Alright, my latest homework from my gender counselor got me thinking...

I'm supposed to make lists of things that society considers male/female/neutral and things that I consider male/female/neutral. The first part is easy-- society gender-types everything in sight (as I'm sure you all know well). The second part, however, has me stumped...

Try as I may, I can't think of anything that I absolutely and unquestioningly consider male or female. I've met too many loving male teachers and parents, brilliant female scientists with gadgets coming out their ears, and men who wear skirts and aren't any less man for doing so... I can't do it. I'm at a loss.

Yet at the same time, there must be something in me that recognizes a difference between the genders, or else why would I have this overwhelming sense that I am not female? Clearly it isn't society's gender typing, either, because my preferred name is traditionally female, I love to wear skirts, and two of my biggest goals are to teach middle school and be a loving parent... yet I consider myself to be genderqueer and FtM. So what is it?

Mostly I just wanted to hear you all's theories and experiences regarding this. Do you gender type objects/concepts? To what extent? If not, how do you know what gender(s) you are (or aren't)?

I type things according to who I've seen do them. Since I spend a lot of time around males, a lot of things are male to me even if people say they are not (like displays of emotion such as crying, that is male to me in many cases.)

What makes me think I am male is not my behavior. My behavior only backs up my claims of having a male identity for therapists and such. I feel I should have a male body, and it's rather confusing and frustrating that I don't. Biological differences are the only absolutes I can find since people can behave how they please.

QuoteMostly I just wanted to hear you all's theories and experiences regarding this. Do you gender type objects/concepts? To what extent? If not, how do you know what gender(s) you are (or aren't)?

A fine mess no?
Certainly you engage in gendering in some fashion. Perhaps your inability to come to the root of your individule perceptions regarding gender are due to a desire to not do just that?

I seem to lump people into 3 basic groups. Those who show a predominance of female traits are seen as female, those with mostly male traits are therefore male and those who seem to blend traits enough to preclude male or female clasification I think of in terms of genderqueer/androgyne.

How do I know I am a female? I feel the truth of that statement in my heart. I have more female traits than male traits. Add to that I am not comfortable as male and I am comfortable in a female role. Therefore I am female.
My spouse is a diferant story. Ze has male and female traits to the point of dificulty of classification so therefore I have an androgyne mate. lol 
Try and do that excercise again. Keep in mind you have opinions, it is just a matter of diging them out.

I'll sometimes say certain things are typically female or male based off of our society's standards, however I Know that our society's standards are not the only standards of gender in the world.

I just feel male.  Everything I do, however, screams "female!" but I just don't feel female.  Does that all make sense?  My body should be male, I feel this deep down inside me but my personality should be how it is now.

Quote from: Crow on July 26, 2010, 11:36:19 AM
Mostly I just wanted to hear you all's theories and experiences regarding this. Do you gender type objects/concepts? To what extent? If not, how do you know what gender(s) you are (or aren't)?

I'm pretty sure the world works with a 'majority rules' system for this one. A.k.a. if 4 out of 5 pairs of breasts go yay at a pony then it's deemed a breast-thing... Hm I just visualised that..
Anyhow... System.
I roll with that system, try to keep up with the rules so I can understand it, but I don't vote. I know I'm not any gender (alias nullgender) because I don't vote, don't care to vote and don't get upset with the votes. It's just a system... And I use it to better understand others rather than participating.

So-so in conclusion, if I were given an assignment like that there'd be a staring contest with a huge N/A sign. Kind of the same as when someone shows me a piece of paper with a smiley face on it, asks me what it is and I say 'A piece of paper'.

Quote from: Shang on July 26, 2010, 11:55:38 AM
I just feel male.  Everything I do, however, screams "female!" but I just don't feel female.  Does that all make sense?  My body should be male, I feel this deep down inside me but my personality should be how it is now.

I feel the exact same way! I'd be a pretty darn effeminate guy, but a guy nonetheless!

try dividing the female-male into something else, for example, delicate-though.

What is delicate ? Delicateness is not necessarily femenine, ofc, but the division on other qualities applicable to maleness or femaleness, not the WHOLE femenity versus masculinity.

Because that's like saying "what's good?" quite hard to put down to words.

Again it doesn't work - one can be delicate and tough as well as both at the same time.

Quote from: Pica Pica on July 28, 2010, 05:51:56 PM
Again it doesn't work - one can be delicate and tough as well as both at the same time.

the point is not to neatly divide the world (besides, there's a bunch of stuff which defies deinition, thus can't be divided)
the point is to explain masculinity / femininity.

I reckon it could be understood by putting masculinity with independence and femininity with co-operation...

I mean that typically male, lone-dog, clint eastwood, Indiana Jones - man alone stuff.
And then the female in community, Pride and Prejudice, Brigit Jones, Happy-go-lucky - Communal stuff

If I were you I'd just be honest and say you can't break people down into groups, I'm the same way I can't see anything as being one or another, it's all grey. It all depends on the individual.

Can I be honest and say that this question makes my head hurt.

I know instinctively that I am happy to be an unconventional female. As to what that means it all gets difficult and so highly subjective that I really think this is one of those honey trap questions that therapists ask when they want to create something to talk about to fill time. It all looks deceptively simple until you actually try to answer and then you find that every single person has a slightly differing take on it.

I mean all the obvious ones like masculine is physically strong and robust, Masculine is practical and straightforward, feminine is emotionally complex, feminine is soft and nurturing, masculine is thrusting, feminine is receptive... etc etc etc - except that when you examine any of these perceptions you find that there are always circumstances or individuals for which these ideas simply do not hold true. So as conceptual models these ideas are in fact pretty useless.

As far as my own self understanding is concerned to use a decorating analogy, I'm kind of like one of those near white paints that they sell under various names like "apple white" and "peach white" etc. I'm "tomboy female" and with a good twist of geek gloss-work thrown in! 

To be controversial for a moment, I personally think gender is one of those useless concepts invented by people who have limited mental flexibility and therefore have to retreat into the simplicity of rigid categorisation of things to allow them to make sense of the world. I feel sorry for such people, but I have no desire to enter their world in which a rainbow, instead of being a continual spectrum is merely comprised of eight arbitrary fixed colour bands.

My world is in at least 48 bit colour while theirs is apparently only 8 bit! It should be fairly obvious which of us has the richer visual experience! Now perhaps tell your therapist apply that principle to gender and the making of such over simplified binary lists!

I honestly just think of maleness and femaleness as characteristics in their own right, rather than maleness means you're independent or tough or whatever, and femaleness means you're delicate and social.  It's just an essence or something.  Pah.

Quote from: rejennyrated on July 29, 2010, 04:36:42 AM
To be controversial for a moment, I personally think gender is one of those useless concepts invented by people who have limited mental flexibility and therefore have to retreat into the simplicity of rigid categorisation of things to allow them to make sense of the world. I feel sorry for such people, but I have no desire to enter their world in which a rainbow, instead of being a continual spectrum is merely comprised of eight arbitrary fixed colour bands.

I'd have to agree with this.

Quote from: Shades O'Grey on July 29, 2010, 01:29:15 PM
I'd have to agree with this.

I don't.

People will always find ways to compare one to another of other people or animals or things. Gender shows its differences in tendencies as doe many other things such as disease and habits. Habits are influenced greatly by environment and what has happened before. Disease can be diagnosed by watching for these similarities/tendencies. An observant person will notice things that differ and group people or things with a number of similarities together, this includes people who share tendencies regarding gender.

Quote from: rejennyrated on July 29, 2010, 04:36:42 AM
Can I be honest and say that this question makes my head hurt.

...

To be controversial for a moment, I personally think gender is one of those useless concepts invented by people who have limited mental flexibility and therefore have to retreat into the simplicity of rigid categorisation of things to allow them to make sense of the world. I feel sorry for such people, but I have no desire to enter their world in which a rainbow, instead of being a continual spectrum is merely comprised of eight arbitrary fixed colour bands.

My world is in at least 48 bit colour while theirs is apparently only 8 bit! It should be fairly obvious which of us has the richer visual experience! Now perhaps tell your therapist apply that principle to gender and the making of such over simplified binary lists!

It makes my head hurt, too! (Hence how this board came into existance to begin with. XD)

What I ended up doing for the homework assignment, in the end, was putting everything in a spectrum ranging from "girly girl" to "macho man" (complete with a lovely pink-purple-blue color gradient-- hooray for technology) and putting a big "This is a rough estimate for illustrative purposes and should not be taken as set-in-stone facts" disclaimer at the bottom. I think that should do the trick. 83

I agree, I could do the 'how society does gender' easily, but as for me... I dunno, I still have some prejudices, some trends I see in the people around me, but whatever I think of (goin' through the stereotypes) I can think of the same trait mirrored in someone of the opposite gender, and it doesn't make them less female or male (eg. angry girls or makeup-wearing boys). Without referring to stereotypes, I think this question is fairly impossible to answer...
I just came from a thread where the person outlined a theory about gender dysphoria that was related to how different societies construct gender roles (and how they clash with natural variation in personalities, but that's a whole new discussion). She pointed out that the things we'd assign as what defines a masculine person or a feminine person varies from culture to culture. If you were to make a list, it would just be what your particular culture considers masculine or feminine. My brain is particularly uncultured then, because I can see it, I just haven't internalised it too much because I don't agree with it. 
In the end, how I see it is that people are just people. It doesn't matter what set of characteristics they have, so long as they're decent. I could go with literally how their bodies are (eg. males have a tendency to be taller), but I'm not sure that's what your therapist meant.

I've got it, gender is just a collection of tendencies.

Most stereotypes have no biological basis so they're only good for understanding the culture around you. It's good to understand the culture around you, but other than that, gender stereotypes are pretty useless, maybe even harmful.

Gender is a system to force people to conform to society

Crow as to your "Homework" consider placing all the traights that make up who you are in both lists (how society see and how you see and all the things that make you Not female would be listed as female on both and you might like to put your name on the lists you don't need to put the things that you dont see as either in any list or you could create an 'other' list.