Wouldn't using fictional creatures and how some people think about them lead to a different kind of conclusion? Something like: some people think/act like, when experiencing fictional characters (some non-biological) that sex is not entirely dictated by personality.Carleas wrote:The use of sex in fiction, and in relation to clearly non-biological person-like entities, suggests that the position that sex is entirely dictated by biology must be false.
Yes, this tension is rarely mentioned by the Left as a whole. Which is a shame since it means that a very complicated X, is treated as if it was morally and philosophically clear. And I do understand, for example, Martina Navratilova, a lesbian feminist, saying that there are problems with people with the power of men's bodies coming into, for example, women's tennis.Carleas wrote:I think my actual motive is probably clear: to defend the use of social sex pronouns to refer to people who choose to present as a social sex that doesn't align with their biological sex, and to show that this use of social sex is already a part of language and the concept of sex.
But presenting it as a dichotomy does show why it should not be surprising that trans and radical feminist perspectives could come into conflict. The social use of sex implies that sex dictates social roles: a perspective that accepts transsexuality must also accept that there are distinct social and even mental sexes, and that 'treating someone like a woman' and 'treating someone like a man' are and should be meaningfully different. The other side of the dichotomy is to reject the latter claim, and reject the use of female social identity as applied to robots and virtual assistants as reinforcing sexual stereotypes and the status quo of sexual stereotypes.
Just to muddy the water a bit: brain studies have shown that transpersons' brains show similarities to the brains of the sex they were not born as. IOW their biology does in fact support, to a degree, their sense that they are not their birth gender.Because we do in fact use language this way, I would argue that we implicitly already accept the former. But I'm sympathetic to the latter arguments that perhaps we shouldn't. That said, consistency does not seem to permit a middle ground.
obsrvr524 wrote:If the body is male but the mind declares itself to be female and must be treated as such by other people, then the mind is simply deranged and insisting that its fantasy be accepted.
The problem I have with this, is what are these people saying about women who do not dress and act that way. Are butch lesbians not women? Are men who dress that way but identify as men, actually wrong? It seems to me there is an uncomfortable area in the current left PC about gender and it is mostly ignored by them. I don't think the answer to all that is simple, but it is presented as simple. If someone feels like they are X (qualities related in how they feel like acting and presenting themselves) then they are a man or woman. But this to me is making hard and fast claims about men and women, that on the other hand the PC left does not want us to be making. Why can't some of the men who have decided they are women, actually be men with those qualities? There are certainly other men who display those qualities but consider themselves men. y tCarleas wrote:There's little difference between these things and biological men who choose to present as women to adopt the female social role. They tune their dress, their speech, and their actions to convey that they should be treated socially as women.
Now I have no idea what treated socially as women means. I get it, that this probably means, label them as they wish to be labeled. But note the language it is couched in. Treated socially like women. After all this time there is now still a way I should be treating women socially that I do not treat men like? Open doors for them? Condescend? Avoid politics and sports as topics? I know, of course that's not what you or they mean. But really it should mean nothing, except labelling. And why must one label`? if we can be anything as either sex.to convey that they should be treated socially as women
Carleas wrote:
so apply this reasoning to the point I make in the OP : are we all deranged to call Siri female or to assign a sex to any cartoon
character ? After all their bodies are biologically neither male nor female we are assigning them sex in a similarly fantastic way
Gloominary wrote:Can robots feel like they were born in the wrong body?
Gloominary wrote:Did they ever call data a man on Star Trek?
obsrvr524 wrote:If a man believed himself to be a robot, insisted that society treat him as such with all of the benefits of warranties, guarantees, and replacement parts then proceeded to insist that the government fund the upgrading of his biological body with mechanical parts, would you be making the same argument? Should he be treated as less than you? Are you a bigot? Don't you believe in healthcare for all?
What if he believed himself to be a dog or a tree. What is the difference in those beliefs and believing that he is a female? And why should other people pay to have him pursue his deranged belief?
obsrvr524 wrote:I don't think that I can accept your premise that sex is the only reason that females are chosen for those occupations....
If women or female models are chosen for those occupations for a different reason than you propose ,and I believe that they are, then your argument is void.
obsrvr524 wrote:I think that part is all true but irrelevant in that it is merely the aftermath of a possible delusion and intentional deceptive manipulation.
obsrvr524 wrote:The issue that you seem to be avoiding entirely is, "why are they even wanting people to treat them as something that they clearly are not?"
obsrvr524 wrote:It seems to me that billions of years of evolution created behaviors of creatures by killing off what didn't work for their survival and propagation. To now claim that it has all been merely a social role playing game that can be easily rewritten seems excessively naive and petulant.
obsrvr524 wrote:I don't see how that has anything at all to do with why androids are built gender specific.
surreptitious75 wrote:It is nothing more than the very natural desire to humanise certain non human objects one likes
Carleas wrote:The use of sex in fiction, and in relation to clearly non-biological person-like entities, suggests that the position that sex is entirely dictated by biology must be false. In fact, there is a meaningful use of sex that is abiological, that is related to social roles rather than genetic facts. There is an accepted sense in which Alexa is a woman, and Data and Han Solo are men. This is a common and non-controversial use of the concept of sex, and it has nothing to do with biology.
Gloominary wrote: Can robots feel like they were born in the wrong body?
Carleas wrote: This misses the point. Rather, knowing that their bodies have no biological sex to speak of, we still happily use gendered pronouns to refer to them.
Gloominary wrote: Did they ever call data a man on Star Trek?
Carleas wrote: Yes. There's an episode in the first season of Next Generation called "Measure of a Man", the title referring to Data, and the plot revolving around a tribunal to decide whether Data has rights (the question isn't whether he's a man vs. a woman, but a man vs. a machine). This is also one of the episodes that establishes the shape of Data's genitals in canon.
But Data is almost always referred to by male pronouns, and when he's referred to as 'it', it's deliberately to disparage him and reflects badly on the speaker in context.
And I would do this. If someone wanted to be called something other than what they seem to be to my eyes, I would do it. But this doesn't mean I endorse the philosophy, per se. More important, yes, we do treat them differently but one part, the part I support, of the Left is saying let's end that. The other part is saying it's fine and good to continue that, to create and support stereotypes, to teach children those stereotypes - for example the whole drag queens reading children stories movement, or the whole, if you think you have the qualities of a girl but were born a boy then you are a transperson philosophy. That is problematic. It's gone beyond 'accept people for who they are' to a philosophical underpinned based on fixed sex qualities.Carleas wrote:Karpel Tunnel, I agree with your points, there's absolutely a tension in PC culture between demanding the use of chosen gender pronouns and demanding equal treatment for all genders. But my response would be that, in practice, we don't treat men and women equally, it is a true descriptive statement that there are social sexual roles. Whether or not that should continue, while it's the case, we should be open to letting people choose their sexual role.
I can't see how. You will have adults telling girls and boys that girls, for example can be like X, should not be exluded from B because they are girls and also that girls needs not be Y. They you are also telling them that Janie is a girl despite being born in a body that is male, and this is based on not feeling like a male inside. And then Janie will, generally, though yes, not always, act more like a girl (in the traditional sense) than many of the girls. And they everyone will be told they are bad (though often not in those words) if they do not accept this. That's a mess, and I cannot see how that mess in part reinforces the differences, and in fact is more pernicious because it is a kind of brainwashing, wehre one says opposing 'truths' to people. IOW this is a method used by brainwashers. I am not using the term to simply mean 'sticking ideas without consent into people's heads' but the use of contradictory messages is a tool used in attempts to brainwash.There are arguments that this will tend to reinforce those roles, but I think it's more likely that it will continue to erode the distinction and increase equality.
I am not sure that is the case. And since there is incredible rage and judgment aimed at those not accepting something that at the same time is being fought elsewhere, I don't think the roles will be less fixed.And, in any case, if there's less stigma attached to switching roles, there's less problem with those roles existing anyway.
I wouldn't call that blackface. It's something else. I don't think I judged that woman. I think it's off for her to say she's black, but I have sympathy for her sense of that. I can see no reason to tell others that however. I can certainly imagine saying, I feel black, to friends.I also agree with your point about drag and blackface, and I'm under the impression that there are people that consider it as similar in both degree and kind (I would bet that there are TERF scholars who take this position). But I also think the Rachel Dolezal case (the white woman who lived as a black woman) was not as straightforward as it was made out to be. Like with sex, there are dimensions of racial difference that have eroded over the past half century in ways that make those cases more likely. Take for example Black English Vernacular, which is spoken by people of all races that grow up in cultures in which that dialect is spoken. Certain elements of race are actually derived from culture, and where race and culture were once more reliably aligned (at least in the US), the correlation is much weaker now, but the concepts surrounding them have lagged. If someone grows up in a culture that would have historically only been open to people of a certain race, there's a live question as to whether they will identify primarily by their 'biological race' or their 'cultural race'.
obsrvr524 wrote:The issue that you seem to be avoiding entirely is, "why are they even wanting people to treat them as something that they clearly are not?"
Mad Man P wrote:There is no mystery here, this is not complicated... and I can only speculate as to why you think it worth discussing, especially in the context of social roles.
Gloominary wrote:I grew up watching Star Trek TNG, I've seen every episode multiple times and I never once heard the characters call Data human or a man
Wikiquote wrote:Data: Sir? There is a celebration on the holodeck.
William Riker: [despondent] I have no right to be there.
Data: Because you failed in your task?
William Riker: Oh, God, no, I was that close to winning, Data.
Data: [considers the statement] Yes, sir.
William Riker: I almost cost you your life!
Data: That is true, sir. But Commander... Will. I have learned from your example.
William Riker: [perplexed] What could you possibly have learned from that ordeal?
Data: That at times, one must deny one's nature, sacrifice one's own personal beliefs, to protect another. Is it not true that had you refused to prosecute, Captain Louvois would have ruled summarily against me?
William Riker: Yes.
Data: That action injured you, and saved me. I will not forget it.
William Riker: [smiles] You're a wise man, my friend.
Data: Not yet, sir. But with your help, I am learning.
Gloominary wrote:not that we should be modeling our social norms off a work of fiction, an extremely progressive work of fiction at that.
I wrote:There are arguments that this will tend to reinforce those roles, but I think it's more likely that it will continue to erode the distinction and increase equality.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:I can't see how.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:I would be considered loopy by many here on these topics.
obsrvr524 wrote:All that says is that there are many more people who have cancer than influenza.
obsrvr524 wrote:why should anyone be required by law to treat anyone as anything different than what they actually are?
WendyDarling wrote:If we were to scrap traditional biological references to the sexes and their corresponding genders then Siri with a female voice would be referred to as a male which would be confusing, retarded, and inaccurate.
WendyDarling wrote:We recognize based on biology for it is literally what signifies gender. I don't believe in social sexual distinctions as legitimate for they are based on unnatural lies.
Carleas wrote:To treat someone socially as a certain sex is to point to the map and say "New York". We aren't saying that the picture on a map has an aquifer or a looming problem with coastal flooding, and we aren't saying anything about Siri's genitals. Neither are we suggesting anything about the biology of a female-presenting person who clearly signals that they wish to treated socially as a woman when we grant them that.
Gloominary wrote:
I grew up watching Star Trek TNG, I've seen every episode multiple times and I never once heard the characters call Data human or a man
Carleas wrote:
I was mistaken, Measure of a Man was from the second season:
Wikiquote wrote:
Data: Sir? There is a celebration on the holodeck.
William Riker: [despondent] I have no right to be there.
Data: Because you failed in your task?
William Riker: Oh, God, no, I was that close to winning, Data.
Data: [considers the statement] Yes, sir.
William Riker: I almost cost you your life!
Data: That is true, sir. But Commander... Will. I have learned from your example.
William Riker: [perplexed] What could you possibly have learned from that ordeal?
Data: That at times, one must deny one's nature, sacrifice one's own personal beliefs, to protect another. Is it not true that had you refused to prosecute, Captain Louvois would have ruled summarily against me?
William Riker: Yes.
Data: That action injured you, and saved me. I will not forget it.
William Riker: [smiles] You're a wise man, my friend.
Data: Not yet, sir. But with your help, I am learning.
Gloominary wrote:
not that we should be modeling our social norms off a work of fiction, an extremely progressive work of fiction at that.
My argument here is that these works of fiction reflect our existing social norms: we do in fact treat social sex and biological sex as distinct, as evidenced by our application of the concept to thing we acknowledge to be abiological.
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