What does gender mean to you?

[Brettski]

Gender is an unseen program running in the background. IMHO, we all have innate drives, instincts, that are tied directly to it. Men are hunters, protectors, killers when they need to be. Woman are nurturers, thinkers, home makers.

Both of our roles have been watered down and demonized. A woman who would rather raise her own kids than work a 9-5 is looked at as having accomplished less. Men are being turned into steroid swilling, skirt chasing, tanning bed obsessed, tiny gold chain wearing, pathetic shells of what we were meant to be. I'm leaning REALLY heavily on that "IMHO" thing.

When a woman's art is grotesque, disturbing, haunting, it's a little more effective because we tend to think of women as mothering, caring, warm and affectionate. When that image is twisted, we sometimes don't quite know how to react. I think Devi's pedals fit in this category pretty well. Not that grotesque, disturbing, and haunting are bad, they're just usually reserved for the skull crushing, eviscerating male gender.

Sex is a pretty obvious one to me, but whatever anyone else wants to do is their business. What do I care if two people of the same gender fuck each other's brains out? Are they happy? Hurting anyone? I don't understand it, really, but I don't need to.

Cheers to anyone who's happy and satisfied, and here's hoping everyone else get's there.

[Gopherbassist]

Male: Made to fit into a corresponding open or recessed part

Female: Being or having a recessed into which a corresponding part fits

These are the genders I know.

[smile_man]

Male: Made to fit into a corresponding open or recessed part

Female: Being or having a recessed into which a corresponding part fits

These are the genders I know.

[aen]

Both of our roles have been watered down and demonized. A woman who would rather raise her own kids than work a 9-5 is looked at as having accomplished less.

Actually, stay at home moms hate career moms and career women/moms think stay at home moms wasted their life. (regardless of what they say when interviewed- observation in the field says otherwise) You're kind of expected to do both now.

Thats why we said fuck the system! and Im stay at home dad during the day, and work until I pass out on the sodlering iron at night!

[Caesar]

Thats why we said fuck the system! and Im stay at home dad during the day

Two of my most recent pals (Aen included) have been stay at home dads. Definitely a trend for the new age of delightenment.

I'd like to be a stay at home dad, but I'd be more of the "sit on the couch and drink beer till I have a heartattack" kind of dad. I think it's better I'm out of the house.

[Brettski]

Both of our roles have been watered down and demonized. A woman who would rather raise her own kids than work a 9-5 is looked at as having accomplished less.

Actually, stay at home moms hate career moms and career women/moms think stay at home moms wasted their life. (regardless of what they say when interviewed- observation in the field says otherwise) You're kind of expected to do both now.

Thats why we said fuck the system! and Im stay at home dad during the day, and work until I pass out on the sodlering iron at night!

I'm speaking from a purely hunter/ gatherer type of mentality which, genetically, we are not at all removed from. This whole civilization thing we love so much hasn't been around all that long when you consider the potential 200,000 year run humanity has had so far. Deep down, we still have instincts. Deep down, we still juss' buncha FREAKS.

[Enoch-Fox]

I'm involved in the Rainbow Alliance at my college... I think it's irritating when people say that gender is a construct. In the name of liberation people are starting to throw the metaphorical baby out with the bathwater. Gender ROLES are B.S. in my opinion, yeah. There's no reason to railroad somebody into certain life choices because of what they were born with between their legs. But GENDER ITSELF, well, that's a biological certainty. Males and Females EXIST. Sure, there are classes of people that blur the line, but how is that defined? "Well, I'm physically male, but I FEEL LIKE a woman." So who said what "feeling like a woman" feels like? Again, that's a question of gender ROLES, not gender. Gender is your biological, (and barring hermaphroditism and infertility) reproductive, sex.

Gender is an unseen program running in the background. IMHO, we all have innate drives, instincts, that are tied directly to it. Men are hunters, protectors, killers when they need to be. Woman are nurturers, thinkers, home makers.

Maybe. It's certainly a possibility, but I think attributing personality traits to "nature" leads us, obviously, to describe different personalities, then, as "unnatural". A woman who has "hunter" behavior or a man who is a "thinker" then get written off as oddities. This instinctual thing may be the case in some species in the wild but I don't think that vestigial instincts from days when we were hiding from tigers in caves are to blame; once again, I think this is society's doing (even "fault"). The thought that a husband should be able to "expect" his wife to stay home and care for the house and kids or whatever is nonsense to me. Now, if that's the arrangement they both AGREE ON, as in, she'd really rather do that (which is totally possible) then I don't have a problem with it. Moms can be stay-at-home moms and still be empowered. But it shouldn't be something like, she's 14 or 16 and looks forward into her life and that's all she sees. There should be many options, and many of them should be acceptable, and as a culture we aren't at the point where an accomplished businesswoman can walk through a small town and get the same amount of respect as a housewife baking pies. (*cough*CASE IN POINT: Palin's success*sneeze*) It's ridiculous that in many towns she would be LOOKED DOWN UPON for having that success.

And in response to this:

Male: Made to fit into a corresponding open or recessed part

Female: Being or having a recessed into which a corresponding part fits

These are the genders I know.

Well, according to this definition (and certain thought processes), we'd all be female. X3

[Enoch-Fox]

Male: Made to fit into a corresponding open or recessed part

Female: Being or having a recessed into which a corresponding part fits

These are the genders I know.

Well, according to this definition (and certain thought processes), we'd all be female. X3

I think he may be talking about in relation to guitar gear / electrical equipment.

i knooooooow but it's funnier interpreted this way XD

[WaveForm3]

Ok, I have mulle dthis over, and I PROMISE to write a big response on this tomorrow...but for now...

[Caesar]

The term gender refers to whether something is masculine or feminine. I would say that I follow fairly tradition definitions of the terms.

However, gender is not sex. Sex is male or female. Either sex can exhibit traits of either gender.

[Brettski]

"Maybe. It's certainly a possibility, but I think attributing personality traits to "nature" leads us, obviously, to describe different personalities, then, as "unnatural". A woman who has "hunter" behavior or a man who is a "thinker" then get written off as oddities. This instinctual thing may be the case in some species in the wild but I don't think that vestigial instincts from days when we were hiding from tigers in caves are to blame; once again, I think this is society's doing (even "fault"). The thought that a husband should be able to "expect" his wife to stay home and care for the house and kids or whatever is nonsense to me. Now, if that's the arrangement they both AGREE ON, as in, she'd really rather do that (which is totally possible) then I don't have a problem with it. Moms can be stay-at-home moms and still be empowered. But it shouldn't be something like, she's 14 or 16 and looks forward into her life and that's all she sees. There should be many options, and many of them should be acceptable, and as a culture we aren't at the point where an accomplished businesswoman can walk through a small town and get the same amount of respect as a housewife baking pies. (*cough*CASE IN POINT: Palin's success*sneeze*) It's ridiculous that in many towns she would be LOOKED DOWN UPON for having that success."

I would hardly call instinct built up over BILLIONS of year vestigial. No amount of cologne, neckties, hair dye, or machinery we've produced in the last oh, 5,000 years is gonna wipe that out, and the time we spent as hunter gatherers accounts for MOST human history though it might be properly recorded.

Now, I'm not saying that people SHOULD do a damn thing. If a person wants to sit at home, smoke crack til their teeth fall out, try to raise a demon, and burn his hair while singing Beatles songs to Britney Spears tunes all day, I really don't care.

I DO feel that, personally, I'm faking something. I have a cool job, a great girl, and I'm generally true to myself and stick to my guns. I'm satisfied materially, but something's missing. Some would call this a spiritual issue, but given my deeply rooted contempt for religion, that one's not clearing up very soon.

I think the problem is that I'm not supposed to wake up to a blaring alarm clock, polish myself, go perform a task that is not directly related to my survival for the majority of my waking hours, only to have someone tell me that I owe them some of the fiat currency I earn from said activity, and the list just goes on and on. Why do we submit to this? For one, we're TOLD to. Everywhere you look, you're being told how to be, think, act.

I think this is a big reason for the tremendous amount of mental instability we're experiencing as a nation. I honestly don't care about society or what it thinks of me or anybody else. I care for my fellow man, for our overall well being. That is all for now.

Cheers!

[crizwell]

Thats why we said fuck the system! and Im stay at home dad during the day

Two of my most recent pals (Aen included) have been stay at home dads. Definitely a trend for the new age of delightenment.

I'd be all over the stay at home dad thing.. unfortunately as a single parent, it ain't gonna happen

[Enoch-Fox]

I DO feel that, personally, I'm faking something. I have a cool job, a great girl, and I'm generally true to myself and stick to my guns. I'm satisfied materially, but something's missing. Some would call this a spiritual issue, but given my deeply rooted contempt for religion, that one's not clearing up very soon.

I think the problem is that I'm not supposed to wake up to a blaring alarm clock, polish myself, go perform a task that is not directly related to my survival for the majority of my waking hours, only to have someone tell me that I owe them some of the fiat currency I earn from said activity, and the list just goes on and on. Why do we submit to this? For one, we're TOLD to. Everywhere you look, you're being told how to be, think, act.

I think this is a big reason for the tremendous amount of mental instability we're experiencing as a nation.

I can get behind that. Although I think it's less to do with male/female and more to do with all these social constructs essentially being B.S. to begin with. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to the primal part of anyone's brain that they should go sit at a desk, then forfeit a big chunk of their reward to a government who isn't visibly doing much of anything to earn it. But I think a woman sitting in a suburban house her whole life caring for kids is gonna be deeply dissastisfied with that as well, on a primal level. Religion has spun everything to tell us that we are NOT animals, that we have NO animal instincts, and that as humans, having those thoughts and feelings is wrong... I think the problem is as a species, we're unwilling to admit that we're animals; really smart animals, but animals nonetheless. The fact that we are ABLE to defy our biological hard-wiring is what seperates us. I know you aren't saying anybody SHOULD do anything. But this hard-wiring argument is often used (often in appeals to a "higher power") to that end, while at the same time we're told to DENY our hard-wiring in other places... so yeah, a lot of tension between the hardware and the software.

Although I still think those instincts are, at heart, vestigial. By that I don't mean trivial or stupid or imaginary or anything like that. They're real instincts, but, I mean, hunting instincts serve no purpose in a world where to get food I drive to Taco Bell and ask the clerk nicely. Hardwired? Sure. Deeply, even Irremovably ingrained? Maybe. But do they serve a purpose? We've been born with appendices for generation after generation, but all the organ does is get us killed.

Just a note about the last thing... Yeah, I care about everyone's overall well-being too... society is what happens when a lot of people get together and don't think for themselves. There's this experiment that was performed... Stanford I wanna say? where they put people in a room, and show them four straws, and ask them to pick the longest one. When they're seperated, pretty much everyone gets it right... but all they have to do is put everyone in the same room and plant one guy who very loudly picks the wrong answer, and a huge percentage go with him. They stop thinking and start group-thinking. So yeah, I could give a fuck what society thinks too... as long as the people around me refuse to let that construct do the thinking for them.

[Gopherbassist]

Well, according to this definition (and certain thought processes), we'd all be female. X3

Certain parts of all of us are female, and certain parts of all of us are male.

I think he may be talking about in relation to guitar gear / electrical equipment.

All things, actually.

[Blurillaz]

I don't really care if my friends are a boy or girl, it doesn't matter. (unless you're trying to have a kid.)