Gender Essentialism

[Switzerland]

Immanuel Can, nice to see you around these parts.

I know I haven't been around much (there is a very good reason for that, trust me), so I'm going to be rusty now. What, exactly, is the question being posited in the thread?

[Immanuel Can]

OK, you accept the devolution of Christianity into Christendom

I never said any such thing. I have no idea where you're getting this idea from.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can, nice to see you around these parts.

I know I haven't been around much (there is a very good reason for that, trust me), so I'm going to be rusty now. What, exactly, is the question being posited in the thread?

Hello, S. Welcome to the ring.

You can pick up the gist of the question it if you read my post, which is the last one at the bottom of page 3 of this thread. After that, there's just been a lot of niggling back and forth.

[Dachshund]

I can pay money for the company of an attractive woman for sex. But to spend an evening with someone like Simone learning why she is as
(sexy) as she is (Ooh la la !!) would be priceless.



Nick,


Face it... You've got it bad. You're "head - over - heels" in love with SW.


But that's OK, I understand why she's still your one and only sweet heart, even though she was laid to rest in England in 1943.


It's because...


"You only know you are truly in love someone when you have glimpsed in them that which is too beautiful ever to die" (Marcel)


And you've done that. Right?





Regards


Dachshund

[Nick_A]

I can pay money for the company of an attractive woman for sex. But to spend an evening with someone like Simone learning why she is as
(sexy) as she is (Ooh la la !!) would be priceless.



Nick,


Face it... You've got it bad. You're "head - over - heels" in love with SW.


But that's OK, I understand why she's still your one and only sweet heart, even though she was laid to rest in England in 1943.


It's because...


"You only know you are truly in love someone when you have glimpsed in them that which is too beautiful ever to die" (Marcel)


And you've done that. Right?





Regards


Dachshund

You don't appear to have admiration for those rare ones with the need and the will sufficient to strive to be human and somehow associate it with romantic love..

Thomas Merton records being asked to review a biography of Weil (Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love, Jacques Chabaud, 1964) and was challenged and inspired by her writing. “Her non-conformism and mysticism are essential elements in our time and without her contribution we remain not human.”

Have you ever really thought about what it means to be human without getting caught up with romantic love? If you've never thought about what it means to be human and why we are not human you can't be expected to have any admiration for Simone and just write her off as some crazy lady. IMO, unfortunately you are in the majority.

[Nick_A]

D, I'm leaving for a weeks vacation tomorrow. When I return I'm going to begin a thread on emotion in Christianity. The subject has been corrupted in the West. It isn't your thing now but I'd like to get your impression on an excerpt I will post. If it doesn't resonate that's fine. I'm just interested in the reaction of an intelligent human being like yourself to a different appreciation of emotion.

Now its off to Antigua.

[IvoryBlackBishop]

The only helpful theme I've ever seen come up in these discussions from remotely well-adjusted normal people is the theme of polarities or opposites to be reconciled (e.x. yin and yang, etc), as well as healthy dose of common sense.

All of the overally cliché or reductive attempts to "pidgeon hole" men and women as individuals, groups, or anything else tend to be unhelpful, borderline nonsensical, or only applicable in very certain or specific situations which one doesn't or rarely ever encounters exactly that way in real life, and without any appropriate attempt at contextualization, usually end up just being hasty generalizations or dicthomies, which others have argued the opposite.

(e.x. I've heard people argue that girls are easier than boys to raise at early ages, but then that boys are easier to parent than girls during adolescence).

(Or that schools treat boys as "defective" girls for some reason or another, while on the other hand schools treat girls as "defective" boys because of the emphasis on mathematics, or so on and so on).

[IvoryBlackBishop]

Well, now.

Flash says men and women are "different." He says that's "biologically" and "socially." However, he seems to have been unable to say what specific "differences" he meant, so we can't really evaluate his view.

So perhaps someone else can propose something: what specific "differences" define "man" as substantively distinct from "woman"?

Let's also see if we can make some sense of Gender Essentialist Feminism. There would need to be some sort of "contribution" that women could make, but which men were not capable of making, according to that theory. What would it be?

What are the specific differences between male and female peacocks? Or male and female ants?

I'm not sure if "social construction" in animals can be said to be the "same" as within human societies, however it's known that in ant colonies, social structures such as "roles" and "class division" exist (e.x. female worker ants sacrifice their fertility on behalf of the Queen).

Obviously, since the physical difference in men and women emerge from genetics to begin with, which is and has been well-documented enough as far back as the 1800s to the present day, that any archaic, outdated "tabula rasa" theory of human psychology which treats the physical body and genetics as "nonexistent", as though the "mind" can somehow exist in itself without a body or a brain, that I'm inclined to believe that such a nonsensical theory was only ever popular, in light of and in denial of the facts because it was predicated on ignorance, superstition, and wishful thinking which was easy to market and sell to the under-educated and ill-informed social demographics to begin with.

The differences are obviously much more complex and intricate than the anti-intellectual view of reducing them solely to the 'visible' parts.

As far as evolutionary psychology, as per Pinker, Wright, and others - many of the cliché "stereotypes" about men and women's sexuality are not necessarily true, but there do exist innate differences in male and female sexuality:

(E.X. Men are more likely to cheat for "more partners"; women are more likely to cheat if they can get "different things" from different partners, like romance, security, etc. Men tend to be more open to casual sex than women since they can't get pregnant. Courts tend to be harsher on male sex offenders who abuse women or girls, than female sex offenders who abuse men or boys, because the female victims and can get pregnant or die in childbirth, women tend to be perceived as more competent caretakers of children than men in child custody disputes because they can get pregnant; people tend to view a female adulteress worse than a male adulterer because she can get pregnant with another man's child).

And the list goes on...

[IvoryBlackBishop]

Besides the sexual organs of the physical body there is NO difference at all between men and women. Unless of course some thing can be shown otherwise.

The reality, as far as actual contemporary psychology goes (e.x. evolutionary psychology as per authors such as Steven Pinker and Robert Wright), is that the biological differences are based on genetics, as are other physiological traits, such as eye or hair color, not merely reducible to the "body part" in a vacuum, but rather, the body part and other biological complexities, most pronounced during adolescence emerge due to the genetics. The notion here is not one of "moral nihilism", just the acknowledgement of biological realities.

As far as specific "roles", these specifics have varied from time-to-time, family-to-family, and so on, and were not always "fair" (e.x. even if on average, there are more male mathematicians than women, and testosterone has been shown by peer-reviewed medical sources to correlate with mathematical and spatial reasoning ability)

Regardless, the roles didn't simply emerge for "no reason", and in practice, aren't always necessarily "bad" or of the "arbitrary, anti-meritocratic" variety. Which the radical anarchist or "critical" theory fad promotes (e.x. that all notions of "gender" or biological differences were part of a conspiracy theory

e.x The "gender" role or expectation that a man (or a woman) should enter a marriage or consensual relationship with another person based on some margin of mutual respect, rather than, say, father 5 children with 5 different partners and not pay any child support, isn't exactly a "bad" gender role or expectation.

Even during the 1800s when the "tabula rasa" nonsense was, for some reason, popular (which treated the body and genetics as nonexistent, and the mind essentially as all that existed), it was more or less known to be nonsense by serious scholars, such as Freud, or the philosophy of the Common Law, as per Oliver Wendall Holmes and others.

(e.x. The law distinguishes between "crimes" of passion, such as 2nd degree murder, which is primarily done "in the heat of the moment", such as when the body is in a "fight or flight" state and incapable of thinking rationally, and 1st degree murder, which is premeditated and rational).

So, if the premise here is just hocking outdated, nonsensical psychology and the nonsensical axioms or suppositions based or predicated on it to begin with (which even during the era it was popular was more or less known to be nonsense by advanced psychologists like Freud, or the prevailing legal and moral philosophy), or promoting an anarchist, conspiracy theory version of "gender roles" (a la the "critical theory cult" or "postmodern" fads as per Foucault and other "radical" thinkers of the 1960s), then I don't find this to be helpful.

[Age]

Besides the sexual organs of the physical body there is NO difference at all between men and women. Unless of course some thing can be shown otherwise.

The reality, as far as actual contemporary psychology goes (e.x. evolutionary psychology as per authors such as Steven Pinker and Robert Wright), is that the biological differences are based on genetics, as are other physiological traits, such as eye or hair color, not merely reducible to the "body part" in a vacuum, but rather, the body part and other biological complexities, most pronounced during adolescence emerge due to the genetics. The notion here is not one of "moral nihilism", just the acknowledgement of biological realities.

As far as specific "roles", these specifics have varied from time-to-time, family-to-family, and so on, and were not always "fair" (e.x. even if on average, there are more male mathematicians than women, and testosterone has been shown by peer-reviewed medical sources to correlate with mathematical and spatial reasoning ability)

Regardless, the roles didn't simply emerge for "no reason", and in practice, aren't always necessarily "bad" or of the "arbitrary, anti-meritocratic" variety. Which the radical anarchist or "critical" theory fad promotes (e.x. that all notions of "gender" or biological differences were part of a conspiracy theory

e.x The "gender" role or expectation that a man (or a woman) should enter a marriage or consensual relationship with another person based on some margin of mutual respect, rather than, say, father 5 children with 5 different partners and not pay any child support, isn't exactly a "bad" gender role or expectation.

Even during the 1800s when the "tabula rasa" nonsense was, for some reason, popular (which treated the body and genetics as nonexistent, and the mind essentially as all that existed), it was more or less known to be nonsense by serious scholars, such as Freud, or the philosophy of the Common Law, as per Oliver Wendall Holmes and others.

(e.x. The law distinguishes between "crimes" of passion, such as 2nd degree murder, which is primarily done "in the heat of the moment", such as when the body is in a "fight or flight" state and incapable of thinking rationally, and 1st degree murder, which is premeditated and rational).

So, if the premise here is just hocking outdated, nonsensical psychology and the nonsensical axioms or suppositions based or predicated on it to begin with (which even during the era it was popular was more or less known to be nonsense by advanced psychologists like Freud, or the prevailing legal and moral philosophy), or promoting an anarchist, conspiracy theory version of "gender roles" (a la the "critical theory cult" or "postmodern" fads as per Foucault and other "radical" thinkers of the 1960s), then I don't find this to be helpful.

As I said;
Besides the sexual organs of the physical body there is NO difference at all between men and women. Unless of course some thing can be shown otherwise.

You have not shown anything otherwise. Therefore, to me, from what I have observed, there is no difference at all between men and women besides the sexual organs of the physical body. This observation will obviously remain the same until you or another shows anything differently.

[IvoryBlackBishop]

Besides the sexual organs of the physical body there is NO difference at all between men and women. Unless of course some thing can be shown otherwise.

The reality, as far as actual contemporary psychology goes (e.x. evolutionary psychology as per authors such as Steven Pinker and Robert Wright), is that the biological differences are based on genetics, as are other physiological traits, such as eye or hair color, not merely reducible to the "body part" in a vacuum, but rather, the body part and other biological complexities, most pronounced during adolescence emerge due to the genetics. The notion here is not one of "moral nihilism", just the acknowledgement of biological realities.

As far as specific "roles", these specifics have varied from time-to-time, family-to-family, and so on, and were not always "fair" (e.x. even if on average, there are more male mathematicians than women, and testosterone has been shown by peer-reviewed medical sources to correlate with mathematical and spatial reasoning ability)

Regardless, the roles didn't simply emerge for "no reason", and in practice, aren't always necessarily "bad" or of the "arbitrary, anti-meritocratic" variety. Which the radical anarchist or "critical" theory fad promotes (e.x. that all notions of "gender" or biological differences were part of a conspiracy theory

e.x The "gender" role or expectation that a man (or a woman) should enter a marriage or consensual relationship with another person based on some margin of mutual respect, rather than, say, father 5 children with 5 different partners and not pay any child support, isn't exactly a "bad" gender role or expectation.

Even during the 1800s when the "tabula rasa" nonsense was, for some reason, popular (which treated the body and genetics as nonexistent, and the mind essentially as all that existed), it was more or less known to be nonsense by serious scholars, such as Freud, or the philosophy of the Common Law, as per Oliver Wendall Holmes and others.

(e.x. The law distinguishes between "crimes" of passion, such as 2nd degree murder, which is primarily done "in the heat of the moment", such as when the body is in a "fight or flight" state and incapable of thinking rationally, and 1st degree murder, which is premeditated and rational).

So, if the premise here is just hocking outdated, nonsensical psychology and the nonsensical axioms or suppositions based or predicated on it to begin with (which even during the era it was popular was more or less known to be nonsense by advanced psychologists like Freud, or the prevailing legal and moral philosophy), or promoting an anarchist, conspiracy theory version of "gender roles" (a la the "critical theory cult" or "postmodern" fads as per Foucault and other "radical" thinkers of the 1960s), then I don't find this to be helpful.

As I said;
Besides the sexual organs of the physical body there is NO difference at all between men and women. Unless of course some thing can be shown otherwise.

You have not shown anything otherwise.

I believe I just did.

Therefore, to me, from what I have observed, there is no difference at all between men and women besides the sexual organs of the physical body.

The "sexual organs" are the result of genetics, so that statement, of course is scientifically absurd and denialistic.

Whether we are talking male or female humans, or male and females of any other species; such as peacocks; the observable differences are the result of genetics.

https://www.scribd.com/document/6754889 ... cent-Males

This observation will obviously remain the same until you or another shows anything differently.

It has, no offense but your assertion is as ridiculous as denying 9th grade biology.

What causes the sex organs to develop the way they do to begin with? It's not like the stork just waives a "magic wand" and decides to give baby A male organs, and baby B female organs when he delivers them to mommy and daddy.

In the context of human potential, it's obvious that individual men and women can excel at things that others can't, there are male and female chess masters, male and female celebrity chefs, male and female athletes, male and female artists, male and female entrepreneurs, and so on.

Regardless, this has no bearing on the reality of biology, and has more to do with culture, philosophy, and human potential, and since most of the arguments here just boil down to immature clichés and stereotypes which aren't even true to begin with, outside perhaps of very limited social contexts, I find it not worth commenting on.

[IvoryBlackBishop]

I notice that a lot of gender theory talks two different ways.

First of all, what in the world does ''Gender Essentialism'' even mean for christ sake? surely people will generally talk about whatever which way they choose to talk about?
Unless you are suggesting men just want to talk about motor cars and women just want to talk about dolls houses?

It all boils down to stereo typical conditioning on how people are moulded from birth.

Example 1 ....girls are given pink birthday cards when they born.
Example 2 ....boys are given blue birthday cards when they are born.

Example 3 ....girls are encouraged to play with dolls and dolls houses at play school.
Example 4 ....boys are encouraged to play with toy cars and garages at play school.

This is basically nonsense, for one clichés like "pink / blue" toys aren't even true, just a cultural cliché marketed to and relevant at a very specific age, if even then; the reality is it's ultimately up to the parents to decide what toys, or what "colors" to play with.

Much like most of the popular clichés regarding pink and blue, such as them having been "reversed" at one point, is nonsense as well.

Notions like colors and fashions are and were always context dependent, not specifically "male" or "female". (For example, in past times, "vibrant" colors like red or pink were a sign of social status for male nobility, presumably in a time period where "fancy" colors were a luxury which only the wealthy could afford.

Likewise, pink or red was at times a "woman's color", but it was associated with prostitution, and more "modest" women were expected to wear blue'. Essentially, without context, the statements are nonsense.

Much as are statements such as that "men used to wear dresses" are nonsense as well; for one, garments such as male tunics were not "commoner" wear, and were limited to nobility, they were also tailored different than women's dresses were, much as women's pants or jeans today are tailored much differently than "men's" pants.

Likewise, a "transvestite" who wears a dress isn't doing so because he believes it's a "man's clothing", he is wearing it purposely because he wants to "look like a woman", or a transgendered person presumably because he "identifies" as woman and wants to wear clothing designed specifically for women and their physique (e.x. women's dresses or skirts are tailored to highlight their "womanly" parts, such as hips, while man's tunics or robes are not).

Much as other myths such as women "not being allowed" to wear pants are silly and nonsensical as well; in history women have actually been wearing pants since ancient times; context just varied, much as how women's pants among poorer women originally became popular not because of a "fashion statement" (which dresses were, particularily in times when they were more of a luxury for the wealthy), but primarily for pragmatic or functional reasons, must as how most statements in regards to women "having jobs" or "working", are nonsensical as well, and primarily only concerned with legislation related to jobs and arbitrary discrimination marketed to the 6th grade reading level or 100 IQ, often as more of a pragmatic necessity than long-term self-actualization, rather than higher level career or intellectual achievement.

(For example, there have been notable women academics and women in prominent social positions in every culture historically, with traditionally, family and birth planning a larger factor into it, such as ancient queens and royalty like Cleopatra, as well as female academics and intellectuals like Marie Curie, even during a time when women in general were believed to have or possess fewer legal rights in those areas, much as how female actors from the earliest days of Hollywood in the early 1900s, or even the women actresses who played wealthy housewives in 1950s sitcoms, were obviously much more wealthy, and more more achieved in personal careers or self-actualization than many "average" women of that day and age are or were; with the women of the most social status even during "past times" having more actual rights and self-actualizations relative to their time periods than "average" or "poorer" women today do.

It's all to do with those early years of a childs life and what is stereo typically imposed upon them in the form of what is expected of them by their carers.

That statement
None of this human activity is essential or a requirement to BE who you always are, except to say that once expectation has been well grooved into the believing mind, the resulting display of action is a reaction of what that mind has been conditioned to believe, where the old ingrained habits usually die hard. But that's all changing now.
[/quote]
As with anything else, this would very quite a bit, and simply isn't the "case" with every family or child, no two parents parent or raise their child in exactly identical ways.

Much as how many aspects of how one identifies do not come from parents, such as during adolescence where it's well-documented that peer influences and other cultural factors, as well as simply individual choices and self-actualization play a role (e.x when children mature physically and psychologically, they tend to grow out of older traits, things, beliefs, and so on which were previously a part of their less mature "identity").

Genetics or inborn traits obviously play a role; for example, while Tiger Woods had parents who played golf, he was already out-performing his father as a golfer by age 6, showing that being a genetic prodigy had more to do with his skill at a golf than anything specifically learned rationally from his parents, or gleaned from his environment; much as how if another child without that high level of skill were simply "handed a golf club" by parents, they would not be able to instantly play like tiger woods, wheras even in if he wasn't "handed a golf club", but managed to acquire one on his own, or play another sport entirely which required the same types of physical or mental abilities, he would still excel on them.

Women act like men and men act like women. Men talk like women and women talk like men.

This is something of a false dichotomy, for one how do "men" act" or "women act", or "men talk", or "women talk", to begin with, other than clichés which likely weren't even entirely true no matter what archaic or romanticized cliché or stereotype you're referencing, ironically reinforcing the clichés yourself.

And when, and under what conditions to "women tend to do this", or "men tend to do this"? Since whatever it is that they're doing, it's not being done "in a vacuum" isolated from all of the other external parts or conditions in which they "do this"?

Men wear make-up too.

Men have been wearing makeup since ancient Egypt, China, and Japan. As with other things, such as male tunics, my understanding is it was primarily a nobleman's thing to distinguish the wellborn from the commoners.

And women don't shave their lady gardens or their legs and arm pits.
[/quote\
This again varied by culture, time period, context, etc - for example, in northern Europe during the Renassaince era, or during the mid 1800s, it was more popular and fashionable to wear a "full bush" than it is today.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... en-and-why

Both men and women do all the things men and women have been doing since the dawn of time. Change happens but nothing changes.

I'm confused, are you arguing that this has "always been this way", or that it's a "change" from things as mythically and more often than not, erroneously imagined or nostalgized to begin with?

[Immanuel Can]

What's interesting is that there are two narratives, both adamantly pushed...

1. The narrative that men and women are the same.

It's said that they are so much the same that it makes no difference which one thinks one is. It makes no difference, even, if we put men and women in the same athletic competition or in full combat in the military, or in heavy construction, or access to bathrooms and change rooms, and so on. Even manifest physiological differences mean nothing, and should not be acknowledged. Birth as male or female is not at all determinative. It's said that the only reason for apparent differences is oppression, or indoctrination, or upbringing. There is absolutely nothing inherent in being male or female. Nothing.

2. The narrative that women are special.

It is said that women's perspectives are unique relative to men's. It's said that we would all be better if more women, relative to the proportion of men, were in the workplace, the academy and political power, but that they merit special affirmative action, indefinitely, to produce this, because women are not able to compete on an equal footing yet. It's said that women would not create wars, and war is a male propensity. It is said that violence against women, by men, is a special category of evil, and calls for special protections for women. It is said that women have a right to determine the fate of their progeny, but men have none -- and that men are responsible to pay for pregnancies they cause. It is said that men are particularly violent, particularly given to unhealthy competition, and guilty of excluding women. And so on.

What's bizarre is that both these claims are on the Left. In fact, they're often made by exactly the same person, in the course of the same argument, and both insisted upon with radical fervour.

But the first one is adamantly and uncompromisingly anti-essentialist, and the second cannot be made at all without obvious recourse to a gender essentialist view.

So which of the views, 1 or 2, is the truth?

[Age]

The reality, as far as actual contemporary psychology goes (e.x. evolutionary psychology as per authors such as Steven Pinker and Robert Wright), is that the biological differences are based on genetics, as are other physiological traits, such as eye or hair color, not merely reducible to the "body part" in a vacuum, but rather, the body part and other biological complexities, most pronounced during adolescence emerge due to the genetics. The notion here is not one of "moral nihilism", just the acknowledgement of biological realities.

As far as specific "roles", these specifics have varied from time-to-time, family-to-family, and so on, and were not always "fair" (e.x. even if on average, there are more male mathematicians than women, and testosterone has been shown by peer-reviewed medical sources to correlate with mathematical and spatial reasoning ability)

Regardless, the roles didn't simply emerge for "no reason", and in practice, aren't always necessarily "bad" or of the "arbitrary, anti-meritocratic" variety. Which the radical anarchist or "critical" theory fad promotes (e.x. that all notions of "gender" or biological differences were part of a conspiracy theory

e.x The "gender" role or expectation that a man (or a woman) should enter a marriage or consensual relationship with another person based on some margin of mutual respect, rather than, say, father 5 children with 5 different partners and not pay any child support, isn't exactly a "bad" gender role or expectation.

Even during the 1800s when the "tabula rasa" nonsense was, for some reason, popular (which treated the body and genetics as nonexistent, and the mind essentially as all that existed), it was more or less known to be nonsense by serious scholars, such as Freud, or the philosophy of the Common Law, as per Oliver Wendall Holmes and others.

(e.x. The law distinguishes between "crimes" of passion, such as 2nd degree murder, which is primarily done "in the heat of the moment", such as when the body is in a "fight or flight" state and incapable of thinking rationally, and 1st degree murder, which is premeditated and rational).

So, if the premise here is just hocking outdated, nonsensical psychology and the nonsensical axioms or suppositions based or predicated on it to begin with (which even during the era it was popular was more or less known to be nonsense by advanced psychologists like Freud, or the prevailing legal and moral philosophy), or promoting an anarchist, conspiracy theory version of "gender roles" (a la the "critical theory cult" or "postmodern" fads as per Foucault and other "radical" thinkers of the 1960s), then I don't find this to be helpful.

As I said;
Besides the sexual organs of the physical body there is NO difference at all between men and women. Unless of course some thing can be shown otherwise.

You have not shown anything otherwise.

I believe I just did.

You are free to believe whatever you like, but do not forget that what you believe is true, is not necessarily true, right, nor correct?

Therefore, to me, from what I have observed, there is no difference at all between men and women besides the sexual organs of the physical body.

The "sexual organs" are the result of genetics, so that statement, of course is scientifically absurd and denialistic.

How is what I said here absurd and denialistic to you? .

What do you assume and/or believe I am denying exactly?

Of course the sexual organs are the result of genetics. That can be clearly seen in what I said

Whether we are talking male or female humans, or male and females of any other species; such as peacocks; the observable differences are the result of genetics..

That is EXACTLY what I have been saying.

https://www.scribd.com/document/6754889 ... cent-Males

This observation will obviously remain the same until you or another shows anything differently.

It has, no offense but your assertion is as ridiculous as denying 9th grade biology..

What are you even on about?

It appears that you do not even know or understand what I am asserting here.

What causes the sex organs to develop the way they do to begin with?

Genetics.

It's not like the stork just waives a "magic wand" and decides to give baby A male organs, and baby B female organs when he delivers them to mommy and daddy.

In the context of human potential, it's obvious that individual men and women can excel at things that others can't, there are male and female chess masters, male and female celebrity chefs, male and female athletes, male and female artists, male and female entrepreneurs, and so on..

This is also EXACTLY what I have been saying as well.

Regardless, this has no bearing on the reality of biology, and has more to do with culture, philosophy, and human potential, and since most of the arguments here just boil down to immature clichés and stereotypes which aren't even true to begin with, outside perhaps of very limited social contexts, I find it not worth commenting on.

I do not even know what you are commenting on.

You apoear to be saying that I am wrong, but you write as though you agree with exactly what I have been, and am, saying here.

[Age]

What's interesting is that there are two narratives, both adamantly pushed...

1. The narrative that men and women are the same.

It's said that they are so much the same that it makes no difference which one thinks one is. It makes no difference, even, if we put men and women in the same athletic competition or in full combat in the military, or in heavy construction, or access to bathrooms and change rooms, and so on. Even manifest physiological differences mean nothing, and should not be acknowledged. Birth as male or female is not at all determinative. It's said that the only reason for apparent differences is oppression, or indoctrination, or upbringing. There is absolutely nothing inherent in being male or female. Nothing.

2. The narrative that women are special.

It is said that women's perspectives are unique relative to men's. It's said that we would all be better if more women, relative to the proportion of men, were in the workplace, the academy and political power, but that they merit special affirmative action, indefinitely, to produce this, because women are not able to compete on an equal footing yet. It's said that women would not create wars, and war is a male propensity. It is said that violence against women, by men, is a special category of evil, and calls for special protections for women. It is said that women have a right to determine the fate of their progeny, but men have none -- and that men are responsible to pay for pregnancies they cause. It is said that men are particularly violent, particularly given to unhealthy competition, and guilty of excluding women. And so on.

What's bizarre is that both these claims are on the Left. In fact, they're often made by exactly the same person, in the course of the same argument, and both insisted upon with radical fervour.

But the first one is adamantly and uncompromisingly anti-essentialist, and the second cannot be made at all without obvious recourse to a gender essentialist view.

So which of the views, 1 or 2, is the truth?

Neither.

What I find more interesting is that some people are only able see these two things only, out of all that has been written here.