can't produce a dog as offspring. And they're correct. Offspring are usually something like 80-90% their parents and 10-20% different. Over time, a new species develops, but there's never a nice, tidy line where we can say that this is a new species in this box, but its parents were not. There's always fuzziness and crossover. 8->
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Post by rmarks1 on Apr 5, 2018 9:40:45 GMT -5
As I often say, biology is fuzzy. Humans like things in nice, tidy boxes, with strong lines between them. But biology doesn't work that way. Take sexual orientation. There are people who are only aroused by the opposite sex, some only aroused by the same sex, some aroused by both sexes and some who are not aroused by anyone. Studies also show that there are "male" and "female" brains, nothing whatsoever to do with either sexual orientation or gender - but the way our brains take in, process, store, and retrieve information. (Depends on how much testosterone the fetus is exposed to during gestation.) It's perfectly possible to have a female body with a male brain that is aroused by males. Or any of a number of other combinations. For that matter, it's very common to have brains that are not "pure" male or female - brains that exhibit a varying mix of both characteristics. It's just the way biology works. Anti-evolution folk claim that a kangaroo can't produce a dog as offspring. And they're correct. Offspring are usually something like 80-90% their parents and 10-20% different. Over time, a new species develops, but there's never a nice, tidy line where we can say that this is a new species in this box, but its parents were not. There's always fuzziness and crossover. 8-> That's 100% true Fred. Biology is fuzzy. My point is that it is still Biology, a physical science, and the facts it deals with are objective physical facts that don't depend on what anyone thinks. They are not "social facts" like the rules of baseball or soccer, which depend on social agreement. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 11:30:58 GMT -5
So how exactly is it possible for human biology to determine a person's sexual anatomy to be one way, and their own gender identity to be the opposite?
What exact biological elements are determined when biology forms a gender identity in opposition to a person's biological sex?
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Post by rmarks1 on Apr 5, 2018 12:01:37 GMT -5
So how exactly is it possible for human biology to determine a person's sexual anatomy to be one way, and their own gender identity to be the opposite? What exact biological elements are determined when biology forms a gender identity in opposition to a person's biological sex? I already posed the link yesterday. Perhaps you missed it. Here it is again. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation#Biological_differences_in_gay_men_and_lesbian_womenAnd here are some of the objective, scientifically verified differences between gays and straights: "Gay men and straight women have, on average, equally proportioned brain hemispheres. Lesbian women and straight men have, on average, slightly larger right brain hemispheres.[72] The suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus was found by Swaab and Hopffman to be larger in gay men than in non-gay men,[73] the suprachiasmatic nucleus is also known to be larger in men than in women.[74][75] The average size of the INAH 3 in the brains of gay men is approximately the same size as INAH 3 in women, which is significantly smaller, and the cells more densely packed, than in heterosexual men's brains.[49] Gay men's brains respond differently to fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.[78] The functioning of the inner ear and the central auditory system in lesbians and bisexual women are more like the functional properties found in men than in non-gay women (the researchers argued this finding was consistent with the prenatal hormonal theory of sexual orientation).[79] The startle response (eyeblink following a loud sound) is similarly masculinized in lesbians and bisexual women.[80] Gay and non-gay people's brains respond differently to two putative sex pheromones (AND, found in male armpit secretions, and EST, found in female urine).[40][81][82] The amygdala, a region of the brain, is more active in gay men than non-gay men when exposed to sexually arousing material.[83] Finger length ratios between the index and ring fingers have been reported to differ, on average, between non-gay and lesbian women.[84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93] Gay men and lesbians are significantly more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous than non-gay men and women;[94][95][96] Simon LeVay argues that because "[h]and preference is observable before birth...[97] [t]he observation of increased non-right-handness in gay people is therefore consistent with the idea that sexual orientation is influenced by prenatal processes," perhaps heredity.[49]" Please note that none of this has anything to do with society, subjective opinions, or social facts. These are all observable physical facts. Bob
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