GQ’s New Masculinity

public hermit said:

That's helpful to me. I believe there is difference, I'm just at pains sometimes to carve the difference at the joint. But, maybe that is not possible. Maybe generalizing over the differences is the best we can do. I have a tendency to analyze things too closely, which is not always the most helpful approach.

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Lol yes i think you'd need a new language to really describe it, as well as living a lifetime as a man and as a woman to understand it.

bekkilyn said:

I believe they *feel* it, but since no one has yet to determine exactly what a "gender" is, what is it that they "feel" that exactly makes them into a woman or a man?

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Well it seems that either there's a general difference between "feeling like a man" and "feeling like a woman"....or they don't really feel what they believe they feel.

While I'm willing to treat them however they wish to be treated and am respectful of their wishes in that matter, even they have not been able to inform me what a "gender" is or what "feeling like a woman" or "feeling like a man" is.

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Sure sure...when it comes to adults, I agree...sort of. I think there are issues with trans people competing in sports and other things. The problem is that society accepts this "I feel like a different gender" premise....and children start hormone therapy at younger ages now. That seems rather wrong if we can't even agree that the person actually does feel like the opposite gender.

Tom Farebrother said:

Physical cleverness, not intellectual. Sure the terms aren't a perfect fit but social conditioning doesn't cover it either, and can't as it isn't possible to go back far enough, and anything recent that can be studied is more about the particular manifestation of a thing rather than why it is there in the first place and what its actual nature is. Removing social conditioning is a bit of an oxymoron, you can replace one kind with another but you can't 'remove' it.

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Since cleverness is a concept associated with the mind and the intellect, I don't know what else you would mean by "physical cleverness".

And isn't it more reasonable, considering the many and unlimited exceptions to all of the "rules" that humans imagine to be differences between males and females, that these differences are because each individual *person* is a unique being who is unlike any other person.

And we are going to be making decisions based on *fact* vs. conjecture, then social conditioning *must* be removed because we are making statements that males are exclusively one way while females are exclusively some other way and then pretend that all of the numerous and unlimited exceptions the rules we have imagined do not exist.

After all, a hundred or so years in the past, "everyone" just "knew" that black people were stupider than white people and could point out numerous examples that "proved" it, completely ignoring social conditioning.

Ana the Ist said:

Well it seems that either there's a general difference between "feeling like a man" and "feeling like a woman"....or they don't really feel what they believe they feel.

Sure sure...when it comes to adults, I agree...sort of. I think there are issues with trans people competing in sports and other things. The problem is that society accepts this "I feel like a different gender" premise....and children start hormone therapy at younger ages now. That seems rather wrong if we can't even agree that the person actually does feel like the opposite gender.

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I believe the differences are all in our minds, but adults can do or get whatever medical procedures they please provided they aren't harming someone else. If someone wants to be called a "he", "she", "they", "it", "zie" or some other such thing, I don't care and will just call them whatever they want. They are still the same person on the inside.

I also disagree with giving healthy children hormones or permanent medical procedures while their bodies and minds are still developing into adulthood. I agree that it seems wrong especially *because* we can't agree or define what feeling like a gender is.

bekkilyn said:

conjecture

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You don't think that what you are saying qualifies as conjecture?

You are conflating far too many things to make the rest worth discussing.

You can check out Howard Gardner on different modes/types/ideas about intelligence. As I'm sure you're aware the brain operates the body and receives feedback from it.

bekkilyn said:

Stereotypes are based on cultural conditioning and not on biology. Go into some other culture besides your own and many of their stereotypes will be different and no less harmful. If your claim is that men and women are biologically wired differently, and that biology is what determines their maleness or femaleness in regards to those stereotypes, then exceptions would not apply unless a person was born as a hermaphrodite.

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Women and men are different right down to their DNA. Culture is not important in that respect.

Tom Farebrother said:

You don't think that what you are saying qualifies as conjecture?

You are conflating far too many things to make the rest worth discussing.

You can check out Howard Gardner on different modes/types/ideas about intelligence. As I'm sure you're aware the brain operates the body and receives feedback from it.

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Come up with a few examples that are exclusive to men or exclusive to women. I've been waiting for some for a number of years now.

bekkilyn said:

Come up with a few examples that are exclusive to men or exclusive to women. I've been waiting for some for a number of years now.

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That’s your problem right there- you’re thinking this is some kind of basic thing that can been cleared up with a few examples.

renniks said:

Women and men are different right down to their DNA. Culture is not important in that respect.

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Come up with some examples that are exclusive to men or exclusive to women that prove that they are entirely different from one another. If the even the transgender population can't inform us of what "feeling like a man" or "feeling like a woman" means, then I highly doubt you can, but I'm all ears.

What I'm sure you can tell me is what it feels like to be YOU, but that's unique only to you and not to the entire population of whatever gender you claim to be.

Tom Farebrother said:

That’s your problem right there- you’re thinking this is some kind of basic thing that can been cleared up with a few examples.

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If you're going to state something as a fact, then you need to come up with solid examples that prove your case. Please tell me what "feeling like a man" or "feeling like a woman" means and have it apply to all cases.

bekkilyn said:

If you're going to state something as a fact, then you need to come up with solid examples that prove your case. Please tell me what "feeling like a man" or "feeling like a woman" means and have it apply to all cases.

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Stated what as a fact? I’m not partial to demanding rants, if you want to have a discussion start with realising the breadth and depth of the issue and drop your assumptions, and have some manners please.

Tom Farebrother said:

Stated what as a fact? I’m not partial to demanding rants, if you want to have a discussion start with realising the breadth and depth of the issue and drop your assumptions, and have some manners please.

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How can there be discussion if no one can even define what "feeling like a man" or "feeling like a woman" means?

bekkilyn said:

Come up with some examples that are exclusive to men or exclusive to women that prove that they are entirely different from one another. If the even the transgender population can't inform us of what "feeling like a man" or "feeling like a woman" means, then I highly doubt you can, but I'm all ears.

What I'm sure you can tell me is what it feels like to be YOU, but that's unique only to you and not to the entire population of whatever gender you claim to be.

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Why do we see trends in how women and men behave? The exceptions, if there really are any, are simple to explain. Paul says there are people who go against nature..
"Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error..."

But, why do counselors see one type of behavior from the men and another from the women over and over if both sexes are basically the same?
Men vs. Women Want Different Outcomes in Couples Therapy

bekkilyn said:

How can there be discussion if no one can even define what "feeling like a man" or "feeling like a woman" means?

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That would be an end point, not a beginning. In any case, whose criteria are those? You seem to be the only one using them.
The whole social conditioning idea is a bit dubious, given that it relies on ideas about things that have gone on in a fraction of a fraction of the time humans have been walking about, and even that fraction is so complicated little or nothing definitive can be said about whatever influence it may have had on whatever differences there are between genders. To me it seems practically impossible to state what that is, which isn’t surprising given that nobody can, but that has no actual relevance to the question. There isn’t enough known about the brain and whatever else is in there to address the question beyond different avenues of speculation.

renniks said:

Why do we see trends in how women and men behave? The exceptions, if there really are any, are simple to explain. Paul says there are people who go against nature..
"Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error..."

But, why do counselors see one type of behavior from the men and another from the women over and over if both sexes are basically the same?
Men vs. Women Want Different Outcomes in Couples Therapy

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And yet there are many men who enjoy talking about their feelings, but then have to resort to cherry-picking a bible verse out of context in order to account for all of those exceptions. A *tendency* towards something, largely due to social conditioning when it comes to how people process their emotions, is not the same as a biological difference that is exclusive to males or exclusive to females.

Tom Farebrother said:

That would be an end point, not a beginning. In any case, whose criteria are those? You seem to be the only one using them.
The whole social conditioning idea is a bit dubious, given that it relies on ideas about things that have gone on in a fraction of a fraction of the time humans have been walking about, and even that fraction is so complicated little or nothing definitive can be said about whatever influence it may have had on whatever differences there are between genders. To me it seems practically impossible to state what that is, which isn’t surprising given that nobody can, but that has no actual relevance to the question. There isn’t enough known about the brain and whatever else is in there to address the question beyond different avenues of speculation.

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So you've spent an entire paragraph basically telling me that you don't know what "feeling like a man" or "feeling like a woman" means. Why can we not get to the point where I feel like me, you feel like you, that other person feels like that other person, etc.? But no, we must be under some strange obligation to put us all into some generic and imaginary box labelled "gender", and usually for the harmful purpose of putting false limitations on each other, i.e. you are the gender known as "male" so you *can't* do, feel, think that, but you must be this other way instead or, as in the post above, you will be deemed "unnatural".

bekkilyn said:

So you've spent an entire paragraph basically telling me that you don't know what "feeling like a man" or "feeling like a woman" means. Why can we not get to the point where I feel like me, you feel like you, that other person feels like that other person, etc.? But no, we must be under some strange obligation to put us all into some generic and imaginary box labelled "gender", and usually for the harmful purpose of putting false limitations on each other, i.e. you are the gender known as "male" so you *can't* do, feel, think that, but you must be this other way instead or, as in the post above, you will be deemed "unnatural".

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You’re going too far off on a tangent for me. Clearly you feel quite strongly about this, but a lot of what you are saying in replies to my posts has nothing to do with anything I’ve said. For me gender differences are elusive but real, in a good way as far as I’m concerned. There are no limitations that I’m aware of, beyond the most basic and obvious biological ones, involved in that.

bekkilyn said:

And yet there are many men who enjoy talking about their feelings, but then have to resort to cherry-picking a bible verse out of context in order to account for all of those exceptions. A *tendency* towards something, largely due to social conditioning when it comes to how people process their emotions, is not the same as a biological difference that is exclusive to males or exclusive to females.

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Oh, please, when males display one behavior almost across the board and females another, it's just culture?

renniks said:

Oh, please, when males display one behavior almost across the board and females another, it's just culture?

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And precisely what behavior is this? If you're talking about feelings, then what behavior would you expect to occur in a society where women are encouraged to talk about their feelings and men are discouraged or even punished for it? Remove that factor and you will see men pouring out their feelings left and right such as in the Psalms.

bekkilyn said:

And precisely what behavior is this? If you're talking about feelings, then what behavior would you expect to occur in a society where women are encouraged to talk about their feelings and men are discouraged or even punished for it? Remove that factor and you will see men pouring out their feelings left and right such as in the Psalms.

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Men wanting to fix things and women wanting to talk about feelings is not limited to American culture.