"to go back to graduate school to study gender identity"
Tell me more ... 😉
But quite seriously, an incredibly important issue, although, as is often the case, the devils are in the details. Haven't read enough of your "oeuvre" 🙂 to know exactly where you're coming from, but, so far, seems to justify "ante-ing up", at one level or another.
Somewhat apropos of which and as a point of reference, I recently contracted the services of a professional editor – probably to the tune of $500 – to give a tune-up to my essays on Wikipedia's Lysenkoism, and on Statistic Canada's rather "misguided" policy on "gender and sexual diversity statistical metadata standards" :
Though, being on the proverbial "fixed income" I have to first cancel a few other subscriptions as they're not really giving me the "bang for the buck" that one might reasonably expect.
But somewhat apropos of which – particularly given the "graduate school" reference, you might "enjoy" Kathleen Stock's own Substack, particularly her description of the rot that characterizes far too much of Academia. Some brilliantly sardonic and typically British understatement from her that, under that cloak, hides, in plain sight, some rather sharp twists of the the knife, indeed. I'm rather surprised that the Emperor and Empress – naked as jaybirds – are still standing, much less lurching about, after that eviseration.
But bonus comments and elaborations thereon in my comment thereat 😉 :
But something of an overview as to where I too am coming from that may be of some relevance: there seems to be a great deal of "terminological confusion" – being charitable – over the definitions for both sex and gender. My argument – in something of a nutshell, and echoing to some extent a recent BMJ editorial – is that sex and gender are entirely different kettles of fish, and that while the concept of gender itself – "a range of characteristics differentiating femininity and masculinity", as Wikipedia more or less puts it – may have some merit, though I think it's largely incoherent twaddle, "gender identity" is largely a bridge too far, something of a frankensteinian monster, a transmogrification – no pun intended though applicable – of the more or less credible aspects of the concept:
For instance, one of the free Substacks I follow – Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Transgenderism – seems to subscribe to the view that sex and gender refer to exactly the same concepts and traits. Which I really don't think helps either their cause or their kids. There are a bunch of different traits in play that interact in profoundly relevant ways that justifies a more rational categorization to encompass them.
On the other side of the coin, as Stock more or less illustrates, many feminists dogmatically insist that gender is entirely a "social construction". Though I think Stock is a bit too dismissive of the argument by which "man" and "woman" are genders – i.e., denoting those who exhibit masculine or feminine traits regardless of their sex – rather than the sexes themselves – i.e., denoting those who are actually, not apparently, adult human males or females ("Aye, there's the rub").
But pretty much everyone in this clusterfuck of epic import, this "debacle of carnivalesque proportions" – as Stock puts it, this Lilliputian civil war, this Rape of the Lock – part deux seems to be working on entirely different premises and definitions. No wonder that pretty much everyone is riding madly off in all directions – as Stephen Leacock once put it.
Don't think we're going to resolve this issue until, as Voltaire suggested, we realize that if we wish to converse with each other, we simply have to define our terms rationally and coherently. And honestly, letting the chips fall where they may, without fear or favour.
I like your posts. They are wellcome to my e-mail.
Subscribed! And pleased to. Worth supporting.
You're awesome! :)
Got my vote too. 😉
"to go back to graduate school to study gender identity"
Tell me more ... 😉
But quite seriously, an incredibly important issue, although, as is often the case, the devils are in the details. Haven't read enough of your "oeuvre" 🙂 to know exactly where you're coming from, but, so far, seems to justify "ante-ing up", at one level or another.
Somewhat apropos of which and as a point of reference, I recently contracted the services of a professional editor – probably to the tune of $500 – to give a tune-up to my essays on Wikipedia's Lysenkoism, and on Statistic Canada's rather "misguided" policy on "gender and sexual diversity statistical metadata standards" :
https://medium.com/@steersmann/wikipedias-lysenkoism-410901a22da2
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/concepts/consult-variables/gender#a4
Though, being on the proverbial "fixed income" I have to first cancel a few other subscriptions as they're not really giving me the "bang for the buck" that one might reasonably expect.
But somewhat apropos of which – particularly given the "graduate school" reference, you might "enjoy" Kathleen Stock's own Substack, particularly her description of the rot that characterizes far too much of Academia. Some brilliantly sardonic and typically British understatement from her that, under that cloak, hides, in plain sight, some rather sharp twists of the the knife, indeed. I'm rather surprised that the Emperor and Empress – naked as jaybirds – are still standing, much less lurching about, after that eviseration.
But bonus comments and elaborations thereon in my comment thereat 😉 :
https://kathleenstock.substack.com/p/cocooning-philosophy/comment/5885046?s=r
But something of an overview as to where I too am coming from that may be of some relevance: there seems to be a great deal of "terminological confusion" – being charitable – over the definitions for both sex and gender. My argument – in something of a nutshell, and echoing to some extent a recent BMJ editorial – is that sex and gender are entirely different kettles of fish, and that while the concept of gender itself – "a range of characteristics differentiating femininity and masculinity", as Wikipedia more or less puts it – may have some merit, though I think it's largely incoherent twaddle, "gender identity" is largely a bridge too far, something of a frankensteinian monster, a transmogrification – no pun intended though applicable – of the more or less credible aspects of the concept:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n735
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender
For instance, one of the free Substacks I follow – Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Transgenderism – seems to subscribe to the view that sex and gender refer to exactly the same concepts and traits. Which I really don't think helps either their cause or their kids. There are a bunch of different traits in play that interact in profoundly relevant ways that justifies a more rational categorization to encompass them.
On the other side of the coin, as Stock more or less illustrates, many feminists dogmatically insist that gender is entirely a "social construction". Though I think Stock is a bit too dismissive of the argument by which "man" and "woman" are genders – i.e., denoting those who exhibit masculine or feminine traits regardless of their sex – rather than the sexes themselves – i.e., denoting those who are actually, not apparently, adult human males or females ("Aye, there's the rub").
But pretty much everyone in this clusterfuck of epic import, this "debacle of carnivalesque proportions" – as Stock puts it, this Lilliputian civil war, this Rape of the Lock – part deux seems to be working on entirely different premises and definitions. No wonder that pretty much everyone is riding madly off in all directions – as Stephen Leacock once put it.
Don't think we're going to resolve this issue until, as Voltaire suggested, we realize that if we wish to converse with each other, we simply have to define our terms rationally and coherently. And honestly, letting the chips fall where they may, without fear or favour.