Talk:Gender role/Archive 5

message: Not entertaining, but usually highly problematic, however, are cases wherein the external genitalia of a person, that person's perceived gender identity, and/or that person's gender role are not consistent. People naturally, but too easily, assume that if a person has a penis, scrotum, etc., then that person is chromosomally male (i.e., that person has one X chromosome and one Y chromosome), and that the person, in introspection, feels like a male.
Is it me, or does this paragraph seem to be about gender identity rather than gender role? Also, if a person has an apparently normal penis and scrotum, the likelihood of XY karyotype (genetic male sex) is somewhere between 0.999 and 0.9999, but the likelihood of a male gender identity is somewhat less (maybe 0.99-0.999, but I haven't tried to find stats). The first assumption is arguably one of the most reliable assumptions we can ever make about another person based on their appearance, and even the second assumption is pretty darn reliable compared to most inferences we make from appearance. So how easily is "too easily"? 
In addition, this person may have always accepted a gender identity that is consistent with "his" external genitalia or with "her" internal genitalia. When the true sex of the individual becomes revealed at puberty, the individual and/or the community will be forced to reconsider what gender role is to be considered appropriate.  Biological conditions that cause a person's physiological sex to be not easily determined are collectively known as intersex. 
"True sex" is problematic phrase. Do you mean genetic sex, or sex of internal genitalia? Many people might suggest that there is no such thing as "true sex", or that gender identity best deserves to be called "true sex." "Physiological sex" is almost as ambiguous. Look at the levels of sexual differentiation in the sex article; there is no unitary "physiological sex," especially in a person with a discrepancy between internal and external genitalia. These usages don't fit with the message of this section of the article, which appears to be that gender is more complex than most people assume.
Nevertheless, such incidents are rare. For the vast majority of people their gender is commensurate with their genitalia.
Such incidents? Violence and persecution, which are the immediate antecedents of the sentence? Also, commensurate denotes something measurable, usually implying that it varies on a continuum rather than being a binary value such as gender. Perhaps the author meant something like, "Nevertheless, discordances of physical and psychological gender are rare. For the vast majority of people their gender identity and role are concordant with their genitalia."  
*[6] According to John Money, in the case of androgen-induced transsexual status, "The clitoris becomes hypertrophied so as to become a penile clitoris with incomplete fusion and a urogenital sinus, or, if fusion is complete, a penis with urethra and an empty scrotum." 
This note describes a rare but unpleasant outcome of treating with hormones but not reassigning and surgically reconstructing the genitalia of a genetically female infant with congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency. Also, "androgen-induced intersex condition" might be clearer than "androgen-induced transsexual status".
I changed the footnote number in the article to refer to this case because it looked like that was what was intended, but change it back if it was correct as written. I did not make any other changes because I didn't write the paragraphs. alteripse 05:35, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: a couple of minor problems and ambiguities?

message: The first two paragraphs of this article are awesome!  It gives both the sociology POV and the sexology POV.  When I read those paragraphs, I thought, "Hot damn, here's some objectivity!"
I read on, hoping to learn more about the sexology POV, which I thought the second paragraph did a beautiful job of describing: "Gender roles are not norms that were established by some authority, but reflections of the changing habits and customs of individuals in actual societies. Human behavior is there first, and then ideologies and norms grow by an inductive process that occurs informally within these societies and, later on, more formally by researchers."
Unfortunately, the rest of the article seems to be written from the sociology POV.  Am I alone in feeling this way?  For instance, under the "Socialization" section, it says:
"Sanctions to unwanted behavior and role conflict can become stressful. Thus, gender roles are quite powerful."
It seems to me that sexlogy would downplay the power of sanctions in shaping gender roles, but that view point is not mentioned.  In fact, the next section is "Criticism of biologism".  I was like "Can we at least have a section explaining biologism before we get to the criticism?"
Now, if you guys want me to go ahead and add the sexology POV, I'll do my best.  But I want to know if the sexology POV is missing because no one has bothered to write it, or if it's because people feel the article is already objective.  -- Blah99 Jan 17, 2005
:I think you are using "sexology" and "sociology" inappropriately -- they are not homogenous "views" and there is much overlap.  That said, if you think that this account is missing something by all means add it, but I suggest that following our policies you provide clearer sources (e.g. not "According to sexologists" but "According to x, a professor of ..."  I think this is the big problem with the article, a lack of sources. Slrubenstein 20:03, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, according to the article, the two sciences define "gender role" differently.  In the sociology definition, it says "Society tries to impose these norms upon an individual through a process called socialization," whereas the sexology definition says "Gender roles are not norms that were established by some authority ... Human behavior is there first..."  Even if the sciences have a lot of overlap, these seem to be two different views of what exactly gender roles are.  How should I refer to these views?  As far as sources go, I will definiately provide them if I can find some time to do this. 204.255.71.11 22:31, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I appreciate your comments and what you want to do, and am not trying to discourage you in any way.  I am just saying that the part of the article you are referring to is itself too vague for Wikipedia, and needs to be improved upon -- not only by elaborating on the views, but by doing so through citing specific researchers.  The point is, we are not supposed to do original research -- including extrapolating arguments or interpretations.  However logical your suggestions are, whe should be drawing on established research and not just our own logic.  Please don't take this the wrong way -- I am not criticzing you but rather calling attention to a task that most editors at Wikipedia need to work on.  See Wikipedia: No original research and Wikipedia: Cite sources, Slrubenstein 23:10, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still POV-problems? 

message: (This comment was also posted on Talk:Masculinity). I disagree that this should be merged. It's the equivalent of merging Aristocracy into Marxism because you think that class is an intellectual construct. To merge it would be to subscribe to the POV notion that gender is a learned attribute and is merely theoretical/intellectual definition. It also needs to link Femininity. MPS 19:48, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Don't merge masculinity

message: In addition to fixing a spot that mentioned gender identity and then talked about gender role instead, I have removed the last few lines, which seem to me to be a kind of straw man just waiting for somebody to knock down. i.e. something to which one might well reply, "So what!?!".
Supporters of biologism point out that women with a college education have a higher statistical chance of doing housework full-time.
I was going to replace that passage with the following:
The observation by supporters of biologism that women with a college education have a higher statistical chance of doing housework full-time points not to the capabilities of men or women to do housework, but to the bias applied by social values pertinent to gender roles to the selection process that determines who actually does these jobs, since the capabilities of almost all men and women fall well within the range needed to perform these tasks.
But then it seemed that once the straw man was tidied up, there was no need to attack what was left of him, so I cut what I had just rewritten. 金 (Kim) 18:39, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of biologism section revised 

message: When an individual exhibits a gender role that is discordant with his or her gender identity, it is most often done to deliberately provoke a sense of incongruity and a humorous reaction to the attempts of a person of one sex to pass himself or herself off as a member of the opposite sex. People can find much entertainment in observing the exaggerations or the failures to get nuances of an unfamiliar gender role right.
Maybe I'm misreading this bit, but it doesn't quite make sense to me - in many cases, people may not stick to gender roles even though their gender identify matches their physical sex. Eg, people may cross-dress for reasons other than gender identity but also not for humoor (crossdressing explains this well). Indeed, surely implying that the most common intent is for humour is at odds with the rest of this article? Mdwh 02:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The previous edits were vandalism. I've removed it. Dysprosia 09:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Transgendered and Intersexed people - Humour?