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Yeah, this all basically Gender Studies 101 and the sort of thing that starts seeming simplistic and trite if you delve a little deeper. From my own experience, sex and gender science is a particularly politicized field where the textbooks are frequently written by movement feminists and queer advocates. This is better than the old approach of leaving it up conventionally-minded old men and clueless neo-Freudians, but the current crop of authors does tend to overemphasize the social conflict perspective (IE, mentioning "patriarchy" on every single page) and sometimes have some pretty funny ideas about what true gender equality might look like. Judging by the deliberately androgynous art style, I'd say our cartoonist is the sort of person who thinks that most differences between the genders are artificial (and typically oppressive) social constructs and we'd all be a lot happier if we tore the walls down. Interestingly, there's another (equally feminist) perspective that says that gender roles are informed by natural and immutable differences between the sexes and a truly egalitarian society would respect and celebrate those differences rather than trying to treat men and women as if they were the same. These two viewpoints have been clashing for years (sometimes in the same textbook), and the science is not nearly so settled as to establish which one is "right," even if such a thing were possible. These are issues that a lot of people are incredibly invested in and even experts in the field can get things stupidly wrong or simply don't have enough to work with. I try not to put much stock in what people on the internet have to say about it, even if it's as innocuous and banal and this comic, because a lot of the things people think they know about sex and gender are based more on what sounds good than what's true.
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Jul 19, 2015 11:26
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 07:36 |
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Yeah, "problematic" tends to be undergrad-speak for "it makes me uncomfortable, but I can't really articulate why." It's fine to say something is problematic if you actually say what the problem is, but too often people on the internet don't really know how to do that.Haruhater posted:Well duh. Philosophy has known and understood this for a long time - I'd even go as far as to say since the dawn of philosophy itself. Maybe it's obvious to us, but like every other nature/nurture debate, people will probably be debating it long after we're dead. People rarely admit it, but a lot of it's grounded in metaphysics and what they think a "soul" looks like. Some people (including many transfolk) believe that gender exists in the soul while others believe that souls are genderless. That's just religion at that point and it's sort of hard to argue with either way, but it often enters into how people present the scientific "facts."
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Jul 20, 2015 01:58
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Also there's been a long and contentious debate over the role testosterone plays in male aggression and violence. Poor socialization and "boys don't cry" bullshit definitely has its role to play as well, but it's hardly the whole story. The ages at which men are most likely to commit violent crime have a startlingly close correlation with peak testosterone levels and I really don't think it's a coincidence. The phrase "testosterone poisoning" is still stupid and sexist, but the way we tend to ignore hormones and underlying genetic factors when comparing the sexes is somewhat bizarre.
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Jul 20, 2015 03:45
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