EPTOn April 06 2012 04:31 Iyerbeth wrote:
1: I pronounce it as "ow-er", but I also pronounce hourly, hours in the same way and so far as I'm that is the correct version which (more importantly
) doesn't annoy me. Do you pronounce hers as "ers"?
2: A question which thanks to the beauty contest thread I've actually been putting a lot of thought in to how to express, and to be honest I've found myself for the first time unable to find an answer I think covers everything properly.* I don't know if it's a limitation in language or in my use of it, but gender I'm finding is a more and more insufficient word.
Gender roles are roles applied to genders and so are of course not actually the object, "gender". I think as a free species that's an important distinction as if people were not able to act as they wished and were bound to a series of roles then we would find people far less interesting than they actually are.
When I say I realised at a young age I was a girl it was something far more fundamental than how I wanted to dress, or which toys I wanted to play with. I realised how much my body was going to change as I reached adult hood and I hated the realisation as it wasn't right. As I grew older the issues became far more obvious and far more concerning. Fundamentally I was different to the boys I was grouped with, and the situations that forced me in to were gradually more unbearable.
The reason I'm making these points is to try to express in idea's a word I can't find. There is some gender identity which I believe is available to all, but which is acutely a problem if it is not in line with your sex. The user Squarewalker said earlier today on this site a comment which I think sums it up "To cisgender people it may seem like being a certain gender doesn't have a feel to it - and yes, it's a lot like breathing in that sense I guess. Being able to breathe does not make you happy, but not being able to is suffocating."
Being a man or a woman is something which is hard to quantify, but it can not be a way of acting, of appearing or even genetics as they vary wildly from person to person of either sex. It must then be something other than that, an identity. I don't think I could define it better than "an adult male" or "an adult female", and leave it to the individual to understand to which they honestly belong. Gender roles I must leave to society.
*Edit: Also, I'm really thankful that there are people on TeamLiquid who can make these points so well that I find myself in this position at all. The level of thought which goes in to discussions from other users is something which I really love about TL when it happens.
1: I pronounce it as "ow-er", but I also pronounce hourly, hours in the same way and so far as I'm that is the correct version which (more importantly
) doesn't annoy me. Do you pronounce hers as "ers"? 2: A question which thanks to the beauty contest thread I've actually been putting a lot of thought in to how to express, and to be honest I've found myself for the first time unable to find an answer I think covers everything properly.* I don't know if it's a limitation in language or in my use of it, but gender I'm finding is a more and more insufficient word.
Gender roles are roles applied to genders and so are of course not actually the object, "gender". I think as a free species that's an important distinction as if people were not able to act as they wished and were bound to a series of roles then we would find people far less interesting than they actually are.
When I say I realised at a young age I was a girl it was something far more fundamental than how I wanted to dress, or which toys I wanted to play with. I realised how much my body was going to change as I reached adult hood and I hated the realisation as it wasn't right. As I grew older the issues became far more obvious and far more concerning. Fundamentally I was different to the boys I was grouped with, and the situations that forced me in to were gradually more unbearable.
The reason I'm making these points is to try to express in idea's a word I can't find. There is some gender identity which I believe is available to all, but which is acutely a problem if it is not in line with your sex. The user Squarewalker said earlier today on this site a comment which I think sums it up "To cisgender people it may seem like being a certain gender doesn't have a feel to it - and yes, it's a lot like breathing in that sense I guess. Being able to breathe does not make you happy, but not being able to is suffocating."
Being a man or a woman is something which is hard to quantify, but it can not be a way of acting, of appearing or even genetics as they vary wildly from person to person of either sex. It must then be something other than that, an identity. I don't think I could define it better than "an adult male" or "an adult female", and leave it to the individual to understand to which they honestly belong. Gender roles I must leave to society.
*Edit: Also, I'm really thankful that there are people on TeamLiquid who can make these points so well that I find myself in this position at all. The level of thought which goes in to discussions from other users is something which I really love about TL when it happens.
Hmm. Would you agree with the statement that gender roles are a purely social construct while gender is something innate to an individual? (Both of these, of course, being divorced from sex, which is biological/genetic.) If so, that's an interesting perspective. I've heard others express the opinion that gender is something we as a society enforce on eachother, but your perspective seems quite different given how unequivocally you identify as a woman.
From this perspective, it would make perfect sense for a person with a male body but female gender identification to be a "tom boy". I'm not sure I'd considered that possibility prior to your post. ^_^
