Tag: gender

Why Gender is not fully a social construct(part 1)

The argument has been made that gender is fully a social construct, with no biological merit. I want to argue against this point. First, I do consolidate to the fact that there are obvious cultural artifices in constructing how the two sexes behave. Pink is for girls while blue is for boys, Ashley is a girl’s name and john is a boys name, etc, these are all examples of gender norms put in place by society. But there is also certain predisposition that is fully biologically based. Point one, men and women have varying degrees of hormonal difference. Men on average have far higher levels of testosterone than women and women on average have far higher levels of estrogen. Our emotions and behaviors are heavily based on chemicals in our brain. For example, higher levels of testosterone lead to a higher instance of aggression, assertiveness, and violence. Estrogen makes individuals more empathetic. These two chemical being unequally distributed among the sexes leads to both having two different biological dispositions and behavior.

There has many who point out how Gender roles are socially based. But I want to argue that gender roles are a part of human evolution. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species which means that there is the physiological difference between the two. First men are on average 3 inches taller and weigh 25% more than women. Nature doesn’t just make species sexual dimorphic unless there was some sexual are surviving benefits from it. Case in point, a book written by Leonard Shlain “Sex, Time, and Power”(A must read) Shlain( a surgeon) theorizes that because women on general suffer from Iron deficiency(due to the fact they lose blood every month from menstrual cycles, as well as their red blood cells produce less Iron), and the fact women have to go through eight months gestation and six years weaning a newborn child. Women needed men to help them attain Iron by providing her with meat, in return the man got copulation.

For those(particularly feminist) who are skeptical about this. Imagine 150 thousand years ago, living in the Savannah of East Africa being a pregnant mother(let’s imagine 6 months) trying to go hunting. You would put yourself as well as your child at great risk. Sure you would be able to go forging, but subsisting on local vegetation alone will not be enough for you are your gestating child. Men would have to go out and hunt while the woman remained in the village. This arrangement would exist for all of humanity until the emergence of civilization around 10 thousand years ago.

With the beginning of civilization, humans moved away from solely surviving on wild game and vegetation but to domesticating both crop and animals. Many of the roles that woman had previously still remained somewhat the same, because women still got pregnant and had to attend to her young children. Men now had to attend to the field are face starvation. We see the emergence of patriarchy in this time period. Men having a physical advantage over women, took responsibility of keeping the society safe from outsiders as well as seeing to all the intense labor required for agriculture.

Feminism as we know it wouldn’t become a serious ideology in Human affairs until the industrial revolution. For good reason. Humanity(at least in the west) weren’t reliant on muscle power but that of stem and steel to grow its food. Women could go out for work. This new era of technological advancement is the only reason feminism was able to emerge!

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Women role in their degradation

Many women or so call Feminist will argue that we currently live in a patriarchal society where women are seen not an as human beings with emotions or thought but as objects. Women are being objectified to mere sexual commodities, here to serve as men sexual fantasies. This is correct in many ways women are constantly being objectified in American pop-culture, in fact, women are objectified in many cultures outside of America. Have you ever watched a Japanese anime, in which the majority contains a stereotypical big-bobbed female character?

My only critique to this is that it paints a very one-sided picture of men demeaning women, were women are innocent victims of men’s insidious sexualizing of them. But aren’t women partially to blame for this? When I walk the streets of New York City in the summer what do I find, scores of women walking through the streets seamlessly with tight jean shorts, legs exposed, and buttocks prudently out? I as a heterosexual young man has my attention constantly diverted to glance at these delicacies of the flesh.

Here’s the point to be made, hip hop videos are constantly galvanized for its disparage imagery of women, but instead of criticizing the rappers or the directors, what about the women that fully participate in their so called degradation. The women who for a price will perform all sought of sexual depravity on screen. This is the pragmatism of these criticisms it doesn’t hold women accountable.

I once remember watching a Tupac interview, in which he addresses the criticism to his demeaning lyrics, his response was “women say bitch the loudest, they themselves no there are bitch’s out there” to give my own interpretation of Tupac response, I believe Pac was just stating women themselves know that there are egotistical women who will resort to any means get what they want.

A justifiable response to this post is that women grow up in a society, in which they are constantly bombarded with images on how they should behave, talk, and dress. This is the same for men, that are taught to be tough, lack emotions, and are encouraged to conquer as many women as possible, and are celebrated and admired for their promiscuity, while women are ridiculed (by both men and women) for replicating these same behaviors.

Now there’s a possible scientific explanation for these double standards. The theory holds that men are biologically programmed to have as much sex with as many women as possible, to better their chances of spreading their genes, and thus ensuring that a piece of them exist for the next generation (kind of poetic in a way). Women on the other hand are supposed to be more sexually selective with who they mate. Women (as the theory goes) are to look for men who have the best resources to ensure their offspring survival (in our modern times that means men with the most money) and those that show signs of good physical health, i.e. tall height, muscular built, and a symmetrical face.

Like any group that’s oppressed, in order for the oppression to be successful, there has to be compliance between the oppressor and the oppressed. And this in my opinion is the case presented here.

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