this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Dismissing social norms because they're "only social constructs" is ridiculous, because all social constructs are a product of our biological brains. Gender norms exist because sex chromosomes affect brain chemistry, not because some evil global patriarchy cabal in 200,000 B.C decided they should.
The problem isn't with gender norms themselves, it's the enforcement of them.
I acknowledge that social constructs are inherently "natural" as they develop over time and are shaped by their environment. Basically, they've followed the process of natural evolution.
However, it's also our understanding that evolution does not result in the "best case scenario", just something that vaguely fits the circumstances.
I think it's perfectly valid to "dismiss" social norms in the pursuit of something better because a lot of social norms just developed by happenstance rather than having real thought or wider considerations worked into them.
While that's true, gender norms has shifted due to the society progressing. Women no longer need to be baby factories and men don't need to be emotionless food-providing machines.
There might come a time where those gender norms will be needed again for the survival of our species (like something apocalyptic that wipes most of us out), but until that happens, why shouldn't women enjoy doing whatever they want because the society can support them?
It's not that your premise is wrong, your conclusion is.
No his premise is wrong as are your examples. Men have never had to be emotionless providers. Ever. And women have not historically been baby factories. All throughout human history across tons of cultures men and women have served various purposes in society. Women only being birth machines is a result of patriarchal society influence from Europe during only a certain time period.
To expand on this, I say that the existence of transgender folks proves that there is biological reality to gender. Think about it, if it was just social conditioning, infants must be an agendered blank slate, with their identity constructed over time by conditioning. But some individuals just know from an early age that the gender that they were presumed to be is wrong. Not just wrong, but wrong, and they are most definitely something else. Thereβs clearly another force at work than nurture, which must be nature.
The fact that various people's have had different social views on gender and sexuality and that it was literally beaten out of them by white Christians and Arab Muslims would definitely say that no, it's not true that our gender norms are the result of sex chromosomes. Your viewpoint is completely ignorant of actual history