Do genders exist?

I do think that gender is based on how a person feels and wants to be notwithstanding the sex organs they have.

So yeah, they exist in my own POV

 

Well, technically boys and girls have a few scientifically noted mental differences as well. For instance, I remember a study that showed guys have more spacial awareness than girls. However, there's so much overlap that it doesn't really matter that much.

 

I don't know how to answer that question either, but you might want to check out being pansexual and gender-blind and posts about those.

 

Sorry if this is bothering you (*hug*)

But to answer your question, NO. Keep in mind that gender and sex are different, sex is something biological, while gender is a socially constructed concept. Cultures tend to focus on what is strictly male and female and no one says anything about someone who is "in between" Honestly I'm going to give you the cliche, be yourself. There is a whole sociological concept behind this that would take to long to explain, and even thought I personally fit the majority of ideas about what males are suppose to be like, I don't take it seriously. The more you really think about it, the more you will realize that societies concepts really don't make sense, especially in this area.

What I'm trying to say is, be you, even if you are "in between" that's fine, we are all just people.

 

I read a great story probably 30 years ago. I think it was by Isaac Asimov. I don't remember the story but in it that characters were either feminine men and women or manly men and women. If you were feminine you could pair with either a manly man or a manly woman. and if you were manly you could chose from any of the feminine people.

I just remember thinking how cool that might be.

 

I believe one is biologically male or female, but more important than an organ, is how that person feels, if that person feels female or male..or none (being biologically male or female), then be it : P

 

Of course there ARE genders. If someone says they are male gendered, then in that person there is such thing as male gender. The thing is not whether or not gender is real, it's whether or not you have gender. Some people do, some don't.

 

Yes, genders exist, they are, in the words of gender researcher J. Richard Udry, “those behaviors on which women and men typically differ," which is indeed measurable through standardized tests like BSRI and the like.

The real question is where exactly the gendered differences come from - biological or social factors? It seems like a mix of both to me, but its a pretty hotly contested debate, overall.

That's true, the term "gender" is socially constructed, and different cultures often have different terms for it - this doesn't change the fact that there are, when averaged out, expressed behavioral differences (and brain structure/function differences) between male and female sexes. This is not to say that men are from Mars and women from Venus, and there's a lot more variance within the sexes then there is between the two of them, but the differences do exist, overall.
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This.

Also, while a lot of things associated with gender expression are just social constructs, gender, or lack thereof, is something fundamental to our identity that would exist even without culture.

 

Existence of gender: in biology genders are mainly differenciated by their chromosomal content. If there are two X-chromosomes the cell comes form a "female" individuum, a X- and a Y-chromosome indicate a "male" individuum (basically and most technically). Of course, with humans there are (and at this point my english may grow weak) trisomys like XXX, XXY or XYY (but no YYY). These people may happen to be partially or (almost?) completely androgenic (as far as I understood our prof). The physical gene expression may vary form person to person. (not going any deeper to this, it's getting complicated).

As I see it personally, gender do exist. If no other means, I would prove it by saying there is a limited amount of people (female) who can give birth to a child after pregnancy (probably the most obvious).
Me being gay also makes me being attracted only (ok, more than 90%) by men. I would hardly ever be attracted by a woman.

The difference in social status has a long history. It probably came up with humanity in stone age when men used to hunt while women were gathering food and stuff. As men proved the stornger "part" of humanity women were made submissive. At some point there came up religions which supported this system, probably to maintain the working system. Today the system doesn't work as good as it did then.

In mind: yeah, I figured that people whom I classify as women seem to think pretty much different as I do. I can't prove it in a scientific way as I tried to prove biological gender differences.

BTW: yes, there are certain species doing self-fertilisation (e.g. some snails) although they would not do it if they can avoid it. Doing so weakens genetic diversity and with it increases the risk of genetic failure in a terrible way (e.g. bad crossing over in a chromosome).

I hope I could help and didn't just wirte a whole bunch of confusing stuff

 

That's backwards. (I dun mean to sound like a bum).
XX distinguishes a male, and XY distinguishes a female. :3
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To answer the main question here: yes, gender does exist.
For obvious reasons, there is a way to distinguish an individual as a male or female.
HOWEVER, this does not mean we have to acknowledge our gender.
Most people let society shape them into the "male and female" ideals.
Others choose to ignore what society CLAIMS them to be and follow what THEY THEMSELVES feel like they are, and there is NOTHING wrong with that! :3

Long story short: Gender DOES exist, but we do not need to ACCEPT it.

 

Lies -
XX for female, XY for male

If this is what bums do I'm so much more bum-ish than you

^^^ Totally agree with that though.

 

Are there genders? In our culture, yes, there are two which exist in an inescapable duality. I really don't think there's anything that's gender-neutral at all. The reason we have two genders is because we construct everything in dualities, defining things by what they are not. We know what x is because of its opposite y. So it is with "male" and "female".

"Male" and "female" are arbitrarily assigned to sexual organs (external reproductive organs for "male" and internal reproductive organs for "female.") Science is used to justify this, but sex is just as much of a social construct as gender. As I'm sure we all know, your gender doesn't necessarily align with your sex.

But the two-gender duality is the only way we really can perceive gender. It is through duality that difference is constructed and used to Other people. Males are seen as the neutral gender, the norm, and females are the Other. To this end, I don't know that there is anything gender-neutral at all because everything, absolutely everything, is gendered. You actually can't escape it... even things that are "gender-neutral" are actually not gender neutral. "Gender-neutral" means masculine because masculinity is neutral.

 

Oh geez. No wonder why I failed biology. XD

 

If genders didn't exist, transgender people wouldn't exist. You can't be outside of a box if the boxes don't even exist.

So yes... they do, even if it's just in the minds of people. But for some people, they just aren't a gender. Or they are a gender beyond male or female, or they are different genders different days. You don't have to be a gender just because genders exist, nor do genders stop existing just because some people don't have a gender.

 

I would suggest that you may be pan-sexual, meaning: One who does not consider gender when falling in love.

 

Say, the way I see life, it feels like there are genders.
Admittedly when you're a kid it doesn't make much of a difference, but when you grow up, you produce sexual hormones and you're wired to be attracted/repelled by specific sexual hormones as well.

That's the only way I can explain my irrational illogical complete attraction to pretty women, and to some very feminine men. Hormones. That and the memory of the feel of touching such people, my brain is like.. More!! More please!!
That's also the only way I can explain my repulsion to manly men, people who smell like men (some women do.) and people shaped like men.

The hormone-analyzing part of my brain must be kind of prehistoric hehe.