Swapping manhood for masculinity, patriarchy’s currency exchange system.

Feminism tends to be equated with ball busting and viewed as the ultimate threat to manhood. The reality is the social system of masculinity is the biggest threat to men, and because of it men are made into the biggest real threat to each other. Those who champion traditional masculinity and war also champion young men going off to be killed, they champion men getting their balls blown off in combat and they champion men as agents of instrumentality to be foot soldiers in a system that benefits men as a class over women as a class but is a cost to many men as individuals as they are the ones who pay the high price of masculinity.

Don’t look to the woman who wont lick your wounds, be them psychological or physical, look to the man who inflected them and to the system that made him doing so the norm. Ask why masculinity has to be achieved, and note that by the time it does the male body you came with it well past its youthful prime, infact the act of achieving masculine social status will siphon off your energy and give you credit in the form of wealth. Looking to women and saying it’s their fault, they evolved this way to look for accomplished men is pointless because we live in a system that separates the male youthful energy from its evolved goal by several years. Even if it true that women evolved to look for certain traits in a male so he can build things for her and find food while she reproduces and nurtures the young, it still does not translate to the modern day idea of women seeking out today’s idea of success in men. Today the actual traits and behaviours that lead to men building things or finding food are used up in a work system where people get paid very little in return, so take years to become successful and save up money. In the natural evolved environment all that work would go directly from a man to the resources and back home to the cave, and as he aged he would be less able to be accomplished because without money he cannot save the proceeds of the work he does today for the future. He may have got a social standing as an elder in the group, but only through exploitation would this give him access to women. Today a man age 18 will have hiss time and energy siphoned off for 20 years, then he may have saved enough or worked his way up enough to be considered today’s version of accomplished. There is no way that the more primitive part of the brain would suddenly switch to women finding older rich men attractive because it evolved in a more early time, a time when many did not survive to old age and where storing wealth was not a thing, your wealth was in what you could achieve in the now and still is really. This system steals everyone’s true wealth, energy is richness, skills are richness and your own creative potential is richness and we are forced to trade them all for less then they are worth.

The system is designed so only a few men do become accomplished, most become labour factories that won’t get all the things in return for being socialized into masculinity that’s promised, so today they give free internet porn and soon they will produce all kinds of sex machines via robotics. If there is a war the decision will be made by older men and those who fight it will be young men and some women, those who appose it will be more likely feminists. War is a symptom of instrumentality being directed against others, and it assumes the thing fraught over matters more then the cost of the war, it assumes ideas created by older men long dead matter more then the lives of the young. There were times in evolutionary past where people fought for the limited resources needed to live, they fought to live and that’s justifiable. But when war reaches the stage where the resources we all need to live are destroyed in the process of maintaining power and domination over other and over how they think or live it’s not justifiable. To kill to get resources that make your life easier or to get resources for people who will be your decedents and don’t exist yet is not justifiable.

Patriarchy’s gender system acts to separate men from their emotions and natural connection with others, all the things that would get in the way of them wanting to both rule and kill others. Men are not born masculine, they are made to do so and in the process their true humanity is destroyed. And it’s replaced with an illusion of individuality and independence that comes at the cost of women. Men who are seen as too soft due to retaining many of their expressive traits which make them more connected and caring towards others are bullied until they become hardened and withdrawn by other men. They are made to feel like they are not a real man or even made to think that somewhere along the line some feminist stole their masculinity, they are set up as an example of what will happen to all men if feminism reaches its goals.

Patriarchy created a world where we have to fight to be free, have strength to navigate the world; because it created a system where no one has the freedom they are born with. It created a world where having once been dependant on a female body for life is a reality that has to be forgotten and replaced by a story of a male god who made us all.

Men as a class know the cost of the masculinity system, and they have been willing to pay it. Having control over women as a class and over their reproduction and labour is something they are not going to give up without a fight. Feminism has made women less accessible on men’s terms, and it has made the pay off of the masculinity system less rewarding for more men, but it has not fully reached the men higher up the social system yet. They are the ones that benefit from the exploitation of all women and men economically below them.
Feminism cannot destroy the original essence a man was born with, but patriarchy can and does and masculinity is a symptom of this destruction, a sign a separation in self has been achieved. it’s a bit like weight vs. mass, mass stays the same, gravity determines weight and the patriarchy is the gravity and the gender system the scales, masculinity a measure of how much you weight under patriarchy. Your mass will remain the same when the gravity adjusts, when the measure of the scales are removed, if your strong you will still be strong, the essence of what you think makes you a man still remains, what changes is you don’t get to be more or less of a man based on what traits you have and what you do. Any capability you have in yourself will not be destroyed by feminism, what will is its use to further the current system or to exploit women. The exploitation of others should not be needed for anyone to maintain your sense of self, strength only in contrast to someone made weaker is not true strength. Power only because you have social permission to tell other how to use their own power is not true power as true power can only exist in the self and rest in the ability to be in full control of the self. True power cannot exist in a system where people don’t know the boundaries between self and others, where connection is used to control and people don’t know the difference between being effective and using other peoples power. Winning that depends on someone else losing, success based on another failing are only comparative forms of success that exist as a measure on patriarchy’s scales. True success or accomplishment is in creating something that stands in its own right regardless to what someone else does, and where how rich you feel is not based on how poor someone else is. None comparative value is hard to imagine, because we live in a hierarchical system where things have value outside their actual properties and also where that value is tied up in competition with others.

Youth vs. Money.

If everyone was young, youth would still have value, and it brings with it the possibility of more energy, less chance of disease, longer life. Most people would rather be 20 then 80 no matter how many other people are 20.

If everyone had the same amount of money and lots of it then money would lose all its value. If everyone had all the food and water and shelter money could buy then food water and shelter does not lose its value because it’s still needed. Others having it do not make you want it less or make it less appealing.

If everyone had the same social status, then social status would not exist at all. Power over others could not exist at all. Exchange could exist because everyone’s mass in the world would still consist of different things, some strong, some nurturing, some creative some adventurous, people would not be weighted based on the traits they contain and assigned a value as a man or a woman. The things achieved would be valued for their use, not who made them.

Patriarchy produces a system where one is expected to trade the things that have true value for the things that have false value (social status and money). Men under this system are socialized to get these things directly, and women are to get them through men after being forced to trade reproduction.

This is a system that had to end.

Masculinity Revisited

Gender critical feminists and gender abolitionists view masculinity as male dominance or the role allocated to men to maintain their dominance over women as a class. Masculinity as a social system has to be destroyed to liberate women from male domination, but does that mean we have to give up wearing blue, watching football or having muscles? Does it mean we can say that all the traits associated with masculinity are destructive, and can’t exist outside of male power or any form of power? As general rule, most instrumental personality traits (Individualistic, Proactive, Motivated, Active, Analytical, Systemizing, Directional, Opinionated, Self Motivated, Aggressive, Strength, both physical and of will, Directness, Humour, Leadership, Competitiveness, Drive, Practicality,) are coded as masculine and encouraged in males/ discouraged in females but naturally can occur in most people. Besides being allocated this trait set and the skills and interests that go with them, males are also allocated more social power which persists in the absence of these traits and interests.

Colours

The colours pink and blue have both been associated with masculinity at different times in history, and have nothing innately in them that attaches them to sex, so its likely this will be more about personal taste in the future. The problem lies in making things blue to point out it’s for boys, or with making things that serve a function that has been associated with a task allocated to males in the past blue to mark it out as not for girls. Outside blue and pink the issue of making things aimed at men in deeper colours and things aimed at women in pastels to imply a link with the personality traits expected of the sexes (strong vs. delicate etc or that the women’s clothes will be worn more indoors) or insisting things that are unrelated to the needs of the sexed body be made based on sex at all. Even delicate fabrics imply women will spend more time caring for the clothing, and favour look over function and not do activities that would tear them.
Physical strength

Physical strength is greater on average for males vs. females and because of this tasks that require greater physical strength are allocated to males and coded as masculine and in many cases paid more simply bc male are seen as first class citizens and expect more. When women with the strength to do these jobs appear they face barriers to accessing them and the pay that comes with them and women tend to be demonised for physical strength as opposed to society’s greater value for it passing over to women when it comes to something that will lead them to greater pay. So in reality actively trying to devalue physical strength its self because it’s associated with men is only indirectly hitting the problem because males are valued more when doing other things, if jobs requiring strength paid less they would be passed over to women and done in smaller amounts. There is no reason women could not build houses out of smaller parts and spend longer doing it… In reality physical strength is as needed as the things you want to do with it, and how much you value it depends on how much you need it and it’s not inseparable from stamina. There is no evidence that stamina is sex specific, and this is why jobs requiring it don’t get a pay hike, and in a sense it’s more important then strength. Humans as a group need to make best use of physical strength in ways that achieve shared goals, regardless of physical sex.
Leadership

Leadership is something that is linked to masculinity and only valued when done by men, if done by women it’s always viewed in a negative light regardless of how it’s done. It’s assumed that because men have deeper voices, don’t have babies and are seen as more naturally aggressive they are more suited to this role. Under patriarchy leadership is power, and those who work under it are seen as below and in service to it. But in reality leadership is a task, the boss and the admin worker both provide a similar service, both are about structure and organization and both are needed for things to work and for the main workforce to know what they are doing, both jobs are instrumental but only one gets to make decisions and to hire and fire and only one is not seen as a servant, and that’s the boss (unless they are only a manager and then they are seen as serving the boss, never the workers). Without social hierarchy the manager and the worker are both in service to each other and on the same level, but management is still a needed task and someone has to make decisions and these decisions cant always be voted on because workers may only be working on one sector of the project and the manager has the full template of the whole thing. Without a structure like this big projects could not be completed if everyone had to work and keep the full plan in their head, so the need for managers will always remain, but the difference will be that they are not paid more, valued more have more power or be expected to be male.
Individuality and Autonomy

Individuality and being autonomous is expected more of men then of women and this is related to ideas that by biological design the male can go off and do his own thing as he takes a smaller role in physical reproduction, is more capable of looking after himself and is by nature more capable of getting to know the world and has less need for emotional connectedness. Being a man is about rolling on in life making your own decisions and facing the consequences directly and under patriarchy women are seen as part of that world and to be used. Men being individualistic and autonomous under patriarchy is not really a reality, its only possible to the extent it is when women as a class are making it possible, by doing all the childcare, cooking for them and doing many of the everyday tasks including managing men’s emotions and connections for them and even acting as a peacemaker among men to mop up when the competitive drive goes overboard. True individuality and autonomy would exist in a way that generates something that sustains the self and leaves some for others rather then depending on others to sustain it for you. It would mean being able to truly know and deal with the consequences of your decisions, on all levels including the emotional. Under patriarchy true individuality can never exist, because it separates the instrumental from the expressive and it means that individuality results in freedom at others expense rather then freedom that has a neutral or plus side impact on others. The question of if any human is capable of being fully individual and autonomous remains, because all humans are social animals with needs, but this does vary.

People by default should not be seen as owing others anything, but the line has to be drawn if the things they want to do under a stage of extreme separation affect others. At present men as a class when expressing individuality under the masculinity construct are not made to see the impact of their choices on women, and are actively preventing women from being individualistic and autonomous. There is one thing clear, no matter what path you are on if you are willing to obstruct another following a similar path something is wrong, if your going to do your own thing then others must be able to do so too and if they cant due to you needing them to do something else so you can be on your path, then it means your not truly on your own path. Its a bit like going out for a long walk, deciding where your going to go and also what your going to eat, whatever your going to eat has to be organized by you and cant be acquired by someone else having to stay at home and you angering at the fact they went out for a walk too, when you get home you must clean your own boots otherwise your walk was not an independent walk at all.
Clothing and Functionality

Clothing allocated to men or coded as masculine is usually thing that have a greater deal of functionality as opposed to just being things that have an absence of things that are ornament. Many womanswear items don’t have much about them that’s ornament but have little functionality built into them, and some menswear has ornament with no loss of functionality. Clothing also has things added to it to enhance features of the sexed body along side its functionality and ornament. It’s possible to find clothing that is highly ornament and fine like silk or high grade cotton in various colours but still retain the functionality associated with men’s clothing and if made to fit the male body in a way that plays up certain features the clothing will still be seen as masculine. The less functional it gets and the more the colours and patterns crossover in to current womenswear ones the more it gets coded as feminine. Womenswear which lacks ornament and is highly functional will still be seen as masculine even if cut to the shape of the female body, and this can be retained even if the clothing has some ornament added depending on how inline the ornament is with styles currently coded as feminine. Another factor apart from functionality that adds to clothing being viewed as masculine is things that indicate authority like ties or things that look like a suit or uniform of some kind, for this clothing to have that impact it must be in formal colours otherwise it won’t work. Often this clothing have things on them that have no function other then showing status, the embellishments are not there for ornament and because of that they serve an instrumental function as opposed to an expressive one. These could be stripes to indicate a rank, a tie of a certain colour or design and even colours used to indicate rank. Blue and pink when used to mark out children’s ties are used instrumentally and do act to mark out rank. When logos or fashions are used to mean something rather then for style they become instrumental and more associated with masculinity.

A lot of the clothing associated with masculinity now has a function outside the power dynamic and because of that will remain, there will always be people who want to dress more for function then ornament or any combination of both, and people who wear symbols to indicate meaning or ideas. What will change is how the clothing interacts, some things may remain for style like a full suit and tie would likely become a fashion item removed from its formal power association and made to fit who wears it in many fabrics and colours, it may become a small scale custom made item or it may vanish completely. What’s functional depends on what you are doing, what you need to put in the pockets etc and what you want it to fit you like. It’s likely a range of different ideas will emerge all with varying level of function and ornament. The function will serve the tasks of the time and the ornament the styles of the time, and not be linked to sex but clothing will still be made to fit the sexed body because of anatomy reasons, it just wont have sex based rules as to function and ornament. The concept of looking powerful socially through clothing will be gone, clothing that widens the shoulders will be just that, and exposed muscles will be just that, and there will be no way of showing social rank or status by clothing. In work colours and uniforms will persist for instrumental reasons of knowing who is who, and they will be wearer tailored and could consist of just a colour on the arm and then of whatever is needed to do the job leaving room for people to add ornament or extra functionality based on individual preference. Its likely rugged work wear will live on long after formal office suits because real world hands on tasks will always need doing and require certain clothing, many office tasks would be served better in a light weight cotton gown or some other fabric not made yet but not related to power over others because no hierarchy will exist .

Aggression and Competition

Aggression and competition can be grouped together when talked about as traits associated with masculinity because they are inter related and stem from each other. Both things exist as traits in humans to varying degrees, but having a social system where these traits are ideal and the driver forward is a product of patriarchy, without it these traits would take a back seat. This does not mean some people would not get angry any more or that people wont take part in races or contests, it means a social system that makes doing so necessary to survive would be gone.

At present most of the instrumental traits and tasks are to be done competitively as we live under an hierarchical social system, getting more then someone else is to be the life goal and its a result of a money system and patriarchal domination of resources. Women are seen as a resource so aggression and competition to acquire them towards women themselves or other men becomes part of the male sex role. It’s claimed women are punished for aggression and competition but in reality it depends on the direction it’s going in. Women who fight on the sides of men, or over men are not punished in the same way as women who fight men off. Women may should if they are shouting the tune of the patriarchy, but not if they are shouting for its destruction. Women may compete for marriage and men but not for tasks or jobs they want to do.

None conformity to patriarchy’s gender is a pattern of trait expression, not just simply expressing the traits in isolation outside context. A woman competing for social reward via a man vs. a woman competing for social reward in her own name and with aim of not needing a man will all be seen different. A woman who tries to bake a better cake then another woman is not viewed the way a woman who builds a bigger shed then a man next door would be, because competition is recognised more when its done in areas coded as masculine and its because the instrumental tasks are ones with more money attached to them and are to be done more competitively.
Gender non conforming in the land of no gender system.

Female gender non conformity always gets associated with masculinity because one has to cross over into territory coded as male only before they are seen as gender non conforming so from this a concept of female masculinity arises. The question of what it really is can never be fully answered but it’s clear it arises in many cultures, under many names and is related to the cultural construct of gender along with a tenancy to not want to follow the female allocated role. How its expressed is not universal, some women may identify as butch and be at their ideal when wearing a suit and tie and others will be at their best in utility hiking gear out in the woods and see themselves as a tomboy and its not clear which comes first the identity or what’s behind it. In the past when sex roles were more tighter then they are today it was more clear who was butch and who was not and there was more space to get labelled butch because women did not fix cars, women did not own there own car as often as men, women did not wear trousers or go hiking alone or watch football. There was a lot more things then just not liking pink or too much ornament in style of dress or liking functional clothing (functional in things coded as male activity which was most things) that women could not do as women and a lot more active things that could make up a butch sense of self, a lot more ways to feel useful outside the female role by doing things for other women that they would have depended on men for. The butch did not exist to do those things though, the orientation towards certain interests took her in that direction, and as a result of this it became part of who she was. Many of us don’t realize how much of who we think we are exists in interactive loops with the outside, we get feedback for functions we serve in society and these become part of our identity and social feedback reward system. Opening doors and carrying bags could become a part of the self we link with our sex or concept of gendered self if these things in society are coded by sex, and having the drive to do certain things outside of our sex role expectation could lead to getting no positive feedback and to a feeling of a pull to give something you don’t have instead. In this case the only option is to go off and focus on what you want to do, and except you will never be valued for the set of skills you have and over time they will go rusty or end up used for the wrong things or things.

Today there is less room for women to be butch in the way they could be several decades ago, but more room for women to fix cars without being called butch and more places women can wear pants without being called butch, but still many of those pants are without pockets. If a woman wore mans pants bc they did not make as many options for women several decades ago, today she may be wearing women’s pants but if it was for another reason like deep pockets, price or quality she may still be drawn to men’s pants because these things still have not changed, they may have worsened. Its likely that when clothing no longer display ornament, quality or function based on sex they will still have shape differences due to anatomy and you will still get some who for whatever reason want to cross over still and get the male shape because they want to, so a shadow of gender non conformity could still be seen in individuals but it wont mean nothing to others only to the wearer and it wont be recognized as gender. How much it’s possible to see some as more like the opposite sex will have to move onto physical features and when hairstyles and clothing are not as uniformed it will be hard to spot which females can be profiled this way, whatever natural patterns form will form. Women will still have babies and periods and breasts and have to accommodate this factor in terms of how these directly limit certain activities, but society won’t impose limits on women because of them. A woman may decide she wants to fix her breasts in a way that will allow her to run faster, to reject reproduction and to wear the squarer cut of clothing but it will not matter. You could push the limits of biological sex and it would be your body and unrelated to your social position, there would be no trait link up like now. So you could be really strong and muscled but not seen as ready to fight or less nurturing or even expected to be nurturing, because these are all traits that are used for different tasks and we don’t need to be bound to the same task all the time. Being able to do one thing does not mean you can’t do other thing.

At present gendered traits do a minus and women are seen as one dimensional, some people are one dimensional and naturally have a few strong straits and interests and focus on them, and are punished for the ones they lack in relation to their sex role more then what they are celebrated for the ones they have in relation to their sex role. Without the gender system and its sex roles it would be harder to be gender non conforming based on traits or interests.

Transgender

Could Trans men exist in these times? And what would Trans masculinity be then? I think its possible, and if it did it would not require the same social transition, and its likely the changes in the body would be seen no different to the changed of going from child to adult, or young to old, the place the person is plugged into the social grid would not change, their value as a person would remain the same. They would just be changing their biological direction. People still may confuse sexuality with what’s left of sense of sexed self and any identity around it, maybe in these times we will find out what Trans really is when all the social baggage has been removed. Many gender critical people say Trans will no longer exist past this point, but im keeping the possibility open. All the traits I have talked about can all exist together with trait currently coded as feminine, the way forward is to look in the pink and blue boxes as there are things in each that are needed to make the complete picture. Building a post patriarchy will be as instrumental as it’s expressive and to do it all the tools need to be taken back from its sex role constructs.

The here and now

Things that are coded masculine or things that only men do need to be looked at what is achieved by doing them, the aim should not be to bring these things down to being worth nothing, some things are in the blue box because they are important and allocated to men as a result of that because women are seen as not capable of doing them. Power needs to be redefined as something that is not used against others more as an energy used to achieve a goal and goals have to be things that don’t involve subjecting others to things that are in conflict with their goals, or trying to convince them there goals are to be subjected to things that disadvantage them. True achievement is not something that looks like progress just because someone else has been held back, strength is shown in what you can do with it, not in relation to someone else who has less otherwise its meaningless outside power dynamics. The properties of something remain, but its value is subjective and this is how the traits that make up masculinity will exist post patriarchy.

De-Constructing Masculinity and Femininity.

The separation of instrumental and expressive dimensions of life and patriarchy.

The current patriarchal system is founded on separation between work and connection, between the home and family and the wider world and this was because it was made so women could be given access to certain zones of life and others could only be accessed through men and all were dependent on male approval in some way.

Traditionally the instrumental zone was only occupied by men, but this did not mean women never did any instrumental tasks. Women have always done instrumental tasks as part of their service script whenever they had to fill in for men, during the world wars women did many of the tasks allocated to men. Women who filled metal work factories also were doing instrumental tasks, but for much lower pay. Men as a class are allocated an instrumental role, and what makes it an instrumental role as opposed to a cluster of instrumental traits and tasks that an individual orientates towards is patriarchal power, cultural permission to run things. When women do instrumental tasks, they still dont have cultural permission to run things, and people cringe at them even having permission to run things for that task. Men as a class dont just have cultural permission to run the instrumental role, they also have cultural permission to run the expressive role allocated to women. They dont just demand women nurture and preen, but they tell them who to nurture and when to preen and how and they force women to clean up the mess men make in the everyday running of the patriarchy. Women are to birth the armies patriarchy kills in wars, they are to look after casualties of male violence and serve in the expressive role doing all the childcare while men run the show in a way that disadvantages women.

Traditionally the expressive zone is allocated to women, but women as a class dont get to nurture from their own core, they are to nurture the ideas of men and children in the shape of patriarchy. Women are to decorate their body, any big works of art out in the world is still reserved for men. So its not that women are to be expressive, its that they are to follow an expressive role and be visually and emotionally available to men. The world of communication and social networking is part of the expressive role, but women are told what to say so really the communication role of women is like a news reader, she must read the patriarchal news or be taken off air. Traditionally women answered the phone and took appointments mostly for men, they also tidied and filed away mens work. The expressive role under patriarchy is a service role, not another pole of a gender binary that has its own self generated way of functioning.

Looking at this its easy to see the expressive dimension is trodden on, and queer theorists refer to this as oppression of femininity as if femininity is some thing that exists in its own right. In reality it doesn’t but the thing they are describing is a reality, an aspect of life is being trodden down and its the connected, emotional aspect of life. This is a result of the unnatural separation of human personality traits into two roles and social spheres. To achieve it you have to create a division in self, otherwise people start questioning their actions, for sex roles to work people have to respond to every situation in life from a sexed perspective rather then a situational perspective because if people start looking at their actions and the situation rather their actions as a man or woman, participation in a system based on the abuse of others would not be as likely.

If you code instrumental traits and tasks as masculine, and expressive traits and tasks as feminine then you create a zone for each sex that keeps them in role and they dont question it. You can then add things to the mix, and people do them because their are part of their role. They dont stop to think about cause and effect, what are they instrumenting and what are they expressing or if their are wasting these potentials. Women dont stop to look at what they are nurturing and men dont stop to ask what they are running. Things start to make sense that dont make sense outside of gender and things become opposed to each other that naturally fit together. When you have shaped the instrumental potential of the human race in the direction of a corrupt system and forced its expressive potential to service it, but have hidden it as masculine and feminine you get the following none sense.

“Women today are becoming more masculine, they dont want to be women anymore”

“yes, femininity is so devalued today, people think the solution is to become more masculine”

“Ok, lets get both sexes to be more feminine, and stop masculinity ruling the world”

The above is queer theory approach, now my approach.

“Women today are becoming more instrumental, they dont want to be women anymore.”

“Why does becoming more instrumental mean women no longer want to be women?”

“Because they just seem to want to do the roles men do”

“and whats wrong with the roles men do?”

See the patriarchy is exposed now in a few sentences, it becomes easy to see that the thing wrong is not women becoming more instrumental, its whats being done instrumentally and thats patriarchy. If the overall system is maintained, switching the roles a little is a compromise, and we call this equality.

The patriarchy must separate thinking and feeling as much as possible, because it must separate action and empathy as systematizing and empathizing are results of instrumental and expressive traits. Reducing the emotions of men and controlling those of women is part of this, acting from feeling has to be the biggest crime for anyone allocated the instrumental roles or given any power or they may use it to free the oppressed and not further the system. Power is social permission to run things, and to run things you need to be instrumental, but you cant instrument things from emotion you must do it from the script. There is a big problem because women are given a script telling them what to empathize with, so even if they do instrument from feeling they will still instrument from the system.

For patriarchy to work they must get people to both systematize and empathize with it without stopping and thinking, and to do this they need gender. Thats because when you take instrumental actions its natural to run them through empathizing channels and look at if you are putting your mind and intellect into making something you want to know its productive. So they need to control your definition of productive. If your taking expressive actions, its natural to run these through instrumental channels and look at the effect, because if your empathizing you want it to be productive and beneficial as thats the point, so they need to change the definition you have of productive. Gender is how they change all the definitions, that way they can get people to use their systematizing ability to build weapons, harm others and they can get people to give away their empathy to the oppressive system and care about the oppressor not the victim.

In a sense masculinity and femininity are bad software that makes us all malfunction, and this malfunction is measured at the norm.

De constructing Gender(ed) Expression (Sexed Expression)

I think this one area is more important then gender identity in terms of gender abolition.

Standard old school trans theory referred to gender role/gender expression as outward communication of ones own inner gender identity. The gender expression spectrum runs from masculine to feminine and is based on the culturally constructed sex roles where clothing, mannerisms and behaviours all line up with the sex role power dynamic. Its here where the problem between gender critical and trans arises because its the idea that one expresses their gender identity by preforming cultural roles essentialises the method of women’s oppression. Its here where female and femininity and male and masculinity are seen as flowing from each other on a spectrum in proportion to gender identity, where one becomes more or less of a man or woman based on how far they are towards communicating each form of expression. Its also here where gender non conforming people end up mixing up social roles and biological sex. Some trans people due use cultural stereotypes to communicate gender identity/sex identity, but this is an adaptation in my view.

Modern day trans theory combined with queer theory is a mix of social construction and biological essentialist theory, and its recognised that gender expression and gender identity dont always link up because gender expression is in part socially constructed. The political analysis of how this is constructed stops there and people are to identify how they like and work to overcoming cissexism. A gap exists here because it assumes that the sex roles suit some people, it also erases power dynamics between the sexes because it does not even see sex as a fixed reality. Gender expression is still coded as masculine and feminine and not questioned, instead another identity is added for those who dont fit the box fully(e.g masculine presenting.)

Old school genderqueer politics used to be about transgression of sex role expectations via gender role non conformity or adopting the opposite sex roles, it was not centred around biological sex like now. Identifying as a genderqueer man or woman was about sex and not gender, the genderqueer part then was in reference to the masculine and feminine roles. Queer theory was social constructionist and it viewed gender expression as socially constructed and the expression of sex role expectation, rather then expression of gender identity. The difference between the two is viewing gender expression as performance of a given scrip, vs viewing gender expression as the living from an inner innate script related to ones own gender identity. When one sees gender expression as a performance of a given script, its easy to say that gender expression is fluid, without saying the person is gender fluid. Thats because the script is not running from them, they are running from a given script so you can give them another one. When trans theory mixed up with queer theory the idea of gender as fluid became a personal identity thing, resulting in people who want to preform both aspects of the two scripts seeing it as something within them rather then them dealing with a script they have given in a non conforming way. Now there is a situation where gender identity is said to be organic, ingrained and also fluid and changeable and its a result of a confusion of sex identity/gender identity with sex role/ gender role.

The only one way to fix this is to view gender expression as sex role/ gender role orientation and run its spectrum from instrumental to expressive and refer to it as the communication of personality and self through a gendered (sexed) cultural lens in a society that has two sex roles. Its no longer gender expression, because expression should not be gendered, its only gendered because of gender roles and these are socially constructed because of the sex based power structure. The current model of gender expression rely on the cultural notions of male and female staying in place, because to recognise gendered expression one has to have within them a map of the definitions of masculine and feminine and this map is based on the sex stereotypes resulting from sex roles.

Gender role/Sex role orientation could even be called just Role Orientation and then further placed on two spectrum’s of instrumental and expressive where people decide how much affinity they have for these two sets. Then political analysis of why we have gendered/sexed roles that extend into the self in the way they do.

HOW PATRIARCHY GENDERS PERSONALITY TRAITS AND FEMINIST SUBVERSION

I think calling these things masculinist is just re-gendering them.

Under patriarchy its the instrumental and expressive personality traits that are assigned to gender, the traits assigned to masculinity include a lot of things that women need to reclaim, aggression and domination are behaviours not traits and submission and care taking are behaviours not traits. What happens is that some people dont have the traits for the expected sex role behaviours to develop and these people have an harder time adjusting, but are not in anyway the wrong sex.

Instrumental traits include being task focused, driven, motivated, systematizing etc. Wanting to build things, or take things apart, excel at maths or science, all come from instrumental traits. Men are allocated the instrumental set, and are to develop that aspect of themselves. There is nothing wrong with both sexes doing this, its the next bit thats the problem. Men are taught to go about these tasks competitively, and women are taught to stay away from this aspect of themselves completely. As a result they are kept away from the explorer and scientific instinct. Instrumental traits are important for decision making, and men are taught to use them to make decisions for others, more so women and in some cases other men. Both sexes should be using them to make decisions for themselves and using the other skill set, the expressive one to ensure that what ever they do instrumentally does not damage others.

Aggression is really only motivation, shaped wrongly by patriarchy, motivation mixed with competition forms the basis for aggression because it turns the instrumental focus into a spear that is used to stick others. Competition is created by creating the need to compete to survive, and it means people take the instrumental traits and turn them into skills that favour survival of individuals over others. Anger is a natural by product of the unnatural situation, it arises when someone does better because it means your own chances are reduced if under a competitive system.

To get masculinity you have to have male +instrumental trait set + male power.

If you get a male who is tipped towards an expressive trait based personality, he will still be taught to use it against others in the form of competition. He may become successful in areas normally allocated to women, and when he does he will likely end up managing women. He could be an hairdresser, fashion designer, counsellor, charge nurse, careworker or male feminist because he believes he has a feminine side. If he has a lot of the expressive traits and does bad at being dominant, then he will fail in a big way at masculinity.

The expressive traits allocated to women centre around connectedness, co operation, nurturing, maintaining and caretaking, creativity, communication and empathy/people orientated. Submission is not naturally part of co operation, it results from male dominance and fear of violence and how it acts to control what women do with their expressive traits and also to stop them developing the instrumental ones. This is how women are forced to do all the caretaking and to use their creativity in ways to attract the male gaze and this results in competitiveness being added to women too, but in a different way.

To get femininity you need Male dominance + females. Then they are shaped into submission by forcing them into fixed expressive trait set and the proceeds are milked and controlled as a resource by men, this includes female nurturing, sexuality, beauty, the children they produce etc.

If you get a female with a personality tip towards instrumentality they will be motivated towards systematizing, and activities codes as masculine and this is not bad. What comes next is. They learn the only way to do any of these things is by taking on the toxic aggressive competitive aspect, because the borders are policed around the tasks men have claimed at theirs. If you want to wear menswear bc its more compatible with certain activity’s, then you get treated like a man in the sense men thing they can challenge you, and you still have to deal with the misogyny they throw at you for being female and you dont get a bit of a break for pleasing their eye. These days you may end up on blockers too.

Instrumental and expressive traits are not naturally divided. You could be independent, motivated, co operative and nurturing all at the same time. You could be systematizing and co operative, because you could build systems and tools for everyones use rather then to kill everyone in a war. What gender under patriarchy does is rape womens reproduction, and creativity and that of other men to some degree.

Instrumental and expressive when made into masculine and feminine are made incomparable, developing both in ones self will lead to inner conflict. One cannot be competitive and co operative, submissive and independent. Once the trait sets have been divided and poisoned by gender a divide is set up in the self and in the world.

As individuals we need to have our own sphere, and have some individuality and space, and let others have theirs and still work together to build a society. This would be a gender free way of being, but its not possible because no one person can do it all while gender exists.

For example men are allowed to be individuals and have their own sphere, but they wont let others have theirs because of masculinity they are taught to take as much for themselves and make other give up theirs. To take womens and fight other men for theirs. Women are not allowed true individuality, and are to work together under male command, which really means against each other as men are working against each other. They are to nurture who men say, and when men say.

There will always be a natural sea of personality traits which varies in all humans and for some reason some will have a set that looks like a gender, but its not. Trans people do have trait clashes with their sex role, but it may be in the raw materiel traits rather then the shaped ones. For example autism rates are high in FTM transsexual and autism makes a person more systematizing and this trait is coded as masculine. Its quite possible that a trait could exist which makes a person more artistic and drawn to colour, and could make a boy child more drawn to girls things because girls things are made more eye catching.

When it comes to imitating “masculinist” traits they should not be called masculinist because it could just end up with more gender based ideas coming up. I would call them patriarchal behaviours and list them below.

-Indirect aggression and backstabbing (results bc women are socialized to not be direct and honest so they dont hurt each others feelings or get their needs met.)

-Competition

-Aggression

-Belittling other womens achievements, related to competition.

-Excluding and forming cliques( because women are not taught proper debate, its related to enforced passivity where a woman is to always be agreeable.)

-Submission (this is why women remain on the fence while things are going on)

-Judging other women based on conformity to sex role expectations, this includes telling women they are being masculine or policing them about appearance. Examples in feminism include, wanting to not be associated with lesbians, the “This is what a feminist looks like campaign” trying to say some feminists can still meet beauty standards, exclusing women who look “butch” to get rid of the image feminists want to be men.

sisterhoodispowerful

Human personality traits, which anyone is capable of experiencing, are assigned to the social construction of ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ in order to reinforce male supremacy. From birth, women are assigned personality traits which are traditionally supposed to keep us compliant and controlled, such as co-operation, gentleness, kindness. They firmly place us in a subordinate caste. We are conditioned, controlled and punished unless, and until, we display these traits. From birth, men are assigned traits which will reinforce male superiority such as domination and aggression. They firmly place men in a dominant caste. Men are taught to dominate and dismiss women and to fight with each other over women as commodities in order to determine who is top of the pile. These traits, we are taught, are ingrained in each gender leading to women as submissive and men as ‘naturally’ (sic) dominant. Women adopting masculinist traits leads to a reinforcement of…

View original post 925 more words

Emptying the baskets of masculinity and femininity.

Historically, behaviour tastes and interests have been coded masculine and feminine and by coding them this they are gendered. In all cultures concepts of masculine women and feminine men have existed, and how dysphoric these people were we will never know. They may not have had dysphoria if they were aware that sex roles were just roles people took in response to environmental survival and reproductive needs and that they fitted in doing certain tasks for their own reasons and they knew both sexes were capable of a wide range of tasks but did what they did for a reason. Like for example they knew men could cook, but it was what women were doing due to the men doing other things rather then it being wired in the brain etc. Up to about 100 years ago, everything was about morality, and ensuring women got married before reproduction etc rather then being about interests and abilities because then most people lived a daily grind so they had less time to think about identity. Some people though still cross dressed for what ever reason and some men had tastes so far out of masculinity expectations they cross dressed fulltime, but may have not had the gender dysphoria checklist of today.

In society most things that get coded as masculine as things that are instrumental. Most things that get coded as feminine are expressive. Male and female bodies get referred to as masculine and feminine but in a different context, and sometimes graded based on instrumental and expressive perceptions. If a man has any physical features that make him more expressive he will get labelled feminine and this may seem harmless but its the root of the problem, it is the very thing that could send the person along the trans path because a link between him and the opposite sex is made and its a false link. What happens is in his mind two baskets are created, and in each goes all the things he likes that are expressive and all the instrumental things about him, what was once in one place is divided and then the baskets are labelled as masculine and feminine. Over time all of society gender junk end up in the baskets, in his expressive basket labelled as feminine will be all the physical features he is told are feminine. These may include a smoother jawline, softer skin, expressive eyes, nice hair, soft spoken, caring, and interests in art, fashion and clothing. And because society has made most expressive things for girls, he will take in some gender junk from the female social role, mostly the stuff put there at the expense of girls. In his instrumental basket now labelled masculine will be all the things about himself that are coded as masculine, along with a negative check list of all he is not or doesn’t want to be and all he does to resist that pressure. Unfortunately if things are extreme his male physiology will be coded masculine, and in the same basket as the personality traits and interests assigned to men and he wont be able to link together his expressive side (now coded feminine and in a separate part of his mind) and his male body. He may identify at first as a feminine man, then start wearing womens clothes, and then wanting female features because his expressive traits have become linked with female biology.

The only way to fully break the problem is to clean out both baskets and get rid of both baskets and this can only be done by getting rid of concepts of masculine and feminine because its impossible for feminine man or masculine woman to really sit in the mind and not gather societys gender baggage as a link is established between tastes interests and a persons sex. If something is feminine it links back to the role expected of women and if its masculine it links back to the role expected of men in a fast way.

Everything other then the male body thats in the masculine box is instrumental. Functional clothing, less detail, direct speech, tools, machines, personality traits that make it easy to get on and run things, with less interaction and be more systematizing. People with strong instrumental role orientations will fit the cultural constructs of masculinity very well, so if male will have less chance of gender dysphoria though it can still be a result of other things. The male body is said to be better at being instrumental due to more strength and not giving birth, but thats more related to culture then biology.

Most things in the feminine box are expressive, communication, interaction, nurturing and decoration etc. But in the natural environment women did a lot of the instrumental tasks too which may be why society has tolerated a little more fluctuation in sex role behaviour for women, as long as they go along with reproductive expectations. If a man has an expressive role orientation he will get a sense of being more “feminine” then many actual females and will have a greater affinity for the thing associated with being expressive. This is not trans but its a step towards trans and its these people who end up trans quickly when they are exposed to trans.

Gender non conforming expressive orientated males and high instrumental orientated females are the ones who will go straight to dysphoria once those baskets of gender already in them get activated.

This is what happens then. In the expressive male the expressive basket he has coded feminine becomes his female self, everything in his instrumental masculine basket is to be got rid of, his male body, any interests he had that are coded male and all the baggage of where he struggled with masculinity. Throwing out clothing, items from the past, giving up interests or even changing who one dates as nothing that will contaminate the new self can remain. He will feel great and have escalating dysphoria at the same time, and he will find he cant get rid of that other basket, and will be focused on getting rid of all the individual things in it.

He will gender other people when he enters the trans scene, he has a real radar for the traits associated with masculinity and femininity and of recognising them in others, and when he meets people who have traits outside their role he is quick to start seeing them as trans. He will start by telling females they are masculine or more masculine then him, and they may be gender queer or trans and he will feel his female persona threatened by those who identify as female but are not displaying the things he has come to see as feminine. (This is why butch women and trans women are running into problems)

Females get their baskets activated when they are repeatedly told they are masculine or trans, and are set up against their biology in the same way. The only way out is to give up that masculine identity and embrace the original instrumental orientation behind it, that way its possible to be it without getting an over eye gendered view of oneself.

When instrumental and expressive are separated from masculine and feminine they take a new shape. They can occupy the same space in varying amounts in a may that does not seem to the mind like a mixing together of the sexes. Its also easy to see how nothing is fully instrumental or expressive in its self, its more how the things are arranged. The colour pink can be instrumental or expressive depending on what its used for, if pink is used as a shade for its look its expressive and if pink is used to symbolize something it becomes instrumental. This is why they make clothes for women with non functional pockets, they are an instrumental looking item of clothing but are really being used expressively. They still may be called masculine looking, but really they are still inline with expressive bs instrumental as they dont function. This is why they dont put as many details on most menswear, if its there it does something. A woman in a mans suit as a trend is still expressive as its not serving a function if its worn outside a setting where a suit serves a function. This is why you get men mostly wearing the clothing for the activity they are doing, because thats whats instrumental, to start wearing menswear out of the right setting as a trend is a shadow of gender non conformity and its happening more now with men. Because clothing of any kind can default to expressive if its outside of a function, and because women are allowed more instrumental leeway before they are outside role women can be still seen to some degree as inline with their role wearing menswear trends as long as they are done as fashions and as long as they are not done exactly like men in roles where they would get instrumental status.

As soon as men start experimenting with fashions they find they have limited room, because they are soon out of role as things default to expressive once they are giving off a look over a function so even suits that are not just standard suits start to be seen as a bit camp. When it comes to activity, men have more room as men can cook, clean and sew as long as they are not being too service orientated and nurturing, they must be trying to earn a living through it and aiming to make it a skill they develop. They must do it in an instrumental way which under this system leads to competition over doing it better then others. When men use their expressive side to be instrumental, they are let back into masculinity to some degree. When women use their instrumental side to be expressive they are let off, if women can build houses she must build houses for the poor, not to make profit etc and if she does so she can do a thing considered for men but be let off in the end. Its here where the lines get blurred and it becomes clear that it depends just on how far out of expectations someone treads, and its more complex then just stretching the traits out on a spectrum.

The sex roles are there to maintain the power dynamic between the sexes, not just to sort out tasks and reproduction. Today we have no environmental reasons for sex roles. In the past a man wearing expressive clothing on a battle field would be killed as he would be spotted, and women would have had to limit certain jobs while pregnant etc.

The Trimmings Of Gender and Gender Non Conforming Females.

A lot of butches and women in general have internalized misogyny which leads to them viewing themselves how others have viewed and stereotyped them and acting out behaviours in accordance with that. This can look like gender preformaty. For example if you dont fit the definition of femininity and are refusing to adjust yourself o the male gaze, and have selected a menswear style that matches your active lifestyle as an alternative to wearing sports gear all the time, or caring about the ever changing fashions and less functional clothing offered to women. You may decide you dont want to bother with long hair or hair fashions either and have a short cut. Through your life others will start off my trying to get you to wear female clothes more, just add a few bits of jewelry some make up etc, this will give you the impression they want you to add a few of the things women are expected to use to mark themselves out. You may not stop to ask why it is your female body cant act as the marker to say your female, and why clothes and behaviours are more important in saying one is a woman then the very female body they are born with. The reason for this is because an unbreakable sense of personal power comes from the concept of popping out the wombs complete as a woman, and knowing that no matter what you do in life you wont make yourself anymore or less of a woman(excluding actual medical transition). So what happens is girls are taught a woman is something that they become by learning certain ways to act and present, and those ways are defined by men as a class and are inline with what men as a class want from females.

 

 

 

The things men as a class want from females are: Sex and reproduction, sometimes together other times just sex. Labour in the home and in lower paid jobs. To tone down any abilities outside of these things, and to not take up to much space allowing men to use this world in whatever way they want and to make all the decisions. They dont want women to act from original thought, unless they are feminists leaving the pack or they are acting against the will of a woman who is not conforming. They say women are stupid and emotional, but at the same time they dont want women to be anything other, and if she is they will attempt to reduce her to an emotional state with abuse.

 

Not everyone wants to admit this hidden factor to themselves or their children, so gender gets dressed up in pink and blue, in instrumental or expressive guise. Its said this is how boys and girls are, toys are made and the reality is covered up with things that can be fun for some. Those who positively embrace the right set of things may not notice anything is wrong, because they make it look like the things in each box are equally of value by pricing high many of the things for females. This offsets the fact the boy is getting a toy that will help expand his mind, while the girl is getting something colourful and fun but it stops there. The pink clothing and all the colours makes it look like the girl gets something, but really the boys shoes are much more sturdy and when he runs around he gets a greater sense of ability then the girl wearing shoes that are less equipped. At that age she won’t think, oh its my shoes showing me down and making it hurt to dump and kick a ball, she just won’t do it. She will also be told her shoes look nice, keep them clean etc, whereas the boys are told they look too new break them in and crease them up. So instead of seeing the dark side (“To tone down any abilities outside of these things, and to not take up to much space allowing men to use this world in whatever way they want and to make all the decisions. “) people just see it as how little girls are to be. Instead of being rewarded for not getting in the boys games and taking up too much space, she will be rewarded for arriving home from school with her shoes looking as good as when she left.

 

Gender non conformity is nothing more than playing around with the stuff there to dress gender up. Be it experimenting with the things, copying the dressed up things in the blue box(games, manners, postures etc) or refusing to accept any of the things in the pink box. When you mess around with the things put there to avoid one seeing the harsh reality, you risk uncovering something is not right, and you receive negative feedback hoping to get you to move over. If you wont move over i.e into the pink zone, you will get allocated the trimmings of the blue zone and end up viewing yourself as masculine, tomboy or any number of things. They will let you be this, but something is missing and for years you dont get it, no matter how much of these gender dressings you take up you feel like you cant acess something. You constantly are pushing against something too. You may become convinced that the missing thing from your life is the stuff in the pink box, so you embrace a bit from each box and you get a bit of positive feedback for doing so and you decide thats maybe it. This is why some get out the gender spectrum (which is only a stretched out version of the gender dressing) point to the middle and decide they are there and then become an isolated unit with “except me” written on. Its worked out if you embrace some from the correct box, you can get away with using more things from the other box and no one notices. From this you can come up with the idea there is a gender binary, and it won’t tolerate someone moving too far from the box assigned to them. You will start to view others by where you think they are on this gender spectrum, to a point where biological sex just becomes a irrelevant collection of organs. History does not matter as much as now, you have all the power you need in yourself and just simply by expressing yourself and doing all these gender transgressive behaviours you are changing the world, breaking down the gender binary. You may not even get as far as gender politics, you may just be someone outside the definition of femininity, identifying as butch and using the gender trimmings coded as masculine. Others will still gender you, based on how they see gender.

 

The gender trimmings will lead nowhere, you can be a female who embraces all the gender trimmings in the blue box, but it wont get you in the fast lane like it will males. This world has an assembly line for men, and the gender trimmings allocated to them are tools to ensure they progress along it. The simple suits, haircuts and shoes that are gonna be universally stylish around the world, fit on all the machines for cheap dry cleaning, fit in any office or job. The toys that will prime the brain for whats up and coming. A woman can own all the mens suits and boys toys in the world and she wont get on that assembly line. But she will make many others question why it is that she is in their view lacking the things that others tell them are the reason why they cant do certain things, but still not able to get on the assembly line. They have watched her do many of the male gender trimmings well, but she cant get the recognition. What happens here is she is either told to stop acting like a man, or she is to embrace her gender fluidity and try and get on the assembly line as a gender minority. It wont ever happen, because getting on that assembly line has little to do with how well any man performed at his gender trimmings, its the road to true gender and requires an extra ingredient.

 

The extra ingredient is the invisibilized ugliness of gender itself, while boys and girls are messing around with their gender trimmings gender acts on them to shape them in ways irelevent to these trimmings and ways that cant be changed no matter what one does with these trimmings, non conformity will lead to more shaping from gender. Gender itself is domination, its where no matter what a girl says she gets interupted more and listened to less. It does not matter if she is talking about blue trimmings or pink ones. Its where no matter what activity a girl does, skips in the pink box or runs in the blue box her body is still made fun of. Its where a girl gets focused on for what she looks like rather than what she does, so if she dresses butch or dressed femme she is still reduced down to a look and categorized based on it. If cargo pants are made for her, they may have the pockets sewn shut. As she grows and becomes a woman she will find she can hang with the lads, but is there trying to fit in with them while they deny something to her, and its the thing they give to each other. They will talk down a little to her, only difference to them between a gender trimmings aligned woman and her is fuckability and she will have to listen to them talk about the fuckable women. If she is a lesbian who has ended up defining herself as butch, and knows nothing of feminism she will end up identifying with this misogyny and separating herself from her own femaleness to stop it hitting her. How she does this is by seeing her as one of the lads, and women who embraced the pink box gender trimmings as the women. These are the ones to be talked about, fucked etc. This is how a misogynistic butch is made, and how a dysphoric butch is made too because all this talk will eventually cause her to not like her female body. If she hung with boys who talked like this all her teens, she will have internalized lots of misogyny, and may want rid of her breasts and periods. Its not performing the blue box gender trimmings that got her here, it was the lack of real political knowledge that allowed the gender trimmings to obscure the ugliness of gender. In this obscured state she may worship men, think they are great, or she may hate them and notice they get everything she wants and this largely depends on what she wants. Sometimes men dont bother gender non conforming women, because some are so tied up in knots by gender non conformity they have stopped getting in mens way of dominating women. For example, when men get past a certain age they dont care if a woman has more menswear then them, is playing with blue box gender trimmings because they are on that assembly line, they have male power and can see her as no threat to it because she is not politically aware and by then has internalized so much stuff she is as misogynistic as them so wont help other women. She may have grown to believe she is less of a woman then the pink trimming box women, who by now are getting feedback for performing their expected role and they may view her as the men view her, less of a woman and treat her accordingly. This will mean less talking about certain subjects, out of risk she will side with men or because they see her as wanting to be a man.

 

She is not immune to male violence, she probably has the same chance of facing it if you look at the violence faced in the home for most women, hers may be more likely to happen on the street as homophobia. If she hangs with men, a day may come when they rape her, at a point when they show her they never saw her as one of the lads. None of the blue box gender trimmings or any label applied to them will save her from gender. Giving up the blue box trimmings or the labels attached to them will not make any difference to male dominance either.

 

Getting rid of the pink and blue box trimmings would take away the covering and make it easy to see how females are treated different, how men are talking over them, staring at them. The staring is part of domination, it does not go away when one stops giving the men things to look at to sweeten the stare. The dominant ones watch those they dominate and this is what the male gaze is. The fact is women are looked at and assessed all the time, because they are women and this is gender. So to hide this factor girls are taught to dress up, all the time so they will think its all their fault and the attention is based on how they’re dressed. When they are not dressed up, they still get looks so they think they look bad and thats what everyones looking at. All this looking leads to women assessing themselves constantly, watching themselves and not the world.

 

 

So what happens to men as they progress along that assembly line?

 

They are socialized into masculinity, the blue box trimmings are just primers. While playing football he is taught to compete, taught by default he runs correctly and not like a girl and that its good and natural for him to be this way. A girl playing football would not get this added extra. If he is good he is picked out along that line, encouraged as opposed to being told to try something new now. It appears when girls get moderately good at something, they are pushed away to something else and told to not get obsessed with it! This is how gender makes things possible.

 

Out of the trimmings of gender a girl can grow up thinking she is a tomboy, butch, masculine or trans.

 

Out of real gender a girl or woman learns she is too serious(got his head together, focused if male), obsessive ( read committed and motivated if male), emotional (in touch with is feelings, a humanist if male), cold (rational if male), hard (though) , changeable (if male, dynamic, flexible, reasonable) , selfish (successful if male), stupid ( not interested in that subject, lacking background if male).

 

She is then to change these things. If she acts less from emotion, she is told she is too serious or hard/cold, if she tones down what she knows she is then stupid and if she varies the subject to include many things she know little of to look like she knows stuff and avoid getting told she is too serious she is then changeable and still stupid. Its not possible to identify out of any of these things. Over time though people will pick out a dominant trait she has and mark her around it, they dont do that to men in the same way. Sometimes taking on a gender trimming identity can lead to focus on that instead, in time though all the rest of the stuff will come with it. For a man to have a trait pointed out, he would have to have clinical levels of it, a man would have to be doing something every working hour and not getting anywhere (like scrubbing a floor everyday) to be seen obsessive. A woman could get it at the point she excels at anything.

Sex and Gender are NOT the Same Thing! All Gender is a Drag!

Applied Psychology and Solution Focused Life Coaching with Dr Gary Wood

One of the things to emerge from the Caster Semenya controversy (in the 2009 World Championships) is the misconception that the terms sex and gender mean the same thing. They do not. Numerous sources, including ones that should know better, have been waffling on about ‘gender tests’ when what they actually mean is biological sex tests.  Sex as a categorization is a biological designation. It refers to the physiological characteristics that differentiate males and females.

Gender is the social interpretation of biological sex. It refers to socially constructed roles in the form of behaviours, activities and other social attributes that any particular culture or society considers appropriate for women and men. So, “male” and “female” are sex categories, while “masculine” and “feminine” are gender categories. Now there are also wide gender variations with any culture. For instance, do rugby players have the same gender as librarians, stamp collectors…

View original post 579 more words

Who Says So? Gender and the Social Construction of the Sewing Machine (and other power tools).

The reason why boys and girls are taught different skills is because they are expected to fulfil different roles, this is due to sex role scripts allocating most instrumental tasks to males and most expressive tasks to females.

Applied Psychology and Solution Focused Life Coaching with Dr Gary Wood

All attempts at theorizing social life are, at the same time, works of autobiography

– William Simon, 1996

As we read a text. . . we produce something different, another text which is a translation

– Ian Parker, 1999

Pic: Sewing Machine – GO FASTER! GO FASTER!

I was watching a re-run of the Australian version of Changing Rooms, one of the many home improvement shows conveniently gathered together on one Cable channel. An ‘expert’ was initiating his acolyte into the mysteries of the jig-saw. The expert explained ‘It’s like a sewing machine only a bit more manly’. I was immediately struck by the similarity of the sewing machine and the ‘more manly’ jigsaw. However, both are essentially power tools.

Thinking about the arbitrary nature of gender labels I recalled two questions from performance artist Laurie Anderson‘s film of her show Home of the Brave. In it…

View original post 926 more words

Why We Are All Trans-(binary)-gender and the Myth of Cisgender

Applied Psychology and Solution Focused Life Coaching with Dr Gary Wood

In many ways, this post seems at odds with recent psychology and coaching posts. However it’s really just a piece about how we think about the world and our inherent need to classify. Over the past few years I’ve noticed the word cisgender (and its variants used) and for a while have thought how deeply unhelpful it is. It is a flow of consciousness and no doubt will change over time. Constructive comments and insights are most welcome.

Defining cisgender

Cisgender offers a complement to transgender. It refers to people whose gender assigned at birth matches their own experience and sense of identity. The problem with cisgender is that it introduces yet another binary into how we think about sex and gender. It should also be noted that gender is not assigned at birth. A peek at the genitals is not gender. It’s a biological classification. It’s sex…

View original post 1,467 more words