You’re putting far too much thought into what other people mean by the phrase, particularly in the context of a joke.
Most people are not referring to several different anthropological, sociological, and feminist theories/philosophies.
When you disagree with “gender is a social construct” in a casual setting, intentionally or not, you’re conveying the statement “gender is innately tied to biological sex, there are precisely two, and trans people are invalid”.
It’s better to take the phrase as meaning “having a vagina doesn’t mean you’re a hot pink wearing pretty princess, nor does a penis imply you aren’t. Gender is more complicated than a binary, and we’re better off raising children as little people who tell us who they are than spending too much time being concerned that they only play with plastic figurines compatible with their genitals and playacting the right chores”.
It’s a joke about tricking people into attending an event usually focused on baby genitals, and then instead giving them cake that isn’t coded to the babies genitals with a lecture about how they don’t tell you as much about who this little person will be as people think.
I agree, I am taking this way out of the original context, but I think the joke is maybe a straw breaking the camel’s back here. I think Julia Serano’s article communicates this well enough:
If one more person tells me that “all gender is performance” I think I am going to strangle them. What’s most annoying about that sound-bite is how it is often recited in a somewhat snooty “I-took-a-gender-studies-class-and-you-didn’t” sort of way, which is ironic given the way that phrase dumbs down gender. It is a crass oversimplification that is as ridiculous as saying all gender is genitals, all gender is chromosomes, or all gender is socialization.
She’s frustrated, I’m frustrated. There is frustration that is generated by the “gender is just a social construct”. The joke is literally about how the dumb cis people really just need an hour long lecture from an academic on how gender is actually just a social construct. I can’t think of a better example of this condescending and ironically confidently-incorrect attitude.
Maybe I think too much, but I guess my whole point is that people are not thinking enough. When they say gender is just a social construct they may not be familiar with gender theory or understand the nuances, and maybe stamping out biological essentialism is worth the oversimplifying, but there is something that feels wrong to me about penalizing a trans person challenging a view that invalidates their gender as an arbitrary fiction. I understand the intentions are not to be invalidating, and that most people don’t understand the consequences of social constructionism, but that’s exactly why I’m raising the problems and challenging it.
To your point I could have done a much better job to not be confused with taking a biological essentialist view, but I think anyone who actually parses what I said and reads the articles I linked to will understand I am not endorsing biological essentialism. Still, that maybe is too high of a bar, and it would have been better if I did more to anticipate this knee-jerk reaction to my challenge. It’s always good to make sure you are easy to understand, and this is admittedly a mea culpa because I was rushing and didn’t have much time, so I wrote a much shorter comment and linked to articles to cover the extra ground for me (which was clearly not adequate).
I don’t know what to make of your claim that I shouldn’t interpret “gender is just a social construct” as supporting social constructionism … there is something compelling here about what people are trying to convey is more rooted in their intentions than any kind of theory, like a lot of times when people tell me “gender is just a social construct” it’s because they are trying to signal they are trans-accepting. That said, I don’t think there is any consistent or coherent view that we could really point to then, that is I’m not sure we could say “gender is just a social construct” actually communicates “the gender binary is not valid”, for example, because some people will take the social constructionism more seriously than others, some people use it to actually mean, “I think trans people are valid”, and others use it to mean “I will tolerate you as a trans person”, and others still might use it to mean “you are dumb and don’t understand gender, but I went to school and in my anthropology class we talked about how gender is cultural and sex is biological, blah blah blah”.
In summary, maybe you’re right that I am inappropriately hijacking this joke to attack social constructionism, but I still don’t think it’s that crazy that I thought “gender is a social construct” was espousing some form of social constructionism.
Thanks for putting up with me and reading my responses, and for challenging me - you have some compelling points that I should think about more.
I get that it can be frustrating to know a deeper and more nuanced definition of a thing and come up against people using a simpler, different or “hijacked” definition: I work in computer security and enjoy playing with machine learning. Most people get a very different impression if I say I do a lot of stuff with crypto and AI from what I mean. They hear finance bro and wasteful chatbots, and I mean user authentication, privacy and statistics.
A big point of friction I see is that it seems you’re reading the words people say, interpreting them as though they’re coming from the same background as you, and then responding in their terms.
If one more person tells me that “all gender is performance”
There is frustration that is generated by the “gender is just a social construct”.
hour long lecture from an academic on how gender is actually just a social construct
The “performance” and “just” a social construct interpretations are what you’re bringing, not the person typing.
Being told gender, that you had to struggle to find a way to make right, is reducible to how you were socialized or choose to act flies in the face of the existence of trans people and the difficulties they invariably have and is justifiably infuriating.
That the message is being given by people who very clearly, in both intent and action, believe the exact opposite should make it clear that there’s a dictionary mismatch somewhere.
I feel like it stems from the belief that “social construct” implies “social constructionism”.
Social constructionism is a specific theory involving social constructs , and acknowledging the existence of a social construct doesn’t imply acceptance of that theory.
I don’t think any reasonable person would argue that law is anything other than real by fiat of convention or collective agreement, but someone could easily disagree with the notion that scientific discovery is more about social convention than empirical reality.
You’re putting far too much thought into what other people mean by the phrase, particularly in the context of a joke.
Most people are not referring to several different anthropological, sociological, and feminist theories/philosophies.
When you disagree with “gender is a social construct” in a casual setting, intentionally or not, you’re conveying the statement “gender is innately tied to biological sex, there are precisely two, and trans people are invalid”.
It’s better to take the phrase as meaning “having a vagina doesn’t mean you’re a hot pink wearing pretty princess, nor does a penis imply you aren’t. Gender is more complicated than a binary, and we’re better off raising children as little people who tell us who they are than spending too much time being concerned that they only play with plastic figurines compatible with their genitals and playacting the right chores”.
It’s a joke about tricking people into attending an event usually focused on baby genitals, and then instead giving them cake that isn’t coded to the babies genitals with a lecture about how they don’t tell you as much about who this little person will be as people think.
I agree, I am taking this way out of the original context, but I think the joke is maybe a straw breaking the camel’s back here. I think Julia Serano’s article communicates this well enough:
She’s frustrated, I’m frustrated. There is frustration that is generated by the “gender is just a social construct”. The joke is literally about how the dumb cis people really just need an hour long lecture from an academic on how gender is actually just a social construct. I can’t think of a better example of this condescending and ironically confidently-incorrect attitude.
Maybe I think too much, but I guess my whole point is that people are not thinking enough. When they say gender is just a social construct they may not be familiar with gender theory or understand the nuances, and maybe stamping out biological essentialism is worth the oversimplifying, but there is something that feels wrong to me about penalizing a trans person challenging a view that invalidates their gender as an arbitrary fiction. I understand the intentions are not to be invalidating, and that most people don’t understand the consequences of social constructionism, but that’s exactly why I’m raising the problems and challenging it.
To your point I could have done a much better job to not be confused with taking a biological essentialist view, but I think anyone who actually parses what I said and reads the articles I linked to will understand I am not endorsing biological essentialism. Still, that maybe is too high of a bar, and it would have been better if I did more to anticipate this knee-jerk reaction to my challenge. It’s always good to make sure you are easy to understand, and this is admittedly a mea culpa because I was rushing and didn’t have much time, so I wrote a much shorter comment and linked to articles to cover the extra ground for me (which was clearly not adequate).
I don’t know what to make of your claim that I shouldn’t interpret “gender is just a social construct” as supporting social constructionism … there is something compelling here about what people are trying to convey is more rooted in their intentions than any kind of theory, like a lot of times when people tell me “gender is just a social construct” it’s because they are trying to signal they are trans-accepting. That said, I don’t think there is any consistent or coherent view that we could really point to then, that is I’m not sure we could say “gender is just a social construct” actually communicates “the gender binary is not valid”, for example, because some people will take the social constructionism more seriously than others, some people use it to actually mean, “I think trans people are valid”, and others use it to mean “I will tolerate you as a trans person”, and others still might use it to mean “you are dumb and don’t understand gender, but I went to school and in my anthropology class we talked about how gender is cultural and sex is biological, blah blah blah”.
In summary, maybe you’re right that I am inappropriately hijacking this joke to attack social constructionism, but I still don’t think it’s that crazy that I thought “gender is a social construct” was espousing some form of social constructionism.
Thanks for putting up with me and reading my responses, and for challenging me - you have some compelling points that I should think about more.
I get that it can be frustrating to know a deeper and more nuanced definition of a thing and come up against people using a simpler, different or “hijacked” definition: I work in computer security and enjoy playing with machine learning. Most people get a very different impression if I say I do a lot of stuff with crypto and AI from what I mean. They hear finance bro and wasteful chatbots, and I mean user authentication, privacy and statistics.
A big point of friction I see is that it seems you’re reading the words people say, interpreting them as though they’re coming from the same background as you, and then responding in their terms.
The “performance” and “just” a social construct interpretations are what you’re bringing, not the person typing.
Being told gender, that you had to struggle to find a way to make right, is reducible to how you were socialized or choose to act flies in the face of the existence of trans people and the difficulties they invariably have and is justifiably infuriating.
That the message is being given by people who very clearly, in both intent and action, believe the exact opposite should make it clear that there’s a dictionary mismatch somewhere.
I feel like it stems from the belief that “social construct” implies “social constructionism”.
Social constructionism is a specific theory involving social constructs , and acknowledging the existence of a social construct doesn’t imply acceptance of that theory.
I don’t think any reasonable person would argue that law is anything other than real by fiat of convention or collective agreement, but someone could easily disagree with the notion that scientific discovery is more about social convention than empirical reality.
Most people mean it in the sense that the WHO means it: https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1