Sex And Gender
Nov. 23rd, 2004 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloPeople get pulled up on the feminist site I frequent for using "sex" and "gender" interchangeably. The distinction is useful. If I've understood it right, "sex" is about physical characteristics and "gender" is about what goes on in your head.
Someone proposed that if you enjoy the cut and thrust of the work-place your gender is male and if you like staying home knitting bootees your gender is female.
I expect they got jumped on. But here's the problem. Sooner or later you stumble over the stereotypes. "Sex" is easily determined (in most cases) but "gender" is a social construct.
I'm confused. I've just written a book in which my tomboyish heroine keeps dodging in and out of drag. She is, of course, a version of myself.
I'm a man. And I'm heterosexual. But when I put myself in a book it's as a girl who goes running about with a sword in her fist having wild adventures.
I think there are probably quite a lot of us with this cast of mind- we are the male fans of Buffy and Xena and Uma Thurman's Bride- but I don't believe there's a word for us...
...Yet.
Someone proposed that if you enjoy the cut and thrust of the work-place your gender is male and if you like staying home knitting bootees your gender is female.
I expect they got jumped on. But here's the problem. Sooner or later you stumble over the stereotypes. "Sex" is easily determined (in most cases) but "gender" is a social construct.
I'm confused. I've just written a book in which my tomboyish heroine keeps dodging in and out of drag. She is, of course, a version of myself.
I'm a man. And I'm heterosexual. But when I put myself in a book it's as a girl who goes running about with a sword in her fist having wild adventures.
I think there are probably quite a lot of us with this cast of mind- we are the male fans of Buffy and Xena and Uma Thurman's Bride- but I don't believe there's a word for us...
...Yet.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 12:39 pm (UTC)I'm a man. I get all the breaks. I know this. I would like to see the system changed. I want a radical feminization of society. I want equal pay, equal rights etc, etc, etc....
I have, from a mixture of choice and necessity, worked in a number of less privileged female-identified jobs. I have been a nursing auxiliary, a cleaner and I am currently a carer (which means I get paid a pittance for looking out for my wife.) Also, in the past, I chose not to go chasing after a career because I needed to be at home to care for my kids.
I'm not complaining about my life. I'm just pointing out that you're making assumptions about me that I don't think are warranted.