Cindo's Controversial Thread of the Week: Masculinity and Femininity

You guys remember when that femtard website got hacked and on the front page there was an image of our lord and savoir? 

There is nothing wrong with any given person not being interested in any given field; I don't think most women's lack of interest in maths is bad per se, though It really limits how many people I can share it with.

It's just that maths is a field of study made by men to answer questions asked by them; any woman with access to the people/books/education institutes could join in, but most don't, and this trend goes back at least to ancient Greece. And when I think about it, it's not the maths itself that's masculine, but the applications of it - just studying algebra for the sake of it has nothing to do with humans of any kind, but solving an engineering problem is definitely masculine, and for that you need algebra.

But there's nothing inherently masculine about math, nor does math have any sort of reason, biologically, to develop in men and not women. It's not as though higher levels of testosterone make a person great in math.

The point you're making is cyclical, in a sense. Yes, men have historically devoted more time to the maths than women, but women have also been treated as weaker and less intelligent throughout most of history by the cultures which made bounds and leaps in mathematics.

I agree and have nothing against the contributions of the women who do choose to contribute, but I am concerned that their contributions may come at a cost to them having their own families.

Women are biological caretakers, but that means next to nothing in the present day. Men are entirely as capable as women are of taking care of children and raising a family - unless you count breastfeeding as the absolute end-all-be-all to raising a kid.

Added onto that, we're no longer at a point in history where continued reproduction is vital to the success of our families, communities, or race. We've got problems with OVERpopulation. It hardly matters if a man or women doesn't want to have children in this day and age.

You're not coming off as a cunt.

And I thought I stated my point, men's business clothes carry a level of respect with them due to the qualifications required to wear one, and I forgot to mention but also the financial implications of being able to afford one. Casual clothes of men and women carry no such connotations, so when someone wears the casual clothes of the opposite sex it isn't for respect; the only reason I can think of is that it's for sexual reasons.

As Egg pointed out, the level of female clothing worn by a man is not looked at any differently. You're arguing this point based on class whilst I'm doing it based on the gendered nature of the clothes themselves - a women can wear anything from boxer briefs and a loose men's t-shirt and nobody bats an eye, but if a man were to wear a highly professional blouse and pencil skirt or a flowing gown, it'd be looked at as strange or an abomination.

And you really can't think of any other reasons that a person might wear certain clothes? Maybe, I dunno, he thinks he looks good in them?

I don't like anal, I do not understand the appeal at all; a tube full of shit is just as disgusting to me regardless of who or what it is attached to; going further and sticking your dick in it, especially when if it's a women then there is a perfectly good vagina right there, makes no sense to me. I can handle perverted things but not anal.

Uh...okay? That still has nothing to do with the hatred of gay men - unless you dislike gay people purely because you don't find what they do to be attractive, in which case that proves the point that I was trying to make on said issue and...kinda makes you shitty.

I don't see anything wrong with women being effeminate, that's how they evolved to be and it's how i find myself attracted to them. Likewise I do have a problem with men being effeminate because that isn't how they evolved to be and as a result it leaves me deeply confused about them - the only times when I would ever act like that, or any of my friends would act like that, is as a joke.

Neither men nor women "evolved" like that, western standards of society have simply become the norm across the world and that's what become the norm across the world. The concept of gender and sex is (rightfully) held to much more variable and fluid standards by hundreds of cultures across the world - it's just that those have died out and/or become much smaller and less influential with the westernization of the world in the last few hundred years.

Societal standards can evolve, but there's no "biological" reason for masculine and feminine traits being assigned so rigidly. Pink was considered a masculine color until 60 or so years ago, after all.

I'm finding this quite helpful typing out these ideas to someone like you, I don't get this kind of confrontation of my opinions from anyone I know and I'm getting the feeling that I wouldn't have as much of a problem with you LGBT if all discussions on it were better informed.

Once again, I appreciate your willingness to learn on the subjects and am happy to discuss things with you, but you...might wanna find better ways to phrase that. It's coming off as the whole, "wow you sure are well spoken for a black guy" thing.

You guys remember when that femtard website got hacked and on the front page there was an image of our lord and savoir?

Kaname Madoka?

You guys remember when that femtard website got hacked and on the front page there was an image of our lord and savoir?

Kaname Madoka?

I agree and have nothing against the contributions of the women who do choose to contribute, but I am concerned that their contributions may come at a cost to them having their own families.

Are you trying to say it's impossible for a father to be the primary caretaker? Most are built up by societal pressures to be career oriented, but nothing about being male makes you a worse parent.

Not impossible, it's just something that I have no experience with and so I don't understand it. I was raised primarily by my mum while my dad spent most of his time working, and this was the case for everyone I know (provided their dad's were still in their life), so this is the kind of setup that I can relate to, whereas one in which the roles of the mother and father are reversed is not.

And I thought I stated my point, men's business clothes carry a level of respect with them due to the qualifications required to wear one, and I forgot to mention but also the financial implications of being able to afford one. Casual clothes of men and women carry no such connotations, so when someone wears the casual clothes of the opposite sex it isn't for respect; the only reason I can think of is that it's for sexual reasons.

Doesn't really hold up. A guy wearing a skirt and a guy wearing a regal wedding dress are both going to get mocked. And there's a lot of reasons to wear clothes other than sexual reasons. Skirts solve sweaty balls.

I hadn't considered a wedding dress, but to paraphrase an earlier post of mine about marriage, it's entire purpose is to unite a man and a woman (for the purpose of raising kids, not mindlessly fucking eachother), where tradition states that the woman wears the dress. I think it's understandable that if you're going to go through with marriage then you follow the traditions of it.

I don't see anything wrong with women being effeminate, that's how they evolved to be and it's how i find myself attracted to them. Likewise I do have a problem with men being effeminate because that isn't how they evolved to be and as a result it leaves me deeply confused about them - the only times when I would ever act like that, or any of my friends would act like that, is as a joke.

What significance does "evolve to be" have?

I guess I really just don't understand this mindset. What does it matter if on aggregate males evolved to act masculine? The aggregate doesn't apply to individuals. What about them not fulfilling this archaic and outdated social role is so upsetting? Don't you think this is you letting your sexuality make judgements?

Because the scientist in me believes that our biology is the fundamental starting point of who we are. It's why one chemical is chosen for the use in synthesizing another (eating food to physically grow) and why one set of interactions is chosen over another (co-operating with your family instead of antagonizing them). Evolution is like a sieve, anything that doesn't work dies, so whatever is left over has to either be good for survival, or not detrimental enough to be removed; and I see the masculinity in men and femininity in women as behavioral patterns that have evolved like anything else. I don't see them as outdated ways of living anymore than I see eating or drinking or breathing as outdated ways of living.

There is nothing wrong with any given person not being interested in any given field; I don't think most women's lack of interest in maths is bad per se, though It really limits how many people I can share it with.

It's just that maths is a field of study made by men to answer questions asked by them; any woman with access to the people/books/education institutes could join in, but most don't, and this trend goes back at least to ancient Greece. And when I think about it, it's not the maths itself that's masculine, but the applications of it - just studying algebra for the sake of it has nothing to do with humans of any kind, but solving an engineering problem is definitely masculine, and for that you need algebra.

But there's nothing inherently masculine about math, nor does math have any sort of reason, biologically, to develop in men and not women. It's not as though higher levels of testosterone make a person great in math.

The point you're making is cyclical, in a sense. Yes, men have historically devoted more time to the maths than women, but women have also been treated as weaker and less intelligent throughout most of history by the cultures which made bounds and leaps in mathematics.

Well I did say it's not the maths itself but the applications of it that would drive a person to learn maths, that are masculine. Pure maths could've just as easily been discovered by aliens without any concept of male or female.

I agree and have nothing against the contributions of the women who do choose to contribute, but I am concerned that their contributions may come at a cost to them having their own families.

Women are biological caretakers, but that means next to nothing in the present day. Men are entirely as capable as women are of taking care of children and raising a family - unless you count breastfeeding as the absolute end-all-be-all to raising a kid.

Added onto that, we're no longer at a point in history where continued reproduction is vital to the success of our families, communities, or race. We've got problems with OVERpopulation. It hardly matters if a man or women doesn't want to have children in this day and age.

Men are undeniably needed in raising children, it's just that I can sympathize more with the man that spends more time working to provide for his family than a woman that does the same.

And overpopulation where? Africa, India, China, but what about my country New Zealand? or my ancestral homeland of Ireland and England? We're not overpopulated at all, we're in decline, I don't want my people going extinct.

You're not coming off as a cunt.

And I thought I stated my point, men's business clothes carry a level of respect with them due to the qualifications required to wear one, and I forgot to mention but also the financial implications of being able to afford one. Casual clothes of men and women carry no such connotations, so when someone wears the casual clothes of the opposite sex it isn't for respect; the only reason I can think of is that it's for sexual reasons.

As Egg pointed out, the level of female clothing worn by a man is not looked at any differently. You're arguing this point based on class whilst I'm doing it based on the gendered nature of the clothes themselves - a women can wear anything from boxer briefs and a loose men's t-shirt and nobody bats an eye, but if a man were to wear a highly professional blouse and pencil skirt or a flowing gown, it'd be looked at as strange or an abomination.

But I'm saying we do bat an eye at women like that, I see a women wearing a man's casual clothes and think that she's sleeping with that man and could've chosen better clothes to wear in public. A man wearing a woman's proffesional clothes is pointless since professional clothes for him already exist.

And you really can't think of any other reasons that a person might wear certain clothes? Maybe, I dunno, he thinks he looks good in them?

It honestly hadn't crossed my mind at all

I don't like anal, I do not understand the appeal at all; a tube full of shit is just as disgusting to me regardless of who or what it is attached to; going further and sticking your dick in it, especially when if it's a women then there is a perfectly good vagina right there, makes no sense to me. I can handle perverted things but not anal.

Uh...okay? That still has nothing to do with the hatred of gay men - unless you dislike gay people purely because you don't find what they do to be attractive, in which case that proves the point that I was trying to make on said issue and...kinda makes you shitty.

Hatred and disgust are two different things. I find their displays of affection offputting and their methods of having sex repulsive, but even I think it's ridiculous to hate them for that, and I effectively never see them doing what they do anyway. You could say I tolerate them.

I don't see anything wrong with women being effeminate, that's how they evolved to be and it's how i find myself attracted to them. Likewise I do have a problem with men being effeminate because that isn't how they evolved to be and as a result it leaves me deeply confused about them - the only times when I would ever act like that, or any of my friends would act like that, is as a joke.

Neither men nor women "evolved" like that, western standards of society have simply become the norm across the world and that's what become the norm across the world. The concept of gender and sex is (rightfully) held to much more variable and fluid standards by hundreds of cultures across the world - it's just that those have died out and/or become much smaller and less influential with the westernization of the world in the last few hundred years.

Societal standards can evolve, but there's no "biological" reason for masculine and feminine traits being assigned so rigidly. Pink was considered a masculine color until 60 or so years ago, after all.

Behavioral patterns specific to one sex can evolve like any other sex specific part of the body; they are certainly more malleable but I don't believe they exist without purpose. I think they haven't died out precisely because they're beneficial and because they work.

I'm finding this quite helpful typing out these ideas to someone like you, I don't get this kind of confrontation of my opinions from anyone I know and I'm getting the feeling that I wouldn't have as much of a problem with you LGBT if all discussions on it were better informed.

Once again, I appreciate your willingness to learn on the subjects and am happy to discuss things with you, but you...might wanna find better ways to phrase that. It's coming off as the whole, "wow you sure are well spoken for a black guy" thing.

I'm not going to lie, I did hold a low opinion of you people before this conversation, and now I feel that I need to reserve my judgement until I know more.

Not impossible, it's just something that I have no experience with and so I don't understand it. I was raised primarily by my mum while my dad spent most of his time working, and this was the case for everyone I know (provided their dad's were still in their life), so this is the kind of setup that I can relate to, whereas one in which the roles of the mother and father are reversed is not.

Was your father an awful parent simply because he wasn't able to be there all the time? Can't you infer that if a father had the time he would parent just fine?

I hadn't considered a wedding dress, but to paraphrase an earlier post of mine about marriage, it's entire purpose is to unite a man and a woman (for the purpose of raising kids, not mindlessly fucking eachother), where tradition states that the woman wears the dress. I think it's understandable that if you're going to go through with marriage then you follow the traditions of it.

I don't really intend to talk about marriage right now, I think traditionalism is arbitrary, but the point was about clothes. The point is that
this is acceptable while

this isn't

So much that a lot of places will actively prohibit crossdressing, like schools. The policies explicitly target male crossdressers because all clothes are considered fair game to girls, but boys are confined to strictly masculine clothes. A girl cross-dressing is not even easy to imagine because of how this has been conditioned to us.

Because the scientist in me believes that our biology is the fundamental starting point of who we are. It's why one chemical is chosen for the use in synthesizing another (eating food to physically grow) and why one set of interactions is chosen over another (co-operating with your family instead of antagonizing them). Evolution is like a sieve, anything that doesn't work dies, so whatever is left over has to either be good for survival, or not detrimental enough to be removed; and I see the masculinity in men and femininity in women as behavioral patterns that have evolved like anything else. I don't see them as outdated ways of living anymore than I see eating or drinking or breathing as outdated ways of living.

As an empiricist you have to recognize that given the complexity of the brain, not all individuals are suited to fit that narrow criteria. What leads you to think that the deviants are dangerous other than the fact they aren't the norm?

I'm always a little bit outside of these discussions about masculine or feminine qualities.

I live in an environment that actively tries to kill me for 7 months of the year, and severly injure me for the remainder. I can't actually afford much in the sense of fashion. Just give me tough pants, shoes, and a shirt, and off I go.

With some of the women out here, it's the same deal.

Maybe.

Feminine traits can be seen as stemming from a weaker character, and maybe that correlates into being seen as inferior or being shunned. Society looks at things from a man's point of view and then makes comparisons/judgements accordingly.

Although, things are changing, and things as they are now are always grey and variable.