this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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Outside of a philosophy discussion, it's not a genuinely good question because it is irrelevant to our daily lives. In any way that matters to society, a woman is a person who says they are a woman. It's that complicated.
"Is irrelevant" and "should be irrelevant" are two different things. Fighting by saying the issues are not there—regardless of your actual opinion—has rarely, if ever, worked. It's the same as the "I don't see color" argument.
Also, why would we exclude philosophical discussion? The point is to make you think. I also don't know who this particular person is in the OP, but the question itself has no bias. Maybe this highlights our philosophical differences, but I firmly believe that understanding a system is the most crucial step to revolutionizing it.
Would you say skin color is relevant in our daily lives just because some people think it is?
I also said nothing about excluding philosophy discussions. Please do not put words in my mouth.
Yes. That was my point. Check your privilege. You don't have to be a flagrant racist to subconsciously make decisions and judgements based on race (and gender).
I'm not going to explain how inherent and human biases work. If you care to start making a difference, then it's up to you to understand that you're not perfect and learn how to start changing how you see and affect the world beyond your idealist rose-colored glasses.
I don't have to.
I'm just going to ignore you implying I'm a racist and focus on the second part.
Saying "outside of a philosophy discussion" doesn't mean "we can't talk about philosophy," it means it is generally not relevant in terms of the way it is necessary to live our lives.
People make unnecessary things important to them all the time- skin color, religion, ethnicity, etc.
But if you just ignore those things as irrelevant, the only thing that changes is that some people are treated less like shit. Which is my point.
On the other hand, treating people like shit seems like something you're interested in, at least on a one-to-one level.
You think you're perfect. You are not. No one is. I am not saying you are a racist. You are a human with human biases.
What you've just told me is that you have no interest in discovering and changing yourself to help make a difference. Not to be on any sort of moral high-ground, but I have a really tough time with people that have no desire to learn and improve.
What I'm going to ignore is your assertion that philosophy is not relevant to daily life. That is the stupidest claim in this thread, and it is at the very core of your (subconscious) bigotry. If you can't see that, then there is no next step.
I mean it kinda makes sense, someone who doesn't think that the process of thought is useful not thinking they could make any kind of error.
Yep. It's hard to point that out when my reasoning gets sucked into a circular black hole.
I'm done responding. People that can be helped can read this thread in the future and maybe realize something about themselves.
You know nothing about me or how far from the truth this is. You are miles closer to perfection than I will ever be.
This is a lie.
I have a really tough time with liars who make assumptions about me and put words in my mouth, so I guess we are both having a really tough time.
And more lies.
But thank you for proving my point about you wanting to treat people like shit so well.
Also, I like how you say both "I am not saying you are a racist" and "your (subconscious) bigotry" as if those aren't total contradictions.
If that's not what you were saying, then what were you saying?
They are not. Subconscious bigotry or bias doesn't necessarily make one a bigot, as contradictory as that may sound. Whether they like to admit or not, everyone reacts differently to people who are noticeably different from them. There is no way to entirely avoid this, only to realize when it happens and not act according to it. Or in other words: "I don't care if you're racist! EVERYONE'S racist!"
I was saying that it is not relevant outside of a philosophical discussion. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. I never said philosophical discussions had no relevance.
Also, while you're asking questions, maybe you should ask the person I'm talking to who I am supposedly bigoted against.
It is somewhat relevant, though. For example, it's relevant for designing stuff so that everyone regardless of their phenotypical makeup is equally able to function in society. For example, if it didn't matter at all if a lot of people have no penises, we could have urinals everywhere, or conversely for the opposite, we would have no need for urologists. Or if it really didn't matter what colour someone's skin is, we wouldn't have to have differentiated medical care for people of different phenotypes, or we wouldn't need to think about calibrating sensors for different skin colours for detectors so that every device functions for everyone.
But I get your point, a lot of the reasons people think biological differences matter are all made up and mostly bullshit.
Okay, those are all fair points. I do think you could probably describe those things in terms that do not involve gender or race, but it would probably be with some difficulty.
IMO, the whole topic is nothing but a political tool, and most people wouldn't care either way.
So there is this one playbook that the Russian-aligned right likes to play, which is: take an issue nobody but a very small minority of people care about, but it has to be something they can't just let go. For example, the rights of trans people in the US, but in Hungary it has been the existence of one particular university at one point.
Then start bombarding your base with misinformation about how this thing is bad for society and has to be opposed, and introduce legislation. Finally, watch the small minority protest continuously and very fiercely for the issue that is existential for them, and lay back while this issue occupies public discourse for months and years, precluding other serious issues being discussed as you can comfortably be in a majority position while doing whatever you want without public attention.
The insidiousness is that the issue is really existential for the people affected, so you can't tell them to let it go, and a lot of very loud people would demonize you for letting it go as well since it is existential for them.
So you have three options:
But to actually win, what you have to do is:
Just off the top off my head, here are a few ideas the Dems could have done the same to the Reps, and I'm not a genius:
I know each of these would rile up some small segment of the Republican base, but that's the point! You want to make them fiercely defend points that not all of them care about, as not all of them will turn out for all of these issues. You want the Mormons out in arms on the streets protesting the child marriage ban so you can be "tough on crime" and "crack down on the rioting Mormon paedophiles".
If the question is so irrelevant, why do you even try to answer it in the same comment? Not only answering it, but also making it a fact. As if your opinion is the only one that matters and suddenly it's irrelevant when there's a different opinion.
My opinion is not the only one that matters. I'm not sure where you got that impression unless you think people should automatically agree with you for no reason other than you want them to when they do not.
I base my opinion on my observations on how the world works. I could be wrong, so feel free explain to me how it negatively affects in our society in any significant way if you don't define a woman as someone who calls themselves a woman.
If other opinions matter, then it is not an irrelevant question. Since it prompts people to tell their opinions.
You did not explain to me what I asked you to explain to me. I think you just want someone to fight with since you're clearly not discussing this in good faith and I'm not particularly interested.
I didn't answer your "request" because that has nothing to do with what I originally said.
If I wanted to get into an hours long conversation about gender I would've said something completely different. Got better things to waste my time on.
Then I have no idea even what your issue is? That I dare to think my opinion on something is correct? Isn't that how opinions work?
Can you tell me about one of your incorrect opinions?
So long as society feels it necessary to provide protections for women, the distinction has real consequences. Drawing a line anywhere is a tradeoff between inclusivity and effectiveness.
Taking the party line "high ground" stance of either conclusive self-determination or dodging the question entirely is why this question is so effective.
I'm sorry, is "conclusive self-determination" the wrong answer? Why?
Assuming good faith on the part of those involved, I don't see how inclusivity comes at the cost of effectiveness. Would you care to elaborate?
Assuming good faith, that's a hell of an assumption
Assuming I'm a bicycle, I'd have wheels.
Protections presuppose bad faith.
What protections? Give me some concrete examples of what you're talking about here.
Gendered bathrooms? It certainly does not require a lot of good faith to come up with this example.
That's a terrible example. Gendered bathrooms would still fulfil their function if anybody could use them regardless of gender, causing no measurable harm to anyone.
And your solution is what?
Not the person who you were talking with, but I think it's nuanced. Short term tradeoffs should be made for effectiveness, while long-term strategies should be relentlessly pursued for inclusivity.
E.g. as a man, I think that the women-only carriages in a lot of SEA countries are a necessary thing, but it has to be a short term solution with a healthier society should be always consistently pursued, for example with educational measures.
Honestly? I think that equal treatment should be afforded regardless of gender. I also know that opinion is wildly unpopular, and so long as society expects unequal treatment there has to be hard conversations and hard decisions made to support those structures. You can't have it both ways, and no amount of party-line fingers in your ears "wouldn't you like to know"ing makes that go away.
This would be nice if we lived in a vacuum an didn't have thousands of years of patriarchy built up...
That was essentially what I was saying.
I don't think it is that simple.
Women are treated different that men in many societies. In my country there are multiple laws that apply different to a person if it is a woman or a man.
If we are making legislative differentiation because those words, we ought to have them well defined and understand what we are meaning and why we say that a women gets X law applied that a man gets not.
If it is irrelevant it should be, at least, legislatively irrelevant. If it's meaningful we should be clear on what we are defining by woman (or any other gender that gets particular legislation applied for all that matters).
That without talking about the social importance of being a gendered society. I don't know any single society that is not gendered. Once again, if it is irrelevant then we should aim for genderless society. If it is relevant we should know and agree on what it is to be one gender or other.
Why do you think such legislation is necessary? In fact, what legislation are you talking about that requires gender to be taken into account?
I didn't say I thought it was necessary. It exists, that's just it.
Necessary or not, is, again. A very complex question.
I'm Spanish, from Spain/Europe. We have some laws made in favour of women. For instance, a special court of law that is only invoke in a case of a man hurting a woman he had a romantic relationship with. It's called "Juzgados de la mujer". We have also gender quota por power positions they have historically not being allowed to occupy.
This may seem logical, as there are thousands of women killed by their male partners
We also have, recently, a law that allows anyone to change their gender at any time, no questions, no prove requires to being trans to do so. You can just go to the civil office and change your gender.
This also may seem logical. As trans are usually prosecuted and can get denied a gender change if the civil official didn't like them.
But with these two things in place we happened to had a big number of cis males, that are 100% cis, going to change their gender just to get "inmunity" to "Womens court". Also several cases of cis males changing their gender to get into womens quota required for some positions (for instance here there's benefits and sometimes is required that half of the directive positions are filled by women).
So we have a conflict here. At least I see a conflict. I don't even have the answer on what to do, as two of both things seem right to me (supporting a positive discrimination for a historically discriminated group and helping trans to be what they truly are). But cis males being able to break positive discrimination and mocking trans at the same time feels wrong to me.
And the ultimate question to this topic is "What it is to be a woman". For what I do not have the answer, but I would love to know.
And of course, in my book we all would be genderless, and there would be no discrimination. But my personal utopia is, sadly, not the world we live on.
No, it doesn't seem logical. Men can be killed by their women partners, men can be killed by their men partners, women can be killed by their women partners.
It's only "logical" in a heteronormative patriarchal society.
Again, this does not seem logical. Why do you need a law to allow you to change gender?
Something else that is not necessary.
Benefits should not be gendered, but the quota thing is the closest you have gotten to something being necessary in terms of legal definitions. But even there, all you have to say is that gender discrimination in hiring practices is illegal and it doesn't have to apply to any specific gender.
Also, you are acting like 'man' and 'woman' are it and there is no such thing as a nonbinary gender. You are incorrect.
I literally never said anything against non binary, but ok.
I'm just explaining the legislation you asked me to explain.
Legislation on my country does not take non-binary as an option. So I didn't talk about it. We could have talked about it if you asked about that, as I have lots to say as an non-binary person that really does not fit within my country own legislation on gender.
I feel like you are not really reading me. And I'm feeling more hostility towards my person that I want to feel. So I'm out.
Have a good day.
Which is also not logical.
No one is denying that gendered laws exist. We are talking about what is necessary. I am reading you. You just are not understanding that those laws are not necessary laws the way they are written and can be easily be rewritten to apply to all genders.
For instance, the "women's court" I talked. Which is part of a law called "law against violence on women".
I will give you the official explanation and the one with more consensus on the feminist movement. Even tho I don't really understand it for reasons I will explain later.
The law defines violence against women as "violence that it is applied to women just for the matter of being women". This assumes that this kind of violence only applies to women being hurt by man. This is the consensus, this is the slongan.
I do not understand it as I do not understand what it is to be a woman, to begin with, so I cannot understand that explanation.
But I understand that there's a lot of people, that call themselves women, that are hurt by people that call themselves men. And some legislation that tried to specifically protect the group that is being targeted seems ok. Like really if this are the figures, if men are hurting women more than women are hurting men. And if we had had s "neutral" legislation that did not solve this issue before... It seems logical, at least to me, that maybe it is a problem that should be tacked on a gendered perspective. Maybe it is something gendered on that kind of violence. And thus maybe gender needs to come into place.
I don't know if giving an example is the best way to go about this. And in whatever example I come up with I certainly won't be comparing "women" with that example. I'm just trying to exemplify other cases when "neutral" legislation may not be the best approach.
For instance, different legislation on children and adults, or when adults hurt children, being different that when a kid hurts and adults. Again, and this is important, women are not children. It is just an example where differentiation may be needed to solve a problem.
You will notice that I didn't brought the "women sports" example here. It is the classic issue on this matter. But for me sports are not important so really, I could just get rid of all professional sports and get done with it. Though if I liked sports the question would be similar, as I get why some people want to have gendered segregated sports. I also get with a trans woman should be able to compete in women league. And I also get why if we just adhere to the "being a woman is just saying so" approach then there a place for fraud in cis males breaking the women league. I'm glad I just don't like sports because it is a complex matter too
I don't know. I'm not 100% on board with one opinion or other on the matter. I would really just want to do whatever leads to better society, with less violence. But I don't know the better approach here.