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+--- Thread: Discussion Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least experience “gender” of some kind? (/showthread.php?tid=961)
Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least experience “gender” of some kind? - proudcatlady - Apr 8 2025
PITCHFORKS DOWN PLEASE!!
So when we, you know, criticize gender, we tend to say things like this:
“I don’t have a gender soul. I just AM a woman.”
“A woman with short hair is still a woman.”
“No one ‘feels like a woman.’ You just are or aren’t.”
“If I woke up tomorrow in a man’s body, I’d simply move about my day because only my body would be different.”
Yes. I agree. But…
Well, first, we’re used to having conversations about “gender nonconformity,” and in these conversations, we usually acknowledge that some women are more “naturally feminine” and some aren’t. They’re GNC, they’re butch, they’re tomboys that never grew out of it.
So…what’s actually up with that? Can we have a civil thoughtful discussion around why that is? Are some women more okay with being abused? Are some women more “traitorous”? Are some women just less dignified and will trade more things for a more comfortable life? Do those women actually kind of deserve mistreatment more than the ones who are “more dignified”? This isn’t rhetorical. As I’m sitting here I can’t help but wonder.
Like we always say that the way TRAs talk about gender insinuates that actual women are okay with being mistreated, because if we weren’t, we’d all be TIFs. And yet we do also understand that some TIFs are TIFs because for whatever reason, they found being treated “like a woman” unbearable enough that they got surgical about it. There’s something there, right?
Okay, secondly. If you’re here on Cloven Hooves or in any way involved with feminism really, being a woman is important to you. Right? Maybe I’m just projecting but I like being a woman. I like participating in communities like this and being around women in ways men never can be or will be. And you see bisexual women and lesbians celebrating that there’s something special and different about loving a woman AS a woman.
Isn’t that kind of sounding like a gender soul? To me, it sounds like it is.
I’m not saying it’s mutable and you can opt in or out, but I think there might be something going on there. Maybe. But then it’s a slippery slope to tHe fEmAlE bRaIn.
All right, you can raise your pitchforks back up. Let me have it!
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - Myrth - Apr 8 2025
Hmm. No.
I may (or may not) have a soul. But it’s not “gendered.” There are billions of ways to be a woman. What we think of as “gender” are just societal stereotypes of the sexes. My soul, if I have one, is not a stereotype. Though a professional, I eschewed makeup. But I have always had long hair. I wear pants, although I also like colorful long skirts. My hands have always been calloused because I am not afraid of physical work. I helped my dad build a barn as a young person. I played American style football with my brother, and learned to put a spin on the pigskin. I also took ballet classes and played musical instruments. I played in the mud and built forts. I hated most dolls and preferred my brother’s handmedown toys. I spent many happy hours in the library, reading endlessly.
I married. Had a baby. Hated sexist treatment. Divorced. And I could do so because I was a professional and had the means.
Do women enjoy being mistreated? No. Do they tolerate it? Sometimes. Why? Fear of what happens if they leave. But in the USA, a high percentage of divorces are initiated by women. And THAT is why the rightwing wants to abolish no fault divorce— make the women stay in abusive marriages.
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - YesYourNigel - Apr 8 2025
First, I appreciate people bringing these points up, because it can make us formulate our counterpoints in a rational way, rather than just relying on emotional kneejerk reactions.
But I will say that I absolutely despise the point that
Quote:some women are more “naturally feminine” and some aren’t. They’re GNC, they’re butch, they’re tomboys that never grew out of it.
which I also rant against here.
First, it doesn't make sense. Femininity isn't some inborn thing - there is no gene for wearing high heels or makeup or liking pink any more than there is a gene for playing video games or writing novels. These things literally did not exist for much of human history, so acting as if it's something you're born liking is ridiculous. It's pure and simple bioessentialism.
Second, regardless of one's personal history with femininity, the fact remains that femininity is bad for women, period. Saying that feminine women deserve to feel like shit and live a life of insecure, pandering objectification because that's what they were born to like is just horrendous and yet most people, even self-professed progressive ones, take this stance in regards to feminine women - they enjoy being oppressed so they should be oppressed and suffer because that is simply their natural role in life that they can't exist outside of. And if you're enlightened enough, you can allow a few male-brained women to buck the trend and get out of sight to live as spinsters and/or lesbians, but normal women should be and stay feminine and oppressed.
Quote:Are some women more okay with being abused?
That's like asking if some people are just naturally more okay with being in a suicide cult, or more okay with being slaves. Disenfranchised groups being convinced by an authoritative society of oppressors that they deserve lesser treatment is not evidence that they do.
Quote:Are some women more “traitorous”?
If there's any sense of betrayal here, it's towards the patriarchy that's raised these women all their lives to be obedient and submissive to its cause. Men control our society's narratives, ideas on morality, industries, money...It is unsurprising that people feel a desire to appease the people in charge or to not feel like fighting big political battles instead of leading their lives. Every woman starts out "traitorous" because every woman is born and raised in a patriarchy that teaches her to hate herself and see women in general as lesser.
Quote:Are some women just less dignified and will trade more things for a more comfortable life?
Everyone wants a more comfortable life. It's a natural human need to want to function within a society and have a place within it. But a "comfortable" life for women is still full of rape, assault, financial dependence, abuse and silencing. It doesn't matter how much women get tricked into thinking this is their only choice or that they actually "like it" - it's still objectively bad for them and results in immeasurable suffering. This is why I think feminism is utterly incompatible with liberalism - liberalism will tell you women love their oppression and the biggest problem isn't the oppression itself, but anyone getting in the way of their "free choice". The objective harm that they suffer and the way that society brainwashes certain groups into consistently harmful dynamics is completely ignored.
Quote:Do those women actually kind of deserve mistreatment more than the ones who are “more dignified”?
If the only measure of how deserving someone is of rights is how much they push back on abuse, that'd mean the vast majority of women raised in, say, pre-suffragete societies deserved to be enslaved. They simply did not fight back hard enough.
I understand the desire to just throw your hands up, especially when women like conservatives and TIFs so readily throw other women under the bus for even a drop of male approval. It makes you want to just yelp at them to fuck off to their Nigels who'll keep screwing them over and stomping on them. But their behaviour is a predictable reaction to living in a society where men hold all the power and influence, and where it's easier to just lick their boots like a "normal" person instead of aligning yourself with other inferior women. But remember that every woman suffers from the exact same misogyny. A conservative woman or a TIF who self-harms and thinks it's ok for men to assault "bad" women (including them if they find themselves on the wrong side of it) is fully aware that she's also a target, and frequently becomes one herself. She's just been convinced that if she's obedient enough, the patriarchy will like her enough to give her privileges.
These women may be stupid and backstabbing, but they function by a very simple, understandable desire to fit into their place in the world and feel normal. We want to work towards a world where you don't have to be some super-political SJW in order to live a life free from oppression and it's to be expected that most people will have an automatic knee-jerk reaction to having to go against everything society has taught them, even when it's blatantly obvious that said society is exploiting and hurting them.
Furthermore, what is often ignored in these conversations, because we are SO used to women sucking up to men and revolving their lives around men and prioritising men men men that we don't even see anything off about it, is that it makes no sense for all these supposedly evil, selfish, power-hungry, narcissistic, spoiled women to consistently prioritise not their own interests, but systems that take power away from them and place them in the hands of men men men, and promise them a respite from a lifetime of male abuse if they show themselves to be obedient enough. And we are all supposed to nod and pretend like this is just some evil women randomly being evil because ArE YoU SaYiNg WoMeN aRe aLL AnGeLs??! and completely ignore the fact that every single woman contends with the fact that the society she's born into wants to exploit, abuse and subjugate her. Funny that, when men are evil, they prioritise their own needs and advocate insane ideas that do nothing but maximise their personal gain. When women are evil, they...still prioritise systems that lead to abuse of women and privileges for men.
Quote:If you’re here on Cloven Hooves or in any way involved with feminism really, being a woman is important to you. Right?
I mean it's important insofar as feminism addresses the way that society makes my life more difficult and dehumanises me. That's not evidence of me having a gendersoul, that's evidence of me recognising that this is a massively impactful thing on my life due to my inescapable biology and I can either pretend like my feelings about femininity are some random irrational inborn preference (which makes no sense for aforementioned reasons) or I can actually acknowledge what it is and that my feelings about it are perfectly rational. And I think women who think being feminine is some integral part of their personality, to the point of having a massive crisis over it, are suffering from the effects of patriarchal brainwashing that makes them think they're lesser if they don't adequately follow gender roles. Gender roles are bad, and gender-role-borne-gendersouls (not exclusive to trans people) are also bad.
Your femaleness is what it is, and cannot be changed or modified. You can have more or less emphasised female signifiers but you can't be more or less female. This idea is distinctly at odds with genderist ideas (both conservative and trans) that claim your femaleness increases and decreases in response to arbitrary social gender roles.
Quote:Maybe I’m just projecting but I like being a woman. I like participating in communities like this and being around women in ways men never can be or will be.
I don't. I hate that I have to deal with this society, and I don't feel any specific way about my sexed body, in fact the patriarchy makes me want to crawl out of my skin. I always related way more to men. I also don't relate to most women because they're either content with following gender norms or with chasing patriarchal approval as One Of The Boys (I was in the latter category until I got a grip and realised that the patriarchy will never work in my favour). None of that has any impact on the fact that I'm female or the fact that I am hurt by the patriarchy for being female, nor on my belief that all women should be free from this oppression that so obviously hurts them, their coping strategies be damned.
Also if liking being a woman made you a woman, I think the majority of women wouldn't qualify. Self-hatred is integral to being a woman under the patriarchy, regardless of whether you buy into patriarchal coping mechanisms or not.
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - Clover - Apr 8 2025
proudcatlady Well, first, we’re used to having conversations about “gender nonconformity,” and in these conversations, we usually acknowledge that some women are more “naturally feminine” and some aren’t.Mmm... I disagree that "we usually acknowledge" that some women are "naturally" more inclined to conform or not conform to gender (societally imposed sexist stereotypes) any different than any other social construct. I don't want to do that. Gender-conforming and gender non-conforming women form their conformity or non-conformity around the fact that gender has been rigidly enforced on them through millenia. These attributes are reactions to the system of gender being imposed on them. It is a reflection of the societal expectations applied onto them. In fact, I think I would consider the entire grouping of women as gender non-conforming vs gender conforming to be a mass stereotypes in it of itself. (Although I acknowledge that these terms are generally useful in order to express and analyze women's reactions to a gendered society.) In a world where gender is abolished, there would be no "gender conforming" or "gender non-conforming". There would be no initial bucketing of women's personality, expressions, emotions, and aesthetics into things like "Oh, you're sweet and friendly? Gender conforming!" and "Oh you're rebellious and contrarian? Gender non-conforming!" in the first place.
proudcatlady Are some women more okay with being abused?Some people unfortunately have personality types that might incline them more to be victims of abuse (like low self-esteem), yes. (I believe no one should be okay with being abused, but we can only help those who are ready to accept they are being abused and that it's not okay.)
proudcatlady Are some women more “traitorous”?Some people can be more manipulative, rebellious, or contrarian than others, yes.
proudcatlady Are some women just less dignified and will trade more things for a more comfortable life?Some people are cowards and prefer comfort and safety over freedom and justice, yes.
proudcatlady Do those women actually kind of deserve mistreatment more than the ones who are “more dignified”?No, I don't believe some people deserve mistreatment more than other people who some members of society decided are "more dignified," when that decision was based on bigotry.
proudcatlady Okay, secondly. If you’re here on Cloven Hooves or in any way involved with feminism really, being a woman is important to you. Right? Maybe I’m just projecting but I like being a woman. I like participating in communities like this and being around women in ways men never can be or will be.To the question, mmm... no. I'm didn't make clovenhooves or join Ovarit or become interested in feminism because "being a woman is important to me." Feminism is important to me because I am a woman. It is not "important" to me that I am a woman, except in the sense that I need to be more aware of the fact I can easily be raped, attacked, and murdered by men due to many societal and physical statistical factors. And many more facts that are less dire. Like that people won't take me as seriously as a man, people think my work is worth less than a man's, people think my words are less valid than a man's. Such societal unfairnesses that I must be aware of. Being a woman should not have to be important to me. Being a woman should not have to be important to any woman. But it has to be, because men have chosen to violate women's humanity by virtue of our female sex.
I "like" participating in communities like this because I "like" that there are other women out there who recognize how sexist and misogynistic and bullshit our society is. And that helps me feel not alone. And it helps me feel "empowered" in the sense that I can find some solidarity among people of my sex class. And I think along this line, I can understand that logic of "liking" it, but I feel it's similar in the same way of being unfairly imprisoned in terrible conditions and making a friend who is also unfairly imprisoned in those same terrible conditions. I might "like" my social connection with my imprisoned friend, since I am a social creature, but that does not then mean I "like" the imprisoned situation that I am in. I would rather be free...
I do agree that men can never participate how women do with each other and never can, but that comes with no benefit when the reason for that is because we are the globally oppressed sex class.
In a sense, the connection we can experience with other women, to me it is like being grateful for breadcrumbs when one is starving. I'd rather we all stop being starved.
Anyway, thank you for making this post, it is cool to get some "controversial" kinds of posts that are in good faith. Like YYN said, it allows us to think about our counterpoints.
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - VerdantHorizon - Apr 8 2025
(Apr 8 2025, 5:45 PM)proudcatlady Well, first, we’re used to having conversations about “gender nonconformity,” and in these conversations, we usually acknowledge that some women are more “naturally feminine” and some aren’t. They’re GNC, they’re butch, they’re tomboys that never grew out of it.
So…what’s actually up with that? Can we have a civil thoughtful discussion around why that is? Are some women more okay with being abused? Are some women more “traitorous”? Are some women just less dignified and will trade more things for a more comfortable life? Do those women actually kind of deserve mistreatment more than the ones who are “more dignified”? This isn’t rhetorical. As I’m sitting here I can’t help but wonder.
I think most people on ClovenHooves are Westerners and have more-or-less similar frames of reference for what "feminine" and "masculine" are, but go to a very different culture or a very different time, and the way that most women/men act will not be the same as it is here and now; most people would instead conform to the gendered expectations of that other society/time. We can't raise experimental children in a perfect cultural vacuum devoid of the influence of gender roles of their caretakers' society, and so we can't know whether there's some biological inclination in most people towards interests and personalities matching those that society prescribes, but given the fact that what's "feminine" and "masculine" varies so much, it doesn't seem like it's actually an innate, biological thing that some women/men feel more strongly than others.
Accepting that we can't know for sure, I think that most people conform to their genders because much of a person's personality is malleable to the culture they grow up in, and most people don't want to stand out too much (maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously). There's strong social incentives for conforming, and most people don't feel that strongly about these things. No one perfectly conforms to gendered expectations, but if they don't strongly dislike an expectation, why would they not go ahead and conform? Feminists see the harms of forced gender and might buck things they might otherwise accept, and some feminists are brought into the fold after realizing they don't conform to those expectations, but frankly, the average person doesn't care or hasn't had reason to think too much about it.
And no woman deserves mistreatment for being feminine, and they're not traitors to womankind just for having interests that are coded as feminine. (They might be traitors in other ways, i.e. for enforcing the patriarchy on other women, but not just for their own personal preferences.)
Quote:“If I woke up tomorrow in a man’s body, I’d simply move about my day because only my body would be different.”
I think most people would experience body horror in that situation, no matter how strongly they reject the concept of gender. If a soul/heart/mind exists separate from physical reality, and if tomorrow my soul/heart/mind magically woke up in a different body than the one in which it fell asleep, I'd be horrified and disgusted, and if it were extra-different from me by being a male body I'd be extra-horrified and probably want something like a physical transition if I couldn't just magically go back to my own body... If I were stuck in that other body I'd probably have extensive plastic surgery to make it look like this body, even if it the other body were already generally the same as mine. Give me back my specific nose and my exact freckles XD
But that's fantasy, not reality. I am a woman; the body that I am and/or exist in is female, and I like the body that I exist in. I like being a woman. I like the things that a female body can do and the way a female body (this particular female body) looks. If I'd been born a man, I would like being a man in a male body. That's not gender, just self-acceptance of our real sexed bodies.
Real-life trans people aren't poor souls magically transported into different vessels: they really do exist in and are the sexes of their bodies, and in being trans they're rejecting material reality (and then go on to reinforce patriarchial assumptions of gender when they put on the costume, etc. of the opposite sex).
Quote:Like we always say that the way TRAs talk about gender insinuates that actual women are okay with being mistreated, because if we weren’t, we’d all be TIFs.
And this - for the women who identify as men because society has made them hate being female (hate the expectations or their female bodies or being sexually abused or whatever), I think it's a pitiable thing that the patriarchy has made them hate their bodies enough to change, rather than for them to hate the patriarchy enough to change it.
edit:
Quote:Quote:proudcatlady Well, first, we’re used to having conversations about “gender nonconformity,” and in these conversations, we usually acknowledge that some women are more “naturally feminine” and some aren’t.In a world where gender is abolished, there would be no "gender conforming" or "gender non-conforming". There would be no initial bucketing of women's personality, expressions, emotions, and aesthetics into things like "Oh, you're sweet and friendly? Gender conforming!" and "Oh you're rebellious and contrarian? Gender non-conforming!" in the first place.
While I was typing my comment, Clover said what I was trying to say, and she said it way more clearly!
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - Lemonade - Apr 9 2025
Quote:Well, first, we’re used to having conversations about “gender nonconformity,” and in these conversations, we usually acknowledge that some women are more “naturally feminine” and some aren’t.
This is exactly why I never use the term gender nonconformity. Using it promotes gender. And even long before the current trans nonsense, I have been a gender abolitionist. I think the concept is useless at best, and harmful and oppressive at worst. I do not want to be called any kind of woman for not performing cultural femininity. Even worse, I do not want to be called masculine or male-like for it.
I'm a woman, and the way I am is one of the many ways that women can be, no need to judge me and label me based on how well I conform to oppressive gender roles.
Quote:Okay, secondly. If you’re here on Cloven Hooves or in any way involved with feminism really, being a woman is important to you. Right? Maybe I’m just projecting but I like being a woman. I like participating in communities like this and being around women in ways men never can be or will be.
I just think women are oppressed and think no one else cares so I have to. It's an omnipresent injustice that people ignore because it's in the very air we breathe. We are steeped in misogyny. I feel driven to try to understand it. And by women I mean people who are female and oppressed on the basis of being female.
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - OffMyTit - Apr 9 2025
Some people are conformists and some people aren’t. Conformity comes with social benefits and rejection of norms is often persecuted.
That doesn’t mean women who conform to expectations deserve to be abused, but it does mean their experience is different from women choose not to conform, since whatever privileges are granted to the conformists come at the renegades’ expense.
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - Sunny - Apr 11 2025
I disagree.
I have been through the trans/nonbinary lifestyle in my lifetime and nothing was different about me then from when I accepted that I was a woman. At first I tried to identify out of womanhood bc I didn't want to be oppressed, later when I tried to accept my womanhood I was told by TRAs that bc I didn't conform to stereotypes I was obviously nonbinary, but there was no "gendered soul" leading me to define myself in that way.
Gender is purely a social construct and the only reality is that of sex and sex determines nothing about you except how your body looks. Masculine and feminine are not inherent traits, no female is born being feminine and a female's or male's performance of femininity or masculinity does not make them more or less female or male.
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - moondark - Apr 11 2025
I agree with Sunny. "Feminine" and "masculine" are stereotypes, comparable to racial stereotypes, and just as harmful. They extrapolate actual (narrow or nonexistent) physical differences to all kinds of psychological, functional, temperamental, etc. differences with zero scientific foundation and 1000% socio/political power agenda. They define what the "right" female or male appearance, preferences, behaviors, emotions, etc. are, and attack the femaleness or maleness of anyone who diverges from those standards, which causes untold and inexcusable pain. They leave those who diverge from culturally constructed roles perpetually on the defensive, having to externally assert their right to their own sex, and internally ravaged by confusion, shame, self-doubt and self-loathing.
This is not an accident. Self-doubt is the favorite weapon of authoritarianism. People who are busy questioning themselves are a lot less likely to question social systems, especially if their self-questioning takes place in isolation. The huge surge of mid-20th century feminist activism in the wake of CR (consciousness-raising) groups, when millions of women started talking to each other honestly and thereby discovered that a whole lot of women felt the way they did, and the problem wasn't them after all, demonstrates how significant a tool self-doubt can be in social control. That CR groups are rarely, if ever, mentioned in 20th century histories is no accident either. When the divided reunite, authoritarians get very anxious.
Personalities that align "naturally" with so-called "feminine" and "masculine" stereotypes - if there is such a thing as personality development uninfluenced by sexual stereotypes, which I doubt - are present in both sexes (as are all the other personalities that don't) This should immediately invalidate the notion that certain personality types are associated with sex in any kind of rational analysis.
There is no right or wrong way to be a (biological) woman or man. There is nothing to prove, do, wear, say or feel that can make someone one iota more or less the sex they are. Whether I have babies, build rockets, or engage in frequent fistfights has no impact whatsoever on my femaleness, nor is it an expression of it. Sex is not a behavior, it's an inherent, genetic, and immutable biological condition.
RE: Do you ever wonder if maybe we do kind of have gender identities, or at least expe... - YesYourNigel - Apr 14 2025
A few more points I forgot to address:
Quote:Like we always say that the way TRAs talk about gender insinuates that actual women are okay with being mistreated, because if we weren’t, we’d all be TIFs.I mean...that's kinda like saying that non-white people must enjoy racism because if they didn't, they'd get surgeries to look white. Or that gay people must enjoy homophobia, otherwise they'd pretend to be straight. We seem to recognise that expecting these groups to change and hide isn't a fix for bigotry, except apparently with women.
Furthermore, transitioning results in a host of health issues, unnecessary surgeries to amputate body parts (including internal body parts that are both extra vulnerable and structurally important), suffer atrophy and modify them in distinctly risky and extreme ways that in the end also don't give you any of the actual biology of the opposite sex. This cognitive dissonance is unavoidable for TIFs because magical sex change simply isn't possible. The closest you can get is having a lifeless roll of skin hanging off your clit which unsurprisingly make most TIFs feel even worse because of how badly it compares to actual male genitalia.
Quote:And yet we do also understand that some TIFs are TIFs because for whatever reason, they found being treated “like a woman” unbearable enough that they got surgical about it. There’s something there, right?That's like saying "There's gotta be something to women who are anorexic" or "there's gotta be something to the women who get extreme plastic surgeries" or "There's gotta be something to women who self-harm". Just because a woman reaches for extreme measures to deal with patriarchal pressures does not mean she is some separate species of woman with boobjob-soul.