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Chance-Conclusion-43 t1_j7v5gi3 wrote

people need to read some biology textbooks. two sexes. behaviors are influenced by sexual dimorphism and natural selection over time. "gender" is a weird semantic construct that is rooted in dimorphic sex characteristics. Saying that "it makes no sense to talk about biological sex existing outside of its social meaning" is scientific denialism and total bullshit. We are mammals. Every mammal has two sexes with different behaviors in each sex that evolved over time for the purpose of efficient reproduction. This is partly where gender stereotypes emerge, some of them are rooted somewhat in reality. E.g., females are more associated with caregiving because evolutionarily, it is costlier to produce eggs and females must be invested in raising their offspring for it to be worthwhile. I say this as a woman. It's the reality of how our species has evolved. Doesn't mean that women have to fullfill this role, just it makes sense that it's associated with us. it's not that deep lol

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the-willow-witch t1_j7vcala wrote

I think that’s what they’re saying. That there’s no point in talking about sex vs gender because they’re intrinsically linked enough due to the fact that our concepts of gender evolved from the roles we place on people throughout history due to their sex.

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InterminableAnalysis t1_j7v93fz wrote

>Saying that "it makes no sense to talk about biological sex existing outside of its social meaning" is scientific denialism and total bullshit

Nope. Sex is a social classification. It doesn't mean that the things we use to make the classification don't exist, just that the way they become established as part of a classification is a social effort.

>Every mammal has two sexes with different behaviors in each sex that evolved over time for the purpose of efficient reproduction.

Even basic biology admits of more than 2 sexes. Intersex classification has been talked to death. Claiming that there are only two sexes: A) misses the point of this discussion, and B) is itself science denial.

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Chance-Conclusion-43 t1_j7vbj2n wrote

One, that makes no sense. Sex is a classification because it is part of material, empirical reality.

Two, intersex is NOT an example of more than two sexes. I am literally studying biology in university. That's like saying that because some people have a birth defect that gives them six fingers on each hand, that humans as a species don't have five fingers on each hand.

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SnapcasterWizard t1_j7vif6w wrote

>One, that makes no sense. Sex is a classification because it is part of material, empirical reality.

You are fighting a losing war here. Bulter is a post modernist, they don't just disagree with your conclusions, they disagree with the entirety of how you got there. To a post modernist the statement,

" it is part of material, empirical reality."

Is already were they are disagreeing with you. Material, empirical reality either does not exist or is impossible to discover according to them.

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InterminableAnalysis t1_j7viq5d wrote

>Sex is a classification because it is part of material, empirical reality

There is no such thing as a classification outside of the abilities of a sense-making being. It doesn't mean that, if humans don't exist then there are no such things as, say, apples. What it means is that a classification is explicitly the work of sense-making beings (e.g. humans).

>That's like saying that because some people have a birth defect that gives them six fingers on each hand, that humans as a species don't have five fingers on each hand.

No, the appropriate analogy would be to question "birth defects". What makes a person with six fingers "defective"? Establishing a norm requires looking at variation and deciding what the norm is for. If the norm just means "statistical average", then that's fine, but it doesn't mean that a person with six fingers doesn't have a hand, it just means that it's a hand differently composed than the statistical average. Intersex classification is differently composed from the statistical average of male/female and so cannot be subsumed as either one.

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GuidoSpeedoBurrito t1_j7vhtgj wrote

This is true in the sense that science, or even more broadly the process of categorizing things, is done in a social context. Meaning that no one individual decides what any one thing is on the whole, rather it's done collectively.

However, I'm confused as to the point of this point. Technically, we collectively classified and decided that we are all existing on a giant rock with certain properties, and we called it earth. You can do this for literally anything because of how humans communicate, and because of how knowledge is generated.

But in what sense does it mean that it is a social classification? Isn't it much more accurate to say that things like Earth, or sex, exist independent of social classification, and that the terms themselves are things that are social constructions so that we can talk about and refer to something that exists out there in material reality?

I had this discussion with my evolution professor in school, who suggested to me that where we draw lines between species is a social construction. And my response was basically "well yeah. Humans categorize things in order to understand them. But it's not completely arbitrary, it's based on observations of reality that are independent of human thought. There is a difference between a lion and a tiger, regardless of what we call them or where we decide to draw the line, right?"

Edit: missed a word

Edit 2: I see that you responded to the other commenter while I was typing my questions out, so I want to be more specific here because this is always where I get stuck when going through this discussion. You made the same point in another comment thread above and seem very familiar with the topic, so I'd love to hear more from you. I majored in biology and minored in philosophy, so I am constantly torn on these types of points.

It seems we agree that there is an independent reality outside of human observation, and that the categorization or classification as such is the part that is a social classification (construction I think is also commonly used.)

Is this only to point out the fact that boundaries drawn and characteristics chosen in these distinctions are human-created (aka socially constructed?) Because this seems fairly self-evident, but I don't know what work it does. If an independent reality exists, and human understanding is dependent on categorization, and we do have some level of access to that independent reality, then aren't we progressively attempting to describe something that we are not creating, just observing? That is, we are continuously updating our understanding of an independent reality which has characteristics, can be known to us, and requires labeling in order for us to communicate about it?

Please feel free to DM me if you'd rather continue there, but I had this conversation A LOT during my undergrad and never got satisfying answers for it. Thanks ahead of time.

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ThisSaysNothing t1_j7x6axy wrote

We aren't just observing reality we are also interacting with it. The concepts we use to describe the world influence the way we interact with it.

The tools we build, the stories we tell, the institutions we create and the relationships we form are all influenced by our understanding of the world.

Thereby when describing the world we are also creating it. Not from nothing but in an ever evolving loop.

This interconnection between reality, our understanding of it and the way we shape it is deeply historically ingrained.

As long as there is a human history it was there and further than that is just not something Butler cares about.

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GuidoSpeedoBurrito t1_j7xkloj wrote

I mean this is all true, but changes nothing about the fact of an independent reality. We can lie to ourselves, we can play word games, communicate however we want to. We aren't creating anything other than a new story by doing so, and certainly nothing on par with what is true about reality outside of our minds.

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ThisSaysNothing t1_j7yteyi wrote

I think you are simultaneously overestimating the scope of what Butler and other social constructivists claim and underestimating the scope of the meaning of what they actually claim.

I think you would profit the most when further engaging with these Ideas when focusing on this question you asked:

"Is this only to point out the fact that boundaries drawn and characteristics chosen in these distinctions are human-created (aka socially constructed?) Because this seems fairly self-evident, but I don't know what work it does."

Also think about the loop I tried to describe. By interacting with the world we also shape it and our influence is especially important for things close to us e.g. our own bodies, relationships, institutions, tools...

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