Masculinity and Femininity

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by visceral_instinct, Apr 28, 2008.

  1. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry if this has been done before, but I'm too lazy to run a search...

    What is your opinion of the concepts of masculinity and femininity?

    How much is societal and how much is innate in the brain?

    Is such a dichotomy a good thing? Are they desirable qualities?

    Does being sensitive/caring/not participating in mindless physical dares make you less of a man?

    Does going downhill mountain biking make me less of a woman? (Mikenostic - kudos to you Mike

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    - does not think so, but a lot of people still have this attitude that if you get off your frilly pink cushion and stop fainting you're somehow getting rid of your female nature...)

    My own thinking is that if you believe that women should be feminine and men should be masculine, you believe in dividing human nature in two.

    But at a more basic (visceral

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    ) level I would like to think of myself as feminine...

    Opinions?
     
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  3. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    There are a lot of things I don't do around my house simply because I am female and its guy work. I do not shovel snow, mow the yard, change the oil, or light pilot lights. But then my husband has never cooked a Thanksgiving or Xmas meal. He has also never planned a vacation. I also trim all the hedges and rake the yard.
    But my husband does the laundry and dishes and my son cleans the bathroom, which are probably seen as women's work.
    This is what works for us.
    I would never judge anyone else for the type of job they do around the house. I do find it pathetic that some women do all the work just to keep a man. No division of labor screams "I'm a doormat" whatever sex they are.

    I think women are losing a lot of their femininity and I don't know why. You can be equal to a man in all the areas that matter. Should swearing be an area we demand equality? Should belching and farting?
     
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  5. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    I don't see them myself as much any longer. Being single I do everything that needs doing everywhere. I sew my own buttons on when they come off, iron my shirts, even hem my long pants when I buy them new and they never are the correct length. I really don't look at either of them in a work way I see them more as a flower and a tree, both on the same level of symbiotic relationship, one doing its thing as well as the other, only in a different perspective.

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  7. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    As you probably know, there are girly girls and manly men. But there are also girly boys and woman beasts. Manness and womanness is a continuum. There are some women who are more manly than I'll ever be. There is societal influence, but I think that influence is overrated. People will ultimately be what they are, just as is Alice from the Brady Bunch. They might try to make the requisite social maneuvers to fit in, but you can relatively easily see people as they are and people would rather be themselves than conform completely and totally.

    I once had a girlfriend to whom this applied. She was very feminine physically. She was tall, statuesque and had an enviably beautiful woman's body. But she also had a very masculine mind to the point where she didn't blend in with the normal giggly girly girls whom she found irritating. She didn't wear makeup, she was a smart logical thinker and was very musically gifted. When you look for these things, you can easily size people up.

    Yeah, there's a reason for it all, I'm sure. Masculine minds are tough, action oriented and get shit done oriented. Feminine minds are gentle and flattering which appeals to masculine minds who want to dominate.

    When people use the word "manly" they're talking in generalizations. Traits that are typical among men is that they are comparatively insensitive, tough, risk taking, laconic, logical thinking, unemotional, etc. If you don't have any of these traits it doesn't mean you're not a man or less of a man. It only means you're atypical.

    You seem pretty masculine to me for an XXer. Probably don't have a lot of girly girl friends, do you? Find them irritating at all? It's all good. A little testosterone never hurt a girl.
     
  8. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    One of the interesting things about testosterone is that it drives the sex instinct for both genders. If you're a woman with higher levels of testosterone you likely have a comparatively greater sexual appetite. It's been my general experience that redheaded girls have higher than average testosterone levels, and all of a sudden I've been hearing about a bunch of articles about redheads being more sexually active than others.

    I was kind of surprised that you revealed the information you did in your profile, but i t seems pretty consistent with what I've been saying.
     
  9. Yorda Registered Senior Member

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    people in my stupid country say that there is no difference between men and women, the "gender roles" are made that way by "society". it's really stupid to blame society for that because... we are the society.

    in one sense, they are right of course. there is no fucking difference (?!). it's all in the mind. people think they are male or female (and that thinking creates the difference) because or body is, but i am not a body, i am the mind.

    masculininity and feminity are mental things, thoughts.... when we think we are the body, the physical characteristics of the body are reflected in our personality. the male body is hard and big and female body is soft and small, these main charactersistics get converted into mental things, for example, hard of course has to become "tough", and soft = sensitive. big=dominant/controlling etc, small=submissive/follow orders etc

    (the text in bold are perfect descriptions)

    thoughts control feelings, feelings take orders from thoughts

    small difference creates a chain reaction which creates big differences..... differences that don't even seem to be related to the physical body charactersitic difference (ex: hard, soft), but they are
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2008
  10. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    I do indeed find them very annoying, and they also make me feel like a hermaphrodite. I have a friend who faints if she sees blood. I feel like an unnatural creature with an overactive zona reticularis next to her.

    What makes them 'guy work'?

    Swearing is masculine? O.O

    *heaves a sigh*

    Yeah...I really am an unnatural creature with an excess of androgens.

    You wouldn't be the first to say so.
     
  11. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    Pics?

    Jk.

    Nah, you're certainly not alone. There are other pretty masculine chicks here at Sciforums too a la Xev, Gendanken. One bit of advice though: when you get married, I'd suggest you don't marry an engineer/computer nerd type guy. They tend to have hyper masculine minds as well. If your children's brains develop hyper masculine then that can be a cause for things like dyslexia, autism and homosexuality.
     
  12. Malakas Banned Banned

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    273
    Masculinity & Femininity

    Two concepts tied to a biological past and defining a reproductive role.

    As such, these types are produced by the necessity and demands of this role upon their physical and mental abilities.
    They evolve to meet a need and to carry on their biological function.

    A psychology and demeanor is produced and each individual falls within its premises to a degree.

    The differentiation between mind and body is a human artifice meant to escape the determining effects of this evolutionary past.
    In fact I take Schopenhauer's metaphysical view that appearance is essence and only the interpretation of the apparent can be fooled or be incomplete and/or erroneous.

    Just as our genetic past is represented by our appearance, manifesting itself as a biological general type, so does this type manifest subcategories which are a result of a necessity. In this case survival and the production of larger brained organisms, such as man, necessitates two sexes who inherit a general disposition and characteristics that facilitate this production.

    Nevertheless we cannot ignore the fact that evolution also produces mutations within general types. We get three-legged goats or albino gorillas and so forth.
    These mutations either offer an advantage, within the given environment, or they offer a disadvantage or are irrelevant.

    Within these sexual types, mutations abound producing more or less fit individuals(fit or unfit in the evolutionary sense).
    But given the fact of human artificial environments (natural and artificial designating human intervention) sex and reproduction has become superfluous, thusly favoring a uniformity.

    Nevertheless, the original genetic types still exist, even thuogh they may be slowly atrophying, and here the conflict between gene and meme becomes obvious.

    Gender roles, are indeed cultural products, but they are not totally human inventions. Gender roles often mirror natural roles and only force a repression or redirection when the social context seeks its own harmony and stability.
    Cultural gender roles use symbols to express this biological differentiation that reflect each sexual type's natural necessity.

    It is a recent development that gender roles are deemed unnecessary and so expendable.
    Where sex is irrelevant the system eliminates any identifying marker that threatens its own stability.
    Sexual, racial, religious or alien cultural ideals are exterminated creating a uniform, bland mediocrity, where identity only comes from the monopolizing system itself.
    All natural markers must be eliminate so as to create internal stability and nature is pushed back to the periphery of human consciousness or fenced into parks. All human awareness is cleansed from any sign of natural processes and even our produce come to us unblemished and pristine as they never existed in reality.
     
  13. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    I see nothing wrong with homosexuality...but no, dyslexia sucks and autism is not good...my brother has it so I should know...
     
  14. shorty_37 Go! Canada Go! Registered Senior Member

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    If I can do something around the house I do it. I don't sit back and think this is "guy" work or "womans" work. I cut the grass, shovel snow, fix the plumbing, electrical etc.
    If I don't know how to do something I will look it up on the internet sometimes, for the answer. I am a hands on kind of person though, not a priss afraid to get her hands dirty.
    I also do the typical woman jobs like cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping etc. I do most of these jobs only because I do a much better job at these things then the men, boys in my house.

    The kids have chores, because I want them to learn to be responsible. My older son loves to barbeque so he has started helping out with that now.

    If there is something I can't do by myself then I will ask for help and we will get it done together.

    Btw: Where is mikenostic? He has been missing for a while now.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2008
  15. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    Any engineers/nerd types in the family?
     
  16. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    Are you married?
     
  17. shorty_37 Go! Canada Go! Registered Senior Member

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    Why?
     
  18. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    It was a joke. It's like asking, "Do you want to get married?" but in a joking way. I should have done an emoticon indicating that, but I hate emoticons. Misunderstanding is so much better.
     
  19. shorty_37 Go! Canada Go! Registered Senior Member

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    I figured

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    Married, close enough. Long term relationship ( 5yrs )
     
  20. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think so. He's just made that way...
     
  21. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    I was asking because people with autism tend to have more engineers in the family than average. A British psychologist by the name of Simon Baron-Cohen has found this to be the case. He says that those with autism can be said to have extreme masculine minds. They're hyper systemizing, and therefore, people who make good scientists and engineers often exhibit autism like symptoms.
     
  22. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, I know...

    I tested as so-called 'gifted', and I'm very ASD-ish. I always think people are being sarcastic when they're not, stuff like that...
     
  23. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm sounds familiar..
     

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