Re: Gender importance (was Future Relationships)

From: Eric Ruud (ejruud@ucdavis.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 22 1999 - 19:17:22 MDT


-----Original Message-----
From: Jocelyn Brown <jocelynb@mindspring.com>
To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
Date: Thursday, April 22, 1999 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: Gender importance (was Future Relationships)

>>Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that either your definition of
>culture
>>is different than most, or you're claiming that gender is biologically
>>determined.
>>
>>-Eric
>
>How else would it be determined? Even if a person is transgendered, where
>the mental sex doesn't agree with the hardware, it is still a biological
>issue, since all mental processes are ultimately biological. Transgenderism
>is simply two aspects of biology in disagreement with each other.
>
>Jocelyn Brown
>jocelynb@mindspring.com

It's true that all of these things are ultimately biological, but then so is
culture.

If you're arguing that there are two options here (male gender or female
gender), you need to look at some cultures that have more than two genders.

Gender is a cultural construct that entails far more than biological sex or
sexual preference, and we're expected to conform to certain rules that apply
to the gender (i.e. males are ridiculed for wearing dresses).

-Eric



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