Talk:Gender role/Archive 2004

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Debates pre-2003 have already been moved to an archive:
(Moved older material to Talk:Gender role archive) GGano 15:45, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
The debates from October to December 2003 now also have been removed to a second archive which can be found under /Archive_2003. The main subject of these debates was: Can/should Gender Identity, Gender Role, and Sex be Segregated? -- AlexR 00:01, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I removed the anonymous criticism where it belongs, below the older bits and above my new entry. New comments should go below the old ones, otherwise, nobody will be able to follow the debate. -- AlexR 15:57, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Contents

POV-problem?

This article has major POV problems. It is missing the crucial layer of abstraction that an encyclopedia should have. Instead of talking about gender roles, it is talking in them. Instead of explaining the theory, it is advancing it. Let me give an example. It's like an article about Christianity where instead of saying Christianity is a religion based on the teachings of Jesus..., it just starts off saying In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..., if you see what I mean.

Judging by the attidutes of the people working on this article, it doesn't look like this problem will ever be fixed.

Gee, be patient. I'm trying to fix it. Dysprosia 08:44, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[I recant this paragraph.]

Yes, I know. Much of the content is POV, and may need a lot more work than what I'm currently trying to do to it. Dysprosia 09:07, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] It looks like this talk page is being added to from the top. I guess I'll archive the stuff below when I get a minute's time.

[P0M:] This article retains some assertions from a year or two ago that I find ridiculous, such as the claim that boys like blue and girls like red. Boys are "color coded" as babies with baby blue blankets, etc., and girls get pink blankets, but nobody I know seriously claims that boys or girls old enough to state a preference fail to display a wide range of color preferences. I recall claiming a color preference for green and having a strong affection for a bright red cowboy shirt -- both counter-coding for gender according to that view.

[P0M:] Some clarification on the kinds of things needed in the "deeper level of abstraction" would be helpful to me. I think it might be supplied by a more cross-cultural approach, since people who traditionally went unclothed may have much to teach us about both the limit cases of gender signals as well as the underlying reasons for most if not all societies having specified/prescribed gender roles. But maybe that is not what the anonymous critic who writes above may have had in mind. One caution -- it may be very difficult to find objective information regarding how and why gender roles were established some tens of thousands of years ago. P0M 13:38, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What it needs is to stop presenting itself as established, incontestable fact, and admit that it's just a small theory being advanced by a small group of people and the vast majority doesn't buy into it. Most people on earth do not believe in gender roles, they only believe in sex. For 99% of all people, a penis is a male and a vagina is a female and that's all there is to it, and it doesn't get any simpler than that.
Like many of the sociology articles, this one relies on the "invisible hand" argument. It implies that there is an invisible hand (i.e. the prescribed gender roles) that is manipulating society and no one can see it but everyone is affected by it. Well most people just don't believe that.
The problem is that "gender roles" isn't established, incontestable fact, and I don't think this article has ever tried to present it as such. The first sentence even says it's "a term to describe a person...", not "is the things a person...". There is a statement in the "problems" section : "the gender role of a person is so much a matter of course in a stable society that people rarely even think of it".
Perhaps the article is trying to say too much re: "the invisible hand" but, the theory is not as insignificant as you may think, and that it is a relevant concept to many, and that a penis is not always male and a vagina is not always female... Dysprosia 22:01, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] The reason that I start my postings like this is so that people can tell who has written what. This discussion is getting fairly chaotic because people either are not signing or are writing several paragraphs and signing at the bottom and then the several paragrapphs get cut apart by replies and further comments to the replies.

[P0M: Somebody wrote: "Most people on earth do not believe in gender roles, they only believe in sex. For 99% of all people, a penis is a male and a vagina is a female and that's all there is to it, and it doesn't get any simpler than that." If you do not believe in gender roles, and you are presumed by friends and colleagues to be male, try going to work or going bowling or wherever you are known by friends in a dress. If you are presumed by friends and colleagues to be a female, try hawking and spitting on the way to the parking lot. Then come back and report. I just saw a report somewhere, a day or two ago, about a guy who got grief in a major way because he rode a woman's bicycle to work. P0M 23:14, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Some more problems

I saw that there is a lot of debate about this article, and actually, I see a point there. Much of what is said is not so much a presentation facts, but preaching. While the facts mentioned are, as far as a singe reading could tell, mostly correct (but see below), the article sounds like a seremon. It's quite likely this is causing the problems, far more than the content. Talking about gender makes many people uncomfortable, so rejecting what has been said is made much easier when it looks like preaching. Anyway, besides that general observation, I also found some serious problems in the text:

A person's gender role is a term to describe all of the things a person does to express their gender identity.
That's wrong. A transgendered person, especialy before transitioning, and many intersexual persons, are forced to present gender roles that definitely don't express their gender identity. Also, there is not just one male and one female gender role, but there are many. And many cisgendered people don't feel particular comfortable in some of these roles. However, this fact should be treaded rather seperately, otherwise, the article will become completely confusing

However, in some instances, a person may identify as a woman and have elements of a male gender role, or vice versa. These behaviours are less common, and are often known as butch and femme, for these instances.
There are many words for a male person behaving in a more feminine way, but femme is not one of them. Femme is the word for a feminine lesbian. And I don't see what's so rare about that, either.

The examples for intersexual people are also rather strange. Male genitalia with XX-Chromosomes are extremely rare, there is exactly ONE case known of those. And "man" who mensturate don't usually do so through their penis, but through a vaginal opening, which might be very small, but opening where one would expect it to open. A uterus has no connection to the system leading into the penis, unless the anatomy is considerable more "messed up" than it usually is in intersexed "men". That bit led me to believe that the person who wrote that had more enthusiasm than knowledge.

One consequence of social unrest during the Vietnam War (...) Somewhat later, in response to other social changes, many women began to cut their hair to lengths previously considered appropriate only to men. The practical consequences of these changes were not onerous.
Short hair for women began to become fashionable during the 1920s, slightly before the Vietnam War. Any what exactly is the "onerous" supposed to mean here? Either it had consequences or it had not, but that is one of the semi-preaching bits.

In Problems, transgendered people are not even mentioned. That is rather strange, since transgendered people have by definition more problems (and especially more basic problems) with gender roles than cisgendered people. With intersexual people it depends on whether they are satisfied with the gender assigned to them or not. -- AlexR 00:28, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree with a lot of what you say, Alex. Just one thing: femme is sometimes used to describe men, but it's not that common. I'll fix that, but please pitch in the article and be bold :) I'm sure you will have a lot of good things to say. Dysprosia 02:05, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Hm, I have never encountered "femme" for a man, but then I am not a native speaker. Together with "Butch" I assume, though, that most people would not see it as a reference to male bodied people. Anyway, your correction is fine, thanks for it. -- AlexR 15:57, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Victimisation?

I think the biggest problem is not what the article actually says, but what's written between the lines. Throughout the article we get the feeling that these people are the innocent victims of a cruel, heartless system. These poor people are forced into their "assigned" gender roles at birth, and then expected to play along, or else. They are doomed from birth to live awkward, miserable lives, through no fault of their own, all because of the terrible system that has been imposed on them. Now who is responsible for this awful system? The reader can only guess, but there are a few hints. Words like assigned, prescribed, expectations, mandated: these point the finger squarely at society, and that means you and me, and the reader himself. We are all the unwitting perpetrators of a system that victimizes these poor people for no other reason except that they were born different. Of course, the article never says this outright, but the message is there, hidden behind a lot of technical language.

Convention here is to keep the chronologically newest comments at the bottom of the page. As to your point, the words assigned, prescribed and so on are not intended to "blame society" but are to describe how society operates. A person is assigned a gender role, based on the person's sex. If that person's gender identity happens to line up well with that gender role and physical sex, then there's no problems. When it doesn't problems arise.
There is no blame here, no one is blaming anyone else because of this, problems arise because of a consequence of mindsets such as heteronormativity by some, who expect that individuals come into line with a heteronormative system. In some societies, these so-called "problems" may not even be a problem.
Whether the article says that society is to blame, implicitly or otherwise, needs to be demonstrated explicitly. Dysprosia 04:28, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
[P0M:] I am puzzled by Anon, who mentions "their 'assigned' gender roles" as though that were part of the article. I searched for that in the current version and also for a version written some time ago, but didn't find it. Anyway, I agree with what Dysprosia has written. People with male external genitalia will receive strong reactions from others if they wear or do women's whatever. Some societies are more tolerant of gender bending than are others. Other societies seem to be unable to deal with any kind of difference.P0M 05:15, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


[I recant these paragraphs.] 69.111.188.162 05:53, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Ok, you say the article portrays people (which people, intersexed people? transgendered people? I assume you mean these groups) as victims. How should we portray them, then, in the context of gender roles? Are they to blame? Dysprosia 05:09, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


New suggestion

I just wrote a new introductory paragraph, maybe that makes my problems with the article somewhat clearer. I didn't put it in the article, because if we use it, much of the article would have to be reworked, too, and given the heated debates this article already caused, I think we should achive consent before changing it. Besides, I see no point spending a few hours work and then it's rejected ;-)
BTW, I am the only one who has a sense of Deja vue regarding our anonymous critic? You know, scores of edits complaining essentially about the very idea expressed being somehow discriminating against whomever? Anyway, I would kindly ask Mr/Ms IP to stick to the usual conventions of the Wikipeda and add new comments below the older ones, and to sign them. It's no mistake to put new content into new comments, either, or actually bringing in arguments instead of vague feelings.
Anyway, here is my idea for the introduction: -- AlexR 15:57, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The term Gender role describes all norms, behaviours and expectations that are considered gender specific; and also each persons way of acting according to these. Sometimes, the terms gender role and gender presentation are used; in those cases gender presentation" is used to describe a person's active presentation of a gender role. Sociologists and sexologists use the term gender roles to name the behaviors and responsibilities prescribed for each gender by a society. [AR]
The gender role a person adopts for most people congruent with their sex and their gender identity. However, this is not the case with transgendered persons and many intersexual persons, who often struggle to be able to live in a gender role that is consistent with their gender identity. (See Problems) [AR]
There are two basic forms of criticism of gender roles:
* Some people criticise either the very existence of gender roles, or their number. For example, today's Western societey knows only two gender roles, male and female, which are almost exclusively based on sex, and thereby making life rather difficult for transgendered and intersexual people.
* Many more people criticise the content of gender roles, for example notions like "a woman should become a mother" or "a man should not work as a nurse". Particularly feminism has challenged many of those gender stereotypes. [AR]
It looks pretty good, Alex, though maybe we should put the criticism paragraph (the third) a little further down after the intro? Possibly after a paragraph explaining what gender roles are and a typical one (so, in matching the current article, after Elements of gender roles or Culture)...? Dysprosia 00:37, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I like Alex's idea. It seems to cover most of the ground. One exception may be limited only to this talk page, or may be more common, and that is that some people deny the existence of gender identies and/or gender roles. I suppose that there may be a group of people that believes that little girls are genetically determined to wear dresses, but most people realize that these are culturally transmitted. [P0M]

I can think of at least one reason why it may be difficult to accept the idea of gender roles -- the whole area is inherently untidy, as the end of Alex's first paragraph points out. People are told what they are, and they are dressed and socialized (usually) as either boys or girls. They learn that boys wear trousers and girls wear skirts, etc. They learns lots of other expectations -- things that doing or failing to do will draw down scorn from their peers. Most of them try to learn the unwritten code as well as the written code. Then they attempt to manifest an appropriate gender role. However, by the time they've gotten the gender role thing figured out fairly well they may also have gotten their own gender identities figured out and some of them have decided that their parents and everybody else has gotten them wrong. Anyway, people produce individual versions of gender roles. Then other people become the gender role critics. They may decide that some people do not do their gender roles right. They decide what gender that role is appropriate to, and then check out the apparent sex of the "presenters." Sometimes their critiques can be vituperative or even physically injurious. [P0M]

There may be some range of ambiguity in the minds of individuals as to what they actually are. Some of them may decide as some point in their lives that they were mistaken about their gender identities before. There may be some range of error in the assessments of sexual identity and/or gender identity made by the "critics" in the society. As if that were not enough, many people may be very sure that they know what the proper and acceptable gender roles are -- even though they may well not agree with each other. [P0M]

Somebody brought up a good point earlier, that it would be desirable to discuss the phenomenon of gender role at a deeper level. I do not know whether any real research has been done on that topic, or how one could research the beginnings of conventions that extend back before the beginning of written history. Nevertheless, I think it may be possible to assemble some useful information. For instance, in cultures where folks go naked or so nearly naked that there would almost never would be any ambiguity with regard to an individual's external genitalia, do they make a big deal about gender markers such as hair style, the presence or absence of jewelry, etc.? Among societies where one is permitted to court only one individual at a time, and where being seen "chasing" one individual will mean that all other potential mates will avoid social proximity until they are sure that the presumed romance has totally cooled off (that's the way it used to be in Taiwan, for instance), are there often societies where gender roles (gender signs) are matters of indifference? P0M 01:15, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

POM, as I read it the article does not state that boys like blue and that girls like pink; it states that this is one common gender role, that is, in some societies (certainly the USA) many people believe that boys should like blue and girlslike pink. Role is a social concept, I think the article makes clear. Alex makes this clear as well. To his comments I would only add that in most societies a person does not adopt a gender role, it is assigned to people. One might argue that the Berdache (the so-called third gender in many native American societies) is adopted rather than assigned, but I think it could go either way. Alex, I understand what you are trying to get at with the "criticisms" part but I do not like the word criticisms. There are two separate, though often conflated, issues here. First, how do social scientists study gender roles and identity? There are indeed debates among social scientists as to how many roles, in a given society, there are, and as to the function and origin of roles -- but these are not so much "criticisms" of gender roles as debates typical in the sciences over how to describe, classify, and analyze data concerning gender roles. Second, there are political debates among people in industrialized societies that valorize individual rights: in such societies there is a conflict between one set of cultural norms (that valorize biology) and another (that valorize rational choice); citizens of such societies wonder how to make sense of their own experieince of their sexuality and gender; how to view others, and what if any state policy there should be. Such people often look to science for answers, but I believe (actually I think it is fairly obvious) that such people interpret and in some cases misconstrue scientific analysis as they seek to apply it to fundamentally political debates. Of course, when scientists try to present their findings in political contexts, the same thing occurs.
Slrubenstein, the article as it currently stands says:
  1. A girl wears skirts and dresses, plays with dolls, likes the colour pink, has long hair, and wants to wear make-up.
  2. A boy wears rugged clothing, likes the colour blue, plays with toy soldiers, participates in competitive team sports, enjoys fighting, doesn't cry, and has short hair.
I suppose you may intend to say that the article intends to say that girls ought to like the color pink and boys ought to like the color blue. Perhaps our social backgrounds are very different, but I have never heard these values affirmed. The most agreement I can muster is that in my society a boy or a man who favors pink (not red) might take some social flack for being a "sissy" (or something more objectionable, perchance). I had reworded the original group of assertions to try to avoid the confusion between "is" and "ought," buy somebody changed it back. [P0M]
POM, you make a valid point about the problem individuals face when dealing with their own gender roles -- I point out only that this is true for all roles; it is fundamental to the notion of social structure that there is a tension between individual experience and expectations versus social functions and expectations. If this general topic really interestes you I'd suggest reading Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice and Giddens' Theory of Social Action, although discussions of this tension are fairly pervasive in social science literature.
As you know Wikipedia is not the place for original research, so however much we ponder such issues in the Talk page, perhaps they are inappropriate unless we can translate them into specific topics we think the article should cover if it is a topic scholars have studied or civic leaders have debated. I did some work on the article some time ago and did not go into the depth of detail you are suggesting because, frankly, I thought it was inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. I think the article does a decent job of explaining what gender roles are, and give ssome examples from the societies most readers of Wikipedia come from. A thorough answer to your questions would take up volumes! But if you really are interested in this, I can recommend some books. For starts, POM, you would read Margaret Mead Sex and Temperment, Tom Gregor Anxious Pleasures, Ortner and Whitehead, ed. Sexual Meanings, MacCormack and Strathern Nature, Culture, and Gender, Rosaldo and Lamphere, ed. Women, Culture, and Society, and Di Leonardo ed. Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge. Slrubenstein
If you have been following this talk page and recent changes to the article you may remember that someone very recently attacked the article rather vehemently for lacking a theoretical basis (as I recall, the contributor complained this article is analogous to an article about religion that tells what this religion or that religion demands of people without discussing the phenomenon of religion itself). Please be aware that I was not asking for original research but suggesting that the critique mentioned immediately above, as well as some general confusions you have alluded to, might be answered if such research has already been done. I also pointed to the difficulty of doing the research in a definitive way since the origin of the conventions involved, and the whole program of having such conventions, happened far in the past. P0M 21:28, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps I am less sympathetic to that person's POV than you are. Gender roles are but one set of roles; the theory of social roles I think belongs in a separate article, or as part of a presentation of "sociology" and we can have a link. I do agree that there can be more on the method and theory of gender roles, though I don't have the time to work on that now. The books I mention above are meant to answer your questions like what happens in a society where people where little clothing -- an interesting question, but not a call for more abstraction like the one at the top of this page ... Slrubenstein

I find it hard to believe this article was featured. It really is rather POV, if only because the entire field of Gender Studies and the much of the concept of Gender Roles is definitely not accepted as fact throughout much of even Western society, its birthplace, let alone the world. There is a substantial portion of the population of the United States alone, almost certainly a majority, that disagrees. Also, if you, as a thoughtful, informed individual, were to subscribe heavily to the "nature" side of the "nature/nurture argument" (in case anyone is thinking of dismissing people on one side of the argument as just not being "educated enough") you would have serious difficulty accepting this article as it's written (i.e. accepting this field, which is rather nurture, into one's worldview). Therefore I've inserted the NPOV dispute line into the article itself. Just to clarify, BTW: I haven't really staked out a position on this issue yet, but I know POV when I see it--some elements of article's view may be widely shared (the basics at the beginning about gender roles), but much of the rest of it is definitely not accepted by most of society. Hopefully the whole thing will get fixed soon. Or perhaps this whole damn field is just too new to be placed in an encyclopedia like this--just hasn't been fleshed out enough yet. You know, something like Foucault saying you can't define your own episteme while you're in it, you have to wait a few cycles. Just a bit premature. Maybe it'll be NPOV in ten, twenty years ;-) (jk! --Rockopete 01:42, 17 July 2003 (EST)

What exactly is POV in the article? Let us know so we can remove or rewrite the relevant paragraphs. The concept may not be "accepted as fact throughout much of even Western society", but I don't think that's the point: the article is presenting what gender roles are said to be. If the article is stating somehow that it is fact, then that needs to be removed.
If you are saying that this article is POV because, you are saying that one's gender role is determined either nurture or nature (or both), then you may want to say how it is "nature" and not otherwise.
I hope this may help you formulate a position on describing what exactly is wrong with this article. Without that, we can really only do very little. Dysprosia 08:45, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I would say, let's remove this NPOV-warning when Rockopete does not flesh out his position after 24 hours. After all, we already had sufficient experience with "arguments" like that -- I have yet to see one instance where any real arguments follow after a rant like that. A Request for comment might also be a good idea. -- AlexR 09:55, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I agree with rockopete - this article is definitely still POV - I understand what she means. I was quite shocked when I first started to read the text (today the article was - probably by mistake - displayed as featured article, that's how I got here).
Let me give you an example: several times throughout the article the example given of a gender role is that men wear pants, women wear skirts. Especially the caricature of a stereotype in this text: men wear jeans and t-shirts. I, like many other women who read this, sit here and wear just that. And you could not say that I don't act according to the female role because I wear jeans and t-shirt. To say that is plainly and simply politically incorrect.
Everytime you quote a role cliché like that you actually harm women around the world because quoting it means reinforcing it in peoples mind.
Also in many instances the examples given are imbalanced: when you cite a male role stereotype you should also quote a female and vice versa. (But all in all I think there are too many examples in the text)
Reading the article you get the impression that it is a fairly repetitive ammassement of superficial statements that lack theoretical bases, let alone substantive evidence. It's not encyclopedic style. Superficial because the examples given usually only show a small portion of the whole disaster: mostly clothing and hairstyle followed by a frustrating "etc." or "and so on". Gender role affects education, work situation, income, housekeeping work, decision making, power structures and social contact with children and others. Any scientific or encyclopedic unbiased text would deal with these issues, not color style or hair fashion.
The article does not reflect reality. Several groups in our society have a huge problem with gender roles - they are more interested in if and how these roles can be changed or can be dealt with.
Overall I also got the impression that the text was written mostly by men (the history also shows that) and obviously by transgender people - It has a good section on that issue (as far as I can tell).
I have seen the history of this text and I know what hard work it was - it still needs improvement. We have a basis to start from.--Fenice 20:04, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Talk:Effeminacy

a bit of help, if you will. Sam [Spade] 18:36, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Recent disputed change

§ A new (?) contributor, Fenice, has changed the top of the article to the following text, which I have moved here for discussion:

The term gender role denotes a set of expectations of behaviours and actions that is either individually expressed or is concordant to what society expects of them (a set of norms), to express their gender identity.

--- Dear POM - The sentence you are quoting was written almost entirely by the user Dysprosia. (I do not support the sentence - on the contrary I think it badly needs editing.) I only added the two words "of expectations" - for the reason given in my edit summary - but I understand, these two word are disputed by you.--Fenice 16:43, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fenice, I rewrote the paragraph you originally added because I think it did not in fact carry the proper meaning of what a "gender role" actually is. It is much broader than just a set of social norms, as POM has already said below Dysprosia 00:41, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ The edit summary said:

the widely accepted definition of role in sociology says it concerns expectations or norms, not actions or behavior

§ The problem is that gender roles are not norms that were established de nova by some authority. Gender roles reflect the changing habits and customs of concrete individuals in actual societies. The human behavior is there first, and the ideologies and norms grow up by an inductive process that occurs informally within the societies and, later on, more formally by researchers.

§ The sociologists did not initiate use of the term "gender role." The sexologist John Money describes his reasons for borrowing the term "gender" to talk about the concrete behavior of individuals who were getting themselves into trouble with society by behaving in atypical ways. Each person acts out a role that "he" or "she" creates by a complex process of self-understanding and understanding what other people in "his" or "her" society do to express their genders. The sexologists call the resulting complex of behaviors the person's gender role.

§ It is inappropriate to reduce the understanding of this concept to what may or may not be "widely acccepted" in sociology because it both cuts off the historical and conceptual roots of the concepts and it ices the sexologists out of the discussion. P0M 15:00, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

--- These last few sentences are beautifully put, PatrickOM, and I do not understand why stuff like that is not in the actual text of the article. If sexologists and sociologists have a different point of view on the matter, both should be described, dont you think? I suggest a text like: In sociology gender role means ... In sexology, on the other hand, gender role refers to...--Fenice 16:43, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

§ As I just inadvertently demonstrated, changes are incremental and sometimes things get lost little by little. Actually I'm not sure whether there was text such as you suggest before. Let's make the change. Thank you for the kind words. P0M 16:56, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

--- I made the change - the text of the first part of the intro should now satisfy sociologists as well as sexologists.--Fenice 19:00, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

§ Great! Thank you very much. P0M 19:06, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Transgender/Transsexual

To Alex - concerning change of transsexual to transgender: I hope you know what you're doing. Because in the entry on transgender on this very site it says that transsexuals are hurt if you call them transgender. There should be room for both groups in this article. If it does not go under a single heading, we should create a separate section for transsexuals. Or maybe the heading should be transgender/transsexual. You seem to know the subject - I hope you'll solve this problem.--Fenice 19:14, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hm, that is, as usual, a tricky one. Transsexual was wrong at any rate, since this is clearly not a transsexual-only problem. Transgender does, by definition, include transsexuals, and although I know that offends some transsexual people, that is as reasonable as if I were offended by being called European. Which is why I forgot to do the pc thing of adding TS, no offense intended. Also, that particular matter applies to all transgender people anyway. I was however thinking after I read your statement, and I wonder, and like to have some input first: Most literature I have seen uses transgender as an umbrella term, and does not do the TG/TS-thing. Does it therefore make sense to use it in this particular article? -- AlexR 23:07, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

§ I do not know much about how these terms are used. It seems that there are probably three communities involved: (1) MDs who practice in the area of surgical reassignment, (2) patients who either desire or have already had the surgery, and (3) third parties who have neither direct personal experience nor clinical experience of the matter. Each group may have its own informal definitions of these terms.

I'd expand the first group to all MDs, psychologists etc who deal with transgendered people. Actually, the surgeons are usually least dogmatical about terms and descriptions, it is the psychological "experts" who are often "troublemakers".
The second group - now that is an interesting criterium, desire or have already had the surgery. First of all, there is no "the" surgery, and second, please, get it into your head, everybody -- this is not about surgery, this is about living in an appropriate gender role. Surgery might be involved, and it might be extremely important for many, but it is not the main point. Thank you.
And the third group - well, it certainly exists, but why should its definitions be relevant here? That group usually uses TS and TV and that's it, and all TS want bottom surgery, and all TVs are secretly gay. Hardly relevant for an article. [AR]

It also occurs to me that a person who had not completed the medical procedures involved could be considered transgendered on the grounds of having come to an awareness that his/her original gender identity was mistaken (having been imposed from the outside, perhaps) and having changed his/her gender role according to this new understanding.

Once more, please take "surgery" out of that, because it does not make sense at all. A person is transgender if they come to the awareness that their original assigned gender role was mistaken/unsuitable/whatever, period. And you can't really impose an identity. If that worked, there would be no transpeople. Whether these people are transsexual, too, is an entirely different matter and not necessarily related to any surgery. Although most transsexual transwomen at least desire genital reassignment surgery (I think it is safe to assume you are talking about that surgery), by no means all transsexual transmen do, and some non-transsexual transgender people have or desire it, too. I am rather surprised having to explain that to you, actually. [AR]

§ There is a very interesting discussion in Anne Fausto-Sterling's Sexing the Human Body, p. 107. She says that "transgenderists accept 'kinship among those with gender-variant identities Transgenderism supplants the dichotomy of transsexual and transvestite with a concept of continuity.'" She basically says that the "transsexual" position developed out of accomodating to heteronormativity, or at least that such is the way some people understand things. P0M 23:43, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Transgenderism is not the same thing as transgender, but I grant that the book is not all that fresh any more. Nowadays transgenderists are often as violently opposed to any bottom surgery as many transsexuals insist on it for any gender changer. I more or less agree with Fausto-Sterling (apart from transgender <-> transgenderist), but it is not quite so simple. Some transsexual people just feel that the description happens to fit them and that they happen to prefer living in an unambiguously (fe)male gender role, but do not wish to impose their choice onto anybody else, and are quite accepting of transgendered people, while some transgendered people are rather violently opposed to anybody who happens to wish to live in an unambiguously (fe)male gender role. Also, that quote does not take into account the extreme presure that transpeople are subjected to to confrom to clear and rather traditional gender roles; "no 'proper' (wo)man, no medical treatment" is still more the rule than the exception. So that position is not exactly a free choice in the first place, but most of the time probably accepted out of necessity and then internalized. It takes a lot of nerves to stand up against such a system, especially when you desperately need part of that system. (And that was just the very much abbreviated version of that problem.) -- AlexR 03:26, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Disputed phrases

Here are some phrases that I think are false: (Both quotes are from the feminism section - I put them into commentary tags.)

  • Feminists, possibly from a Radical feminist viewpoint, also note that a patriarchal society implies a gender role for women that helps to perpetuate this patriarchy.

I don't think it is necessary to add radical feminist to this. The opposition to patriarchy is the defining factor of feminism in general, see feminism. (Fenice)

No, that's not correct. Some strands of feminism do not attribute patriarchy to women's oppression, consider third-wave/post-feminism (or less so, postcolonial feminism). It is primiarily Radical feminist thought that involves an attribution to patriarchy for women's oppression. Dysprosia
I've looked at some literature and could not confirm this yet. Where did you read this? (Fenice)
First of all, it's more the other way around, women's oppression is attributed to patriarchy not vice versa. I have found that some people make the distinction between feminists that argue in a systems theory - they explain patriarchy and oppression as a system. Others don't say there is a system, oppression and patriarchs just exist on their own. Maybe that's what you meant.
Perhaps that is what I meant. (Dysprosia)
Postcolonial feminists say that they feel a lot more oppressed on the grounds of race and class than because they are women. But they don't deny that they also suffer from oppression as women. (Fenice)
I did say "less so". I added the example to highlight that it is not all strands of feminism that put patriarchal oppression so highly or feature it as the basis of their feminist thought.(Dysprosia)
Also, the third sentence in the Wikipedia-entry on feminism says that it is the key element of feminism: The basis of feminist ideology is that society is organised into a patriarchal system in which men have advantage over women.--Fenice 19:52, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
That sentence should probably be changed. If it's in Wikipedia, it doesn't mean it's necessarily correct. Have you considered third-wave/post-feminism? Dysprosia 20:46, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Feminists argue that the choice and option to adopt such a role is key.

This sentence is misleading. Most feminists tend to not care the least bit about the option to adopt a traditional role, because this option does not seem endangered in any way. And they think half of mankind fight for the survival of this role. I think the paragraph that precedes this sentence says enough. (Fenice)

Some feminists do care. Perhaps we can attribute this with +"Some". Dysprosia
It's the same thing here. I could not find this anywhere. Where did you read this?--Fenice 19:52, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Another problem is the image:
  • it could be rotated by 90 degrees
  • or it could be rotated by 180 degrees
  • or it could be omitted(Fenice)

I'd like to add the rainbow-flag as an illustration to this article.--Fenice 19:07, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC) More to come.

Why the rainbow-flag? That's for LGBT issues, which aren't directly linked with gender role. Dysprosia 20:41, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I suggested it because, if I am not mistaken the rainbow-flag stands for diversity, for many different possibilities (also many different gender roles), symbolized by many different colours, as opposed to black and white (male and female). (Fenice)
The connotations first and foremost is for LGBT issues. The corresponding idea of diversities &/c may be lost because of this. Dysprosia 20:46, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
True.--Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have a photograph I made in Thailand in 1966 in which the village mayor and another man are seen wearing bright red sarongs. It is a clear example of a form of apparel that is appropriate to males in one society but not in many others. How would somethink like that work? Any idea of an analogous female image? P0M 01:51, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's a wonderful idea for an image, and is quite tasteful too. Dysprosia 02:09, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree, that's a very tasteful idea. I don't think it needs to be balanced by an analogous female image because it does not make any restrictive statement on what women should or shouldn't do. The image you propose could replace the mars/venus-image, I think.--Fenice 19:55, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I just thought about something. News photographs do not require model releases, but what about just a shot of somebody on the street, in a group photo, etc.? I can't find anything on Wikipedia about that issue. P0M 00:15, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ I checked a good discussion on model releases by a professional photographer/teacher. As I suspected, if you photograph a person in a public place and don't use the photo to make it appear that the person advocates use of or gives approval of some product you are selling, then it is o.k. to use the photo without a model release. I'll go ahead and scan the photo the next time I'm near the professional scanner. P0M 02:43, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ I just added the new photo. I don't know, offhand, how to make it shrink down to a smaller size and show the button that snaps it to full size. It's dinner time and I haven't had lunch yet... P0M 22:15, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Intend to remove "totally disputed" warning

§ After I shrank the photo down a bit I went through the article word by word looking for infelicities in expression that may have caused someone to misunderstand the article and therefore put up the warning at the top of the article. That warning went up some time ago and there has been much discussion, leading to many improvements, since that time. I see no signs of an on-going debate, so if the posting of the warning was well intentioned that must mean that the problems that produced it must have been solved. (POM)

Again the reason why the warning is there:
  • it lacks a theoretical (i.e.sociological) basis
  • its superficial even in the examples given
  • you can clearly tell the text was written mostly by men and transgender people (that is to say from their point of view)

What has happened so far: I've done some structuring, the intro-paragraph contains a scientific definition now, the foto has been replaced. The discussion above is only about additions to my text about feminism. So, in contradiction to your perception, there was hardly any discussion about the original text. And I'm afraid it'll take some time, I cannot be here all day. The improvements made sofar are still major, because the intro-section and the foto are so vital for the quality of the article. --Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ I'll leave the warning up for a few days to see whether anybody comes back with specifics about what s/he regards as still being unacceptable.(POM)

See first paragraph--Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ There are still many problems with the article. It needs to be outlined as it stands, then the outline needs to be adjusted so that the same topics are not discussed multiple times (sometimes in almost identical language), and then the article needs to be re-edited so that it conforms to the improved outline.(POM)

If you have concrete ideas about these changes in outline - please post them!--Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Still missing are sections on socialisation and maybe the number of gender roles. If you ask me, the entire section on biology can be omitted, but I'm guessing there will be hefty opposition on this one!?--Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
§ I wonder if carefuly have been (can be?) made on the socialization issue. Lots of what happens is early childhood, even pre-verbal. People start socializing their children at birth. Seeing that a child has female genitalia, the parents may subtly shade their behavior and do more substantive things than provide the baby with pink clothing, etc. I'll have to check the half dozen or so books I have on "silent language" issues.
§ I believe that there are several ways that gender roles might be numbered. The fact is that nobody does one of these roles exactly the way another person does it. The "ideological" position in many societies is that there are only two valid roles, which is probably tied to the belief that there are only males and females. But some societies have other recognized gender roles, e.g., hijra. There are a few that I can think of that have 3 gender role categories, but there may be societies that have four or five. The xanith role is "not masculine and not feminine" as is the hijra role, but the xanith role is not the 'same as the hijra role. I think there is great deal of fuzziness in the article in regard to whether things like "sissy" can be regarded as a gender role in the same way that hijra can. P0M
The problem you address (same topics elaborated on multiple times)is particularly prevalent in the biology-section. Maybe someone can tighten this section a little, (since I see no chance you'll let me delete it anyway.)--Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
§ I think that the biology discussion is there because there are clear connections between some biological factors and some gender role factors. Theoretically, men could wear skirts and women could wear trousers in some society. Theoretically, men could wear trousers that zip up the side and women could wear trousers that zip up the front. (I still remember the day my mother first wore a pair of men's blue jeans. She tried to act cool about it, but she was uneasy about what was going to happen because she had abandoned the side-zipping variety. A few years later side-zipping blue jeans were a thing of the past in the entire country.) Some people want to maintain that gender is not a matter of convention, that it is really just sex, and that it has an entirely biological grounding. I think that is clearly not true, but to be clear and to avoid misunderstanding I think it is useful to show to what extent their views are grounded in reality. P0M

§ I noticed, and tried to correct, confusions of terminology that might well cause readers trouble. For instance, "man" was sometimes being defined by genitalia and sometimes was being defined by gender. The same thing was happening with "male" and "female". I advocate using "male" and "female" for the biological sex, the biological factors that determine whether the individual is, was, or will be capable of producing either ova or sperm. I advocate using "masculine" and "feminine" for the genders of individuals, and the associated gender roles. It's a little tricky, but the "gold standard" for most people as to whether somebody is displaying a socio-normal gender role is whether that person's clothing, etc. correspond to the the person's external genitalia. Consider what would happen if "Francus" wore a man's clothing and wanted to become a sheriff's deputy and ride shotgun on the stage coach, but everybody in the community thought "Francus" was a girl because of a high tenor voice and other factors of appearance and demeanor that said "woman" to them. So "Francus" goes down to the old swimming hole when the other guys are skinny dipping and strips before them, displaying penis and scrotum. I think that would end the argument conclusively. P0M 01:59, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are right, the usage of masculine/male and feminine/female as you suggest seem to be the accepted ones. We should be accurate about that. Also we should watch out never to confuse the terms sex and gender.--Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
§ Amen. (It has been a fight to get to the point where most people who participate in this discussion now regard the two terms as something other than synonyms.)P0M
In addition to that, your paragraph here shows another problem: Throughout the article, several times there are quite graphic examples involving male/female body parts. I don't see at all why these need to be there, but can we at least confine them to the biology paragraph.--Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
§ It would be theoretically possible for gender signals to be so arbitrary that men would wear brassiers and women would not, or that everyone would wear unisex clothing, cut their hair to equal lengths, etc., but where form follows desired function, the forms of bodies still exert an influence. P0M
Here is the best example of what I mean by that -
It would likewise be difficult to get women to wear tight-fitting fly fishermen's vests made of nylon netting with a half-inch mesh. Such a garment, regardless of how stylish it might be considered one fine year, would be too uncomfortable for a woman to wear unless she first bound her breasts with some other fabric to protect them from rubbing against the harsh netting and pocket contents of the vest.--Fenice 14:11, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
§There are comparable adaptations of clothing to fit male body parts. The lack of a front zipper or button closure might become the fashion sometime, but guys are too used to being able to take a leak without pulling their pants down to tolerate that style for very long. And, almost exactly parallel to the mesh vest example is the structure of trousers used in the practice of karate or other sports that involve lifting one's knee up near one's chin. Without a big gusset to prevent tight compression of the groin area, a good kick can incapacitate the person who performs the kick. Men martial artists may buy "kick jeans" that look like ordinary jeans but have a gusset. Women probably would not be inclined to pay the extra money since ordinary jeans work just as well for them. P0M
I understand and agree that there are different adjustments for different body forms in the clothing industry, like for men and for women, and for people who are thin and for those who are heavy. It's just that this is unrelated to the concept of gender role. To push your argument even further, you would have to argue that it would be much more practical for all men to wear mini-skirts - they wouldn't have to open the zipper to "take a leak", as you say.--Fenice 15:36, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

§ Looking back over the discussion above, it appears that some individual or individuals who made the original complaint has not signed his/her contributions. Please, if you are going to contribute, make it clear who is saying what. If contributor A writes para. 1 and contributor B writes para. 2, and neither signs his/her posting, then I am going to come in and accuse "him" of being inconsistent and muddle-headed. (One of the reasons I start each para. with a "§" is that I don't want to end up making a vicious attack against myself someday. ;-) ). If people do not sign their contributions then I'm going to start going through the histories to try to attribute comments to people. If I get it wrong somebody may get annoyed, so save yourself the irritation, please. P0M 02:12, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's all been written (and signed) by me, Dysprosia spread up my paragraphs because she wanted to comment on parts of it. I think in these cases it should be ok to attribute the isolated parts to the contributor by putting their name brackets. I added your name to some of the paragraphs above in this way to avoid confusion.--Fenice 10:28, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
§ Good. Thanks. (That's what I usually do if I see that somebody has split soemthing up and I get on the scene soon enough that it is easy to tell what has happened. P0M

malleable vs. hollow

I changed the sentence about hollow traditional roles back, because hollow acurately describes the situation for women. Because malleable may better apply to the masculine role, I added a sentence. Please check if it's ok. Its in the Culture and Gender role section.--Fenice 10:31, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ I'll have to look at that passage again. I think I know what you mean now. Is it like my example of my mother's jeans? My grandmother never wore anything but a one-piece dress, or maybe on rare fancy occasion a fancy blouse and a skirt. I think she would have felt as strange and out of place in "men's jeans" as I would feel walking downtown in a dress. But now the "demand" that women wear stereotypically feminine clothing, ride horses using a side saddle, etc. is no longer a solid demand. It's more like the 65 mph speed limits that almost nobody pays any attention to (in this state, anyway). P0M

even when both parties in a marriage work outside the home

women do most of the housekeeping work, even when both parties in a marriage work outside the home - this part was added in the Feminism sections. I removed it again, because: First, I have never seen a study that makes that distinction, even if it would be interesting to know and may well be true. Also, it stresses that someone might still think that housework is womens work. --Fenice 11:40, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ I thought this was a valid gripe of feminists. It would be worthwhile to dig up the statistics since (unless I have always lived among sociologically abnormal families) it used to be the norm and the position of women in this regard has improved over recent decades. Actually, you seem to have the same view of what things were like in the past, the idea that people used to believe that housework is women's work. (Some guys wouldn't have been caught dead in an apron in the past.) P0M

This is the largest part of the current first section:

Gender roles to express one's gender identity can be extremely varied. A masculine gender role could include wearing men's clothing (such as just a pair of swimming trunks at the beach, a necktie and a business suit while at work), going to the pub occasionally, drinking beer and playing darts with his friends, swearing if he hurts himself, seeking or maintaining an executive job, and so on. Another masculine gender role could include wearing men's clothing (such as jeans and t-shirts), enjoying watching movies with his significant other and seeking more traditionally "blue-collar" employment. A socially acceptable masculine gender role would not ordinarily include wearing women's clothing (such as a frilly cocktail dress, high heels, a broach or pearl necklace while at work), hawking and spitting, etc.

I completely fail to see what this says. Yes, I can see that there are numerous examples, that are trying to illustrate something, but the question remains: what is the writer trying to illustrate. The only hint as to what he wants to say is, that he does believe that gender roles can be extremely varied. Is this sentence trying to say that there is more than a single masculine gender role? Or is it trying to say what we already know, that sexologists believe that gender role is individual behavior and that therefore there are as many gender roles as there are people in this world? ???--Fenice 11:50, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ I very much agree with you. And there is the place where somebody maintains that boys like blue. I figured that the writer was trying to give some examples of typical gender roles, but I have the same questions/objections that you have. It may be valuable to observe that the salient features of gender role discussions pertain to what is considered deviant. There are a dozen or a hundred or maybe a thousand ways for a person to carry a bag of grocieries. But there is a wonderful vignette in a Monty Python (?) movie where the police patrolman and his superior are investigating a crime scene. The patrolman puts some stuff in a shopping bag and loops the bag over his wrist, and he promptly gets called down in a gruff manner. When guys started wearing long hair many of us discovered that your hair fell down in front of your eyes at the most inconvenient moments, such as when you had both hands full and were trying to make headway in a crowd. The natural thing is to flick you head up and back to whip the hair back where it belongs. But even though I was doubtless doing the same thing, I always had the "why is he trying to act like a girl" reaction when I saw another guy doing it. That is just an association of a behavior that had come to be viewed as "feminine" because up to that time in the 60s the only males who might have done that were the long-hairs among the composers and conductors of classical music. I think a list of these "gender transgressions" might be manageable. Listing the "acceptable" roles would turn out to be an endless job, and one fought at each juncture because different people would probably have different ideas of "how standard" or "how deviant" a certain role might be. P0M

Edit by John Foley that I removed

context women earn less than men: However, this interpretation has been challenged on several levels. Firstly, in Western societies, any overt direct or indirect discrimination is illegal. Secondly, the statistics refer to the outcome of women's choices, not to the opportunities open to them. Thirdly, it ignores other ways of measuring value e.g. the joy of having and raising children. Fourthly, although women may earn less than men, studies also show they control the majority of expenditure.

§ I agree with what Fenice says below. Also, the very fact that there need to be laws to regulate discrimination in the job place against women is indicitive of the underlying traditional social values. P0M
There are numerous arguments against this piece of writing. The most important one is: its out of place in an article about gender role.--Fenice 13:20, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
To respond in detail: the first argument belongs into a juristical article, it is irrelevant for feminism on the whole. The second argument is pure speculation (and I seriously doubt John Foley means this seriously???), and I do not see how it makes the orignal statistic false. Thirdly: the value measuring unit in the critisized phrase are dollars or euros not the 'joy of raising children'. The fourth argument: does one right make up for one wrong?--Fenice 13:20, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I just found the following comment on my user-page:--Fenice 15:44, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Re: whether women are discriminated against.

You deleted the points I made in Gender role challenging the assertion that women are discriminated against. This is part of a well-established debate which analyses simplistic interpretations. It is an important area which needs full discussion. I would be grateful if you could give arguments for your decision. JPF 13:38, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As I mentioned above: an article on gender role cannot be the place to discuss statistics that support feminist positions. I think this should be done on the feminism-page. I'd recommend though, that you copy your comments on the talk-page (discussion-tab)of feminism first.--Fenice 16:06, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
May I just add as a start: you're calling numbers on hard dollars "simplistic interpretations". To explain my above disbelief (is he serious?), I have to say that I find it simplistic to maintain that someones behavior is based either on choice or on law. This is what I would have to conclude from your 4-point-comment. Also, if you know the debate and are an economist you know exactly how the discussion on expenditure continues: we would have to go into all the gruesome details about what expenditures these are and that men decide over whether or not the resulting heavy bags are carried home in a car or not.--Fenice 16:06, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Things we could work on

§ I just reread the first half of the article. It's good to see the nice changes. I have to agree with Fenice about the "biology" section. It looks like it was written by a somewhat dysfunctional committee, which, in a sense, it was. Outline the article will probably allow us to efficiently tighten up this and other problematical parts of the article. P0M 03:34, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ Down at the bottom of the article there is a series of assertions:

Some examples of commonly seen gender role descriptions:
A man enjoys sex, has a career, and has difficulty expressing his emotions.
A woman wears cosmetics, and wants to get married, start a family and be a housewife.
An effeminate man, is a man who is more or less like a stereotypical woman.
A girl wears skirts and dresses, plays with dolls, likes the colour pink, has long hair, and wants to wear make-up.
A tomboy is a girl who behaves like a stereotypical boy.
A boy wears rugged clothing, dislikes the colour pink, plays with toy soldiers, participates in competitive team sports, enjoys fighting, does not cry, and has short hair.
A sissy is a boy who behaves like a stereotypical girl.

§ Are these assertions intended to be objective statements about real-life men and women, boys and girls? Are they intended to be normative requirements placed on people? Or what? Some of it appears to me to be factually false, but it has survived my earlier attempts to get rid of it, so let's discuss the passage here. The most questionable of all these assertions are statements to the effect that girls like the color pink and (it originally said) boys like the color blue. Maybe I was an abnormal boy, but I liked the colors red and green and didn't particularly care for blue. Surely the author can't believe that children are conditioned to like these colors, or that they are biologically programmed to like these colors. What does happen is that in our culture little boys learn that girl babies get pink blankets, etc., so they associate wearing pink with being regarded as a girl, and most boys dislike being teased for being a girl or a baby or both, so they generally avoid pink like the plague. P0M

§ Do we really need any of these list elements? P0M 04:05, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, we don't --Fenice 11:38, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Suggestion for a better last section

§ As mentioned above, listing "deviant" behaviors would probably produce a clearer sense of what accepted gender roles are for Western culture in the present. Are the following still reasonably current (given the "may be regarded" reservation)? What have I missed. (I note that I am much clearer on what would get me in trouble than what would get a woman into trouble.) P0M

  • The thing with "deviant" behavior is: it depends on many factors, what is considered deviant. The judgement will vary from country to country, it is different in every social stratosphere and depends on the subculture you are in.--Fenice 12:08, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Also, listing "deviant" behaviors would probably produce a clearer sense of what accepted gender roles are for Western culture in the present, as you say, is unnecessary, because people know their roles in society almost automatically, I will later describe in a separate paragraph how science explains this.--Fenice 12:08, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The line between masculine and feminine -- forbidden behaviors(POM)

Most behaviors are not actually forbidden, you are really listing conventions--Fenice 12:08, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The following activities may (in Western culture) be regarded as inconsistent with a feminine gender identity. They are things that "only men do.":

  • Urinating in a public place such as an alley, up against a dumpster, etc.
  • Hawking and spitting in public.
  • Wearing a belt knife (hunting knife, etc.) in public.
  • Appearing in public with dirty fingernails, grease on one's hands, etc.
  • Going topless in public.
  • Letting one's hair grow greasy and unkempt.
  • Grabbing one's crotch.
  • Carrying a paper bag by twisting the open end into a handle (which is regarded in some quarters as "country boy" behavior.)
  • Wearing smelly athletic linaments in social situations.
  • Carrying one's pack of cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of one's T-shirt.
  • Greasing one's hair as would a "greaser."
  • Letting one's beer belly hang out under one's blouse and over one's lower garment.
  • Carrying or wearing brass knuckles.
  • Scratching one's genitals.
  • Challenging people to fist fights, knife fights, etc.
  • Rolling one's knees together and apart in a way that could provide genital stimulation.(POM)
    • You're describing some subculture. Most men would "get into trouble", as you termed it above, if they did most of these. Imagine an attorney - he'd get himself fired, if he'd scratch his genitals at a business lunch and appeared to work with greasy hair and dirty fingernails, maybe even topless. By this I don't mean to ridicule your entry. The behaviors you list are probably typical for some subcultures, maybe rockers or bikers, I cannot tell which group. Also: from about 1998 to 2002 THE fashionable hairstyle was the so called "bad hair" aka out-of-bed-style. It took about 20 minutes and a bottle of grease to get your hair to look greasy and unkempt. (This style was popular among women and men, mostly youth.) (In Europe at least) A woman grabbing her crotch was recently featured in a video on MTV, I believe it was by the "Black eyed peas" - maybe they censored that in the US. Your description is US-centered in another way: wearing weapons - I know Americans consider this a basic right of every citizen - is illegal in some European countries. This also concerns large knives - you can have them at home, but you're not allowed to carry them around as a weapon. I think it is almost impossible to compile a list of what women cannot do. --Fenice 12:08, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
§ I'm trying to describe the gender-defining expectations the violation of which would cause the reaction: "That's not what a man/woman would do." It's harder for me to list things that women would do to create this reaction because I do not get a sharp reminder every time it happens. I may not notice, but somebody will notice and give Jane a dirty look or a shocked look. But as for what guys do that bring correction or retribution, I'm pretty clear. Most of the things that I list for women would be regarded as gross for men, inappropriate for many social contexts for men, and even illegal for men ("creating/causing a public nuisance" is the technical term for urinating in alleys and other such places, I believe. It is illegal in most places in the U.S., but I've seen it done openly in NYC -- by teenage boys.) A man would get in trouble for at least 2/3 of them in the workplace -- but he would be called a lout, he wouldn't cause anybody to ask, "Why is that guy acting like a woman."
  • I understand that you are trying to cristallize some behaviors which really and by everybody in the western world would be considered as "forbidden" for women. By my answer I was trying to show the effect that the list will have on the reader - he'll basicly find it a description of some subculture. The way the text is now, people would not know why it is there, assuming the reader does not read the talk page. --Fenice 07:22, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Maybe in some instances the reaction to one isolated behavior on this list might be "you should not be doing this because you are a woman" - but actually those would be isolated cases. The general reaction I would expect would be "oh, gross!". Let's take the paper bag case. Most people will not know this rule any more. Some will find it funny because it sounds like a quote from a fifties etiquette book. To some others it will still be THE LAW and women in this subculture would actually get dirty looks. All these prohibitions will only be valid for small groups, maybe an entire subculture. --Fenice 07:22, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The way to solve this dilemma in a sociological text is to go to an abstract level. A list of what constitutes THE LINE between feminine and masculine behavior to you and your neighbors will be helpful only to you. On an abstract level I can state that these norms are very important within one group/subulture. But I also have to state that they will vary from one group/subulture to another. Therefore a list of an individual perception makes no sense for an entire society.--Fenice 07:22, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
§ The things I'm looking for are the behaviors that are considered deviant because one is the wrong sex to do them (regardless of whether they are nasty in some more general way). The following example is true, but probably too specific and "picky" to make a good example. I went to buy a pair of work boots. I found the style and weight that I wanted, but the one pair was too small. It was a very light tan, and I think most people would probably call the color yellow. I was thinking that I would have to dye the boots because they would show any stain. I asked the saleslady whether she had other boots like that. She replied, indignantly, "You can't wear those boots! Those are woman's boots!"
§ Of course these behavioral markers change with the times. P0M


The following activities may (in Western culture) be regarded as inconsistent with a masculine gender identity. They are "things that only women do":

  • Wearing a skirt and blouse or a dress.
  • Carrying a purse.
  • Carrying a shopping bag suspended from the wrist.
  • Wearing eye shadow, lipstick, nail polish, rouge, or other cosmetics that change one's appearance. (Protective transparent agents to protect lips, nails, etc. against chapping or other damage would not count.)
  • Wearing nylon hose, panty hose, or not wearing socks with low-cut shoes.
  • Wearing a flower behind one's ear.
  • Using strong floral scents in hair oils, shampoos, etc.
  • Curling one's hair, and/or wearing it long. (There has been a great deal of relaxation in this regard since the demonstrations against the war in Vietnam that began in the 1960s.)
  • Wearing a brassier. (Wearing a T-shirt cut off just under the armpints is marginal, "gender bending" behavior.)
  • Wearing a corset.
  • Wearing a small wrist watch, a "woman's wrist watch."
  • Wearing a jeweled ring resembling an engagement ring. (POM)
    • I believe most of these, especially wearing gowns, jewelled looking rings, can be done by male individuals who belong to the gothic subculture. Also a jewelled ring and long hair are not at all uncommon for men, at least in Europe.--Fenice 12:08, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
§ Different strokes for different folks. Of course you can do certain things in certain places. That is because the cultures are different. The activities do not mean the same thing. If I wear a sarong in Thailand I am not "making a statement" about my sexuality. If I wear a sarong here, I'll have the neighbors up in arms.

Some activities are permitted for one gender but would be interpreted as homosexual for the other gender, e.g.:

  • A man may not kiss another man in public without arousing negative feelings and/or comment, but (especially in the past) such behavior would be regarded as normal for women.
    • Men kiss in France and its also done among dancers (even if not gay), to greet each other.--Fenice 12:08, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Of course they do, in those cultures. Arsenio Hall regularly hugged and, I think, kissed guys he greeted on his T.V. show. He defined and carried his own culture around with him. If people didn't like it I guess they didn't watch his show. And a U.S. President will kiss certain other world leaders when they first meet in public. But he'd better not kiss a "page boy" in sight or camera of anybody if he wants to be reelected, because the social context is different. And if a guy visits one of the hill tribes in Vietnam the normal greeting for males is to reach down one's counterpart's pants and grasp his penis. But I'm not going to try it around here. Whether the gesture were welcomed or not, the meaning of the gesture would be entirely different. P0M 14:45, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

§ Before anybody kills me, I don't care what people do as long as they don't do it standing on my toes. The list above is meant to reflect the general reactions of people in one society to lots of things that are almost entirely matters of convention. P0M

§ What have I missed? What have I gotten out of the ball park? P0M 17:43, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

§ Since nobody has objected, I will go ahead and get rid of the "boys like blue" stuff. P0M 00:44, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Biology section

this is a quotation from the biology section: Some people even argue, that biological factors sometimes can have an impact on which occupations are judged by a society to be appropriate for men, and which are judged appropriate for women. There is no reason why a large woman could not successfully shoe horses or deliver freight shipments from railway stations to the recipients' homes. However, there are not even very many men who have the strength and stamina to put shoes on a strong and uncooperative draft horse. Some societies sometimes seem to frequently jump from a valid observation to a false conclusion in cases such as these. A society may jump from the valid observation that only very few women would be physically suited to shoe a heavy draft horse to the conclusion that no woman should be a farrier, or jump from the observation that only few women would be physically suited to serve as a fireman to the conclusion that women should not be eligible to apply for those jobs.
In Europe, jobs dealing with horses are much more popular among women than among men. The percentage of men in a riding class is about as high as that in a ballet class. Now, Patrick, you are into equitation. Isn't it so that riding and handling horses has very little to do with strength. And in the occasions where it does the horse will always be stronger than the strongest man anyway. So I say, the above argument is false and dated.--Fenice 15:47, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

§ When the horse is cooperating, riding has absolutely nothing to do with strength. One of my friends was competing at Aksarben, i.e. in the state competitions in Nebraska. He tied with another rider, whereupon he removed saddle and bridle from his mount and went through the entire equitation sequence. The only "force" he could have applied to the horse would have been shifts in his body weight, which at the maximum would have been an inconvenience to the horse. In fact, the control that he did exercise came by using his body weight and deft touches or pressure with his legs.

§ When the horse in not cooperating, no human can win a contest with a horse on the basis of brute strength alone. My Arabian mare weighs about 800 pounds. When I bought her she was 4 years old and had never even been trained to being led on a "leash." She paniced one time when I was leading her on a long rope, totally jerked me off my feet, and dragged my ten yards before I came to my senses enough to figure out I should let go of the rope and stop collecting dirt in my mouth. Ordinarily, however, I could control her even in those early days. A much smaller person probably could not have controlled her because you have to use some measure of force and a lot of savvy. Just last winter I dismounted to talk to somebody, finished the talk, started to lead her up the road, and suddenly she took fright for some reason and reared up. She pulled the reins through my hands with such speed and force that one rein sliced the hide off one of my fingers like the blade of a bandsaw. A smaller person might not have been able to hang on at that point, or, if the person had hung on just their lack of mass might have permitted the horse to get started running, and then the horse would have been even more frightened because of "the thing running along behind her" and the person would either have let go or would have been seriously injured.

§ My farrier always remarks about how much improved my mare's behavior is now. He had trouble shoeing her the first few times because she didn't want to hold her feet up for him and sometimes she insisted on putting her weigh on her hoof so that he couldn't hold the foot he was working on up for her. She's only 800 pounds, but by shifting her weight she can put even more than 200 pounds of weight on the foot you're trying to hold up. I can't hold her foot up if she won't let me. My farrier can get the job done through a mixture of savvy and of force -- sometimes. Other times, in the early days, she would just put her foot down and he and I would have to reassure her and get her into a frame of mind again where he could get her foot up again and earn his fee and so get on to the next customer. A while back he told me about the trouble he had getting a disagreeable Clydesdale (the Budweiser beer wagon horses) shod. A big draft horse might weigh twice what my horse weighs. When one of them is uncooperative two people may not be enough to work with them.

§ Now what all of this says has nothing to do with sex. Experience and learning being equal, it has to do with differences in strength. A 90 pound person would have to be extremely adept to shoe my mare, at least if she were acting the way she used to act. A 140 pound person like me probably would be in the same fix if trying to shoe a Clydesdale that was skittish and uncooperative. It wouldn't matter whether the person was male or female. But to be physically suited to shoeing uncooperative draft horses on a regular basis you probably need to be twice my size and none of it fat.

§ I don't think I could pick up a struggling 100 pound goat, carry it over, and dump it in a pickup truck. My vet can do that. My vet is a woman, and she is about twice my size, well maybe not quite that much larger. But the point is that she is probably the largest, strongest woman I've ever known, yet I've known hundreds of men her size or larger.

§ I personally would never argue that my friend should not have been permitted to become a vet. But human being over and over again will make irrational judgments. They will often argue from the observation that 95% of humans are such-and-such a way to the moral conclusion that 100% of humans ought to be that way. In this case they make the implicit argument that because almost all women are too small to safely and effectively shoe Clydesdals horses therefore no women should be permitted to be ferriers. I'm not saying that this is rational behavior, only that it is a kind of behavior for which we can find many examples.

§ These arguments are based on knowledge of sexual dimorphism. I think that is clear because I can't think of a single instance where the normative gender role would insist that a job requiring great physical strength be performed only by women, or that a job involving feeding infants or some other task involving great gentleness, the ability to reach into small mouths to extract buttons and hair pins, etc., should only be performed by men. As far as I know, oversimplification is always involved: if most of the people who could do the job well are male, then only males are permitted to do it, and if most of the people who could do the job well are female, then only females are permitted to do it. Of course there are many jobs that are not "restricted" to one or the other sex.

§ In equitation, there is no advantage to size or strength, so what Fenice has to say about the prevalence of women in equitation does not tend to tear down my conclusions expressed above. In fact, for jumping the smaller average weight of women is probably an advantage. Interestingly, one other factor may be involved. Not knowing that the haut ecole movements are based on training designed to make horses on the battlefield better able to keep their riders from getting speared, stabbed, or hacked to death, many people probably see the beautifully coordinated movements as something like ballet, i.e., "sissy," and that may discourage some guys from getting involved. (And nobody who has never thundered up to a 5 foot tall jump can, I would venture to guess, can have any idea of the courage the riders in some equestrian events must exhibit.) P0M 03:46, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • To try to clarify the issue further I did a google test. In German there is a specific term for female farriers, "Hufschmiedin". So I used this characteristic of the German language for a test, to see how many female farriers there might be. This query brings 824 results, for the male term "Hufschmied" there are about 21 times as many. So if - very roughly, I know - we could conclude that about one in twenty, so about 5 percent of farriers are already female, that's a lot. And it is a lot more than the above mentioned quota of men in ballet classes. I completely trust Patricks description of handling horses above. I don't think your conclusion is correct however. Few people (and not 95 Percent) still hold the norm that women should not become farriers or vets. Most people, like you and me, will say they don't care. I'd say that the norm is ahead of reality in this case and will cause more and more women to go into these fields. The practical obstructions for women to become vets, farriers, firefighters or sailors are often not role-related. Take firefighters for example: in many countries this is an honorary function that involves a good deal of camaraderie, that is: it is more important to meet regularly and have a beer than actually fighting fires. Also in any profession you deal with professional unions, you go to school together with other people of the same profession and you have contact with teachers in this profession. There will be mostly men in these situations. So, entering these fields as a women, you take over the role of a pioneer. Even if everybody accepts you, there is still a threshold, and it is a matter of (not gender role-related) personality if you want to be a pioneer or not.--Fenice 09:09, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

§ Do you maintain that there are no longer any valid gender roles? Are there no cultures or sub-cultures in which sanctions are visited upon people for violating gender role expectations? If you think that there are extant gender roles, then what are they based on? (Do totally groundless gender role expectations survive whereas gender role expectations that at least had some shred of plausibility have all disappeared?) Are there, e.g., societies in which men are expected to wear training bras and women are expected to go topless or at least bra-less? (Actually, there is at least one society that I have heard of in which the women are expected to do the field work (drive the water buffalo while themselves guiding the plow, for instance) while the men sit around and drink tea. Those kinds of situations are hardly the norm, however.)

  • No, that's not at all what I maintain. Yes, there are valid gender roles and sanctions. It's just impossible to list behaviors that no woman can ever do in all of Europe and the US. Socialization is the base for gender roles. It is plausible that gender roles are based on nurture. But it cannot be proven that any of it is based on biology. --Fenice 12:50, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
§ I think I see the problem, and I think it indicates that the article needs to be tightened up. There are two ways something can be based on biology, one is a direct way, e.g., being white, I'm likelier than some people to get another skin cancer if I move to a place with lots more UV. The other way is an indirect way, a case in which there is some objective information that a social construction can be hung on, e.g., some religious figure could claim that it is a sin for white people to live in some parts of the world, and that I was punished by God for living in Taiwan and in Denver. Even the idea that males should not nurse infants is a social construct. Even the idea that males should not gestate and give birth to infants is a social construct. (The experiment was done with baboons in the 1950s. As far as I know, no male human has been sufficiently interested or sufficiently courageous to try it.) There is absolutely no reason that a guy should not wear a bra, but there is hardly ever a physiological reason for wearing one. I don't think that is the real reason that bra wearing is not part of the masculine gender role. It seems more likely to me that people think of it as something that a man does to try to look like a woman, and for some reason that bothers some people very much.P0M
  • I have changed the section accordingly.--Fenice 15:16, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

§ I believe that, until the matter was taken to court, the norm in the U.S. was that women could not be firefighters. People were not rational when a woman with sufficient strength to perform the duties of the job sought to be hired. "It doesn't matter. You can't have that job because you are not a man, and that's that." The courts said that the legal demand for equality of opportunity trumped any consideration of tradition, i.e., "You can't enforce your irrational gender role expectation in the job place." The courts will, I believe, accept objective requirements, e.g., "Must be able to run a mile within 8 minutes, and must be able to bench press 150 pounds." (I'm just making these up, but you get the idea.) Men as well as women would be excluded from the profession on those objective grounds.

§ It may well be perfectly legal in some or in all jurisdictions in the U.S. for a man to appear on the beach wearing a training bra. The Constitution may protect his right to do that. There is certainly no harm done to either the wearer or the "audience" that I can see. But what do you think the real-world consequences of such an action might be? Would the tabloid in the supermarket bear the headline, "Crowds chear as Lukie Splavendorst becomes the first man to wear a bra at the public beach in Deadwater, Nebraska. Life Magazine sends a crew to document the birth of a great social innovation!" Somehow I think we are more likely to see something like, "Clinton repudiates news report on these pages that he entertained flying saucer people in the White House. Our editor in chief apologizes and resigns." ;-) P0M 00:38, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • I don't thin Splavendorst would attract any tabloid - cross-dressing is simply to common in our world. Except maybe a tiny local paper, which would probably print a negative evaluation of his actions. I don't deny that Splavenhorst may cause a local scandal in Deadwater, Nebraska. But most of the western world would not care. Life would not cover the story. If any journalist were to write anything positive at all, it would not be about a social innovation. Lukie would at best be portrayed as a courageous rule-breaker.--Fenice 12:50, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
§ The real question is how Lukie would be treated "on the street" in a typical community. A few years ago I had back trouble so my chiropractor said I should wear shoes with heals, not the flat martial arts shoes that I favor. Since I'm a rider and don't like having the hair rubbed off my calves, I picked up a pair of cowboy boots of the real kind that have a substantial heel intended to prevent one's foot from going through the stirrup of a western saddle. (If that happens when you get thrown you are going to get dragged to death too if you are not lucky.) So I was wearing my boots and a red pullover from Guatemala, and as a mother and her teenage daughter walked toward me as they were going to their car and I was going into K-Mart, I very clearly heard the mother say, "Here come a faaaag!" I wonder what she would have said if I had been wearing a kilt and a training bra. ;-) In an ideal world people would not judge others on the basis of appearance. Personally, I think we'd probably all be be better off with no need for gender signals. But if I can't wear cowboy boots and I can't wear yellow work boots and I can't wear "fancy" shirts without getting negative comment in a fairly normal college town... P0M 06:17, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

§ "Anthropologists have supported the widespread "common sense" idea that gender roles arise from biological differences between the sexes. They maintain that in the hunter-gatherer society the division of labor between men and women was nature-given." This is overly simplistic, and not up to featured article standards. What anthropologists are we talking about exactly ? First, no anthropologist worthy of his/her name would talk about "a hunter gatherer society" like only one such society has ever existed. This is a 18th century idea, not a 20th or 21st century one. Cultural anthropologists have assumed more or less complete separation between sex (as a "biological given", whatever that is) and gender since the 70's at least. Biological anthropologist may not have, but mostly the idea that the differences between gender roles are biologically rooted have come from sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. In any case the issue is excessively controversial, especially since the vocabulary used is confused from the start. See The Mismeasure of Desire by Edward Stein for example, or this article [1] for a discussion of the concept of innateness. Sbarthelme 17:23, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Agree and disagree (in part). I agree that the anthropology section is a century out of date with the hunter-gatherer and anatomy-is-destiny stuff. However, the pendulum continues to swing between nature and nurture. For instance, the cultural anthropologists of the 1970s who separated biological sex from gender contributed to the extreme "gender identity is learned" position which played a part in the idea that gender identity and role could be assigned and taught independently of early hormones and anatomy. A small number of people paid a high price when that theory made the transition from the university to the hospital. The section should make it clear that the scientists of all sorts, especially the anthropologists, have contributed data and theories that have been used to support every political aspect of this whole topic. I only know enough anthropology to know that this oversimpification is an embarrrassment. alteripse 17:46, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

§ Yes, the pendulum keeps on swinging, especially in areas such as psychopathology where purely environmental theories such as psychoanalysis lost influence to the more biologically-oriented neurosciences. But it doesn't swing as much as it used to, ie very few people in the scientific community seriously advocate extreme positions such as genetic determinism and "blank slate" theories. Although it sometimes seems like the nature/nurture debate is hopelessly mired in issues of politics and not science, I have some hope in recent developments like Developmental systems theory that might help (in the long term) reach a scientific consensus. Sadly, there's a long history of bad scholarship and weak data around this controversy, the biology of IQ being one of the worst examples. I think that paragraph should make that clearer, and so should the Nature versus Nurture article. Sbarthelme 10:53, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)