Comments | mostlyfoo: Masculinity and Femininity

mostlyfoo

Masculinity and Femininity

Jan 14, 2013 15:26

Okay so mr_jez requested some discussion of masculine and feminine, which I'll give a first draft go.

( Okay, this is mostly just some more theory and frameworking with references to other peoples ideas, enjoy )

waffle, gender

Comments 7

brightroar January 14 2013, 23:38:17 UTC

I must say I find your gender+ posts to be really interesting ( ... )

mostlyfoo January 21 2013, 14:55:59 UTC

Eh, I'm not sure that people can point you too much to answers, there was a great article recently from Zinnia Jones, although it was actually talking about transition, I think it applies to all kinds of self-knowing stuff, suggesting But there are no cheat codes, and you can’t just skip “all that”, which I agree with, other people can provide useful information, or hints, or thoughts that occurred to them to try and point in what they hope is a useful direction but everyone has to go through "all that" themselves ( ... )

brightroar January 21 2013, 17:26:48 UTC

Perhaps not answers in the A+B=C sort of way, but I think it would have given me some peace to know that what I was feeling was actually a reasonably normal thing that happens to hundreds of people. When it comes to identity issues it felt like what I was feeling just wasn't valid compared to trans or gay issues and I had no right to complain about it. I was comfortable enough with my sexuality for it to be a non issue and my issues regarding gender/femininity felt so insignificant compared to trans/gay/etc, it all felt a bit unworthy ( ... )

mr_jez January 15 2013, 01:37:05 UTC

Thanks for having a crack at it, and kudos for admitting it was a bit of a cop out... ;o)

My interest remains in what these core terms of your understanding of gender mean to you, but I appreciate it is a deeply complex and highly nuanced area to explore.

Personally I find the terms so vague and nebulous that I don't tend to use them. They appear to be transient selections of individual traits; traits which are better explored on their own terms.

mostlyfoo January 21 2013, 14:41:51 UTC

I think its more that they're some sort of feeling that people associate with other traits, they can say "When I do X I feel more masculine/feminine/male/female/whatever" which leads to enjoying doing X to express that feeling as it tends to feel more right to that person, and as long as those feelings seem to mesh with other peoples feelings it seems to be a good bonding thing.

But yeah, its interesting and complicated :)

impysh January 15 2013, 22:33:12 UTC

I got a bit wordy answering this one... read it here.

mostlyfoo January 21 2013, 14:42:04 UTC

awesome, I'll try to throw you a comment over there